Mr Walter Hassan Is Chief Engineer, Power Plant, Jaguar Group; Technical Director

Richardson Transcripts (CT7)

Mr Walter Hassan is Chief Engineer, Power Plant, Jaguar Group; Technical Director,Coventry Climax Engines; He talks about his life in the motor car industry commencingwith Bentley Motors in 1920 right through to the Jaguar Cars . He was with theBristol Aero Engines during the war.

Well, when I leftschool in nineteen - twenty -- there was a slump in progressin the motor industry as very often is the case and - although my ambition wasto become a marine engineer, that was not to be, there was no sort of scope inLondon where I was, but - after searching around we found that there was a newfactory being built at - Cricklewood which - labelled Bentley Motors. Wedecided to write to Bentley Motors and ask if they had a place for a small boywho had just left school to learn the engineering - motor engineering, and tomy delight a letter came back saying yes come along. Result was that I joinedBentley Motors as a boy - I was number fourteen on the clock and - of course Iwas in on the ground floor - they had only built one car at that time and – mywork was entirely concerned with the experimental work of building prototypecars and - of course they raced one of them so that I became involved in motorracing at a very early stage. - We started production in 1921, a year after I'dbeen there and - our first real attempt at motor racing was to go to the Isle ofMan with a team of three cars in 1922 and I was fortunate enough in being ableto go with the team. - Things went on from there. We - went t o Le Mans and -made our name on the twenty-four hour race on the Le Mans circuit and - at thesame time we went for records at Brooklands and Montclaire and - this gave me -very fortunate in having the opportunity to do a lot of work on my own or -relatively on my own so that I was able to develop I suppose my - (laughter)natural talents - anyway at the - after ten years - the Bentley firm's financialposition got steadily worse, another slump was in progress then and the Big WallStreet crash probably had a big effect on it and - the Bentley Car Company wassold to Rolls-Royce but Wolf Benato who was our Chairman - he offered me a jobas his personal mechanic to look after his racing cars and indeed to build himsome new racing cars, and - this of course gave me still further scope and -towards the - couple or three years of that he called me into his office one dayand said - Hassan, he said, you're wasting your time with me, he said, you oughtto get off and - make your way in the world he said I'm sure this is all veryinteresting and enjoyable at the time but - I shall lose my interest very soonand - he said I'm on the Board of Directors of Rolls-Royce so I'll - would youlike to go up there? Well, I'd like to go and have a talk, so he arranged aninterview with Mr Rowbotham. I went up – bytrain and - I didn't like the lookof Derby, and came away again (laughter) said No, not for me! So - as a completealternative - I went to E.R.A‘swhich – Bourne? where they built just racingcars and I spent six months there but - it was - very very interesting. I learnta lot aboutpeople, my bank balance wend down and I was – rather pleased to leave and join Reid Pailton Brooklands whom I knew very well, firm of Thompsonand Taylors - went down there to help him build the land speed record car for JohnCobb - and incidentally ran the Service Department for them while Ken Taylor whowas the - the Manager I suppose you'd call him of the - Thompson Taylors went toAmerica with the car. Of course this was wonderful experience for me – learnta bit about the business side of - things as - well as engineering - and – duringthat time with - I had of course built these cars for Benato with which we got theworld - the-lap record at Brooklands - I suppose I was becoming a little known tothe other people and I got a message from - SS Cars it was in those days through -Tommy Risden who raced SS Cars that - if I liked to go to Coventry there was a jobfor me to run the experimental department of SS Cars.

This was about 1938 if I remember rightly and - this is the way I arrived inCoventry. Of course SS Cars was - a going concern when - I - came there. Theyhad just introduced the range of Jaguar Cars so called which were the 1½litre,2½ and 3½litre which - they really made their name on and - I ran this smallexperimental department until the war broke out, but - one of my first jobs whenI came to SS Cars was to produce a - a specially lightened version of the SS 100for use at Shellsley? Well, switch was the hill climb in those days and – this car was prepared and Sammy Newsome drove this thing. Now I don't, I can't rememberjust now how many times he ran at, it must have been twice and – heused to do fairly well. Now I can't quote where he finished, because there wereprobably faster cars there but - that is what I remember of Sammy Newsome.

Just before the warin nineteen thirty-nine it was, we - ran a 3½litre JaguarSaloon in the Monte Carlo Rally and - we finished quite high up I forget now whatwe did, where we did finish, it was - somewhere fairly well up- then of coursethe war came and - it was a little time before things settled down and it lookedas though the main job of SS Cars was going to be to build airframes and this ofcourse was right out of my line so - I sought something more in my line to doand I finished up at Patchway at Bristol, Bristol Aeroplane Company, on carburetor development on aircraft engines - where I spent - 2½ years I suppose - on quiteinteresting work but during that time SS Cars became involved in various contractswith the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Supply in those days - and - they askedme to go back. It took me some time t o break loose from the - Bristol organisationbut eventually I did, I came back t o Coventry, and - we set forth to design andbuild, various things. We - the hand cart was the first job (laughter) which wedid - it was quite an interesting - 5cwt trailer which had to be - very verylight for its space and capacity and - it had to be strong enough to be towed bya jeep or a motorcycle or - even pushed by hand - over a variety of roads andthis was quite interesting development work. We also made a model for mules for theMalaya Campaign and at the same time we were asked to design and make some – verylight jeeps for - air - for airlift purposes and - we built two different types,one with a motorcycle engine and - one with a Ford 10 engine both of which performedquite well but - the my authorities came to the conclusion that - it was bettert o have one full- size jeep than two of these half-baked - very lightweight modelsso that that allfizzled out but by that time the war had begun to - appear - to -that it was going to end favourably for us and - we started to think about whatwe were going to do after the war and - it was during this period - the - what do they call it ? the - fire-watching business at weekends, Sir William Lyons orMr Lyons as he was in those days and Bill Haynes, myself and Claude Bailey who wasthe Chief Designer, we used to do our fire watching of a - Sunday evening and – weused to sit together and discuss what we should do after the war, the type of enginethat we would build, the type of car that we would build and it was in this – underthese conditions that the lines were laid down for the XK engine. During the -just before I came to SS Cars, it would be during 1937 I think the - SS Cars builta car which - it was called the SS90 I think and this car was based on a lot ofstandard motor car parts and - certainly on the 6 cylinder standard engine whichwas a side valve in those days. During 1937/38 they designed with the help ofMr Weslake a - push rod overhead valve engine for the 2½ litre and this was theengine that was put into the first SS Jaguar Car and this was followeda little later by - an opened up bored out version which gave us 3½ litres with -an improved cylinder head of something the same type of design and this enginestayed with us - until after the war when it was the engine which went in to theMark V Jaguar. In - 1937 which was just before I came t o Coventry the - Jaguar,the SS Car was built largely of standard parts, their own chassis and a standardsix cylinder engine. In nineteen –for 1938, an overhead push rod cylinderhead was designed and - this made a very excellent engine with good – performanceand - this was used to power the 24 litre SS Jaguar type car. A little lateron - another cylinder head was designed for a bored out version of the sameengine which produced 3½ litres.

Now at the time, Standards made this engine, this was the Standard 6 cylinderengine line which they no longer used for themselves but - the arrangement wasmade whereby they manufactured the 6 cylinder engines entirely for SS Cars and - during the war an arrangement was made between Mr William Lyons and Sir JohnBlack for SS Cars t o purchase the line complete which was done, it was putin to store and - when the war finished this was set up and we commenced manufactureof our own engines. This particular 3½ litre push rod engine wasthe engine which went into the Mark V Jaguar which was our post-war new modelwhich was introduced to bridge the gap between the old pre-war cars and the newcar with the XJ engine and the independent suspension which was planned.

Now during the war when fire watching was in vogue - Mr Lyons, Mr Haynes,Claude Bailey and myself used to fire watch on the Sunday evening, night, andwe took this opportunity to discuss the plans for the sort of vehicle andengine that we wished to make after the war, and - it was under these conditions'that the XK engine was - born.

During this time - we made one or two prototype engines - a small 17 - 50 cc4 cylinder engine with twin overhead cam shafts had been designed by Mr Baileyand we made one and ran it, we also converted a 1½ litre 4 cylinder – Standardbuilt engine into a hemispherical head with overhead valves operated in thesame manner the B.M.W. did, that is to say push rods up one side and one pushrod across the other side of the head to operate the - further valve. The result of running these engines taught us a lot about combustion, inletexhaust parts? valve shapes and so on and - this knowledge was used in theproduction of the final XK engine. We made two versions of the XK engine.One, the first one was - had a chain drive which completely encircled the,all the drives in the engine - it was designed also a little untidily inasmuchas the tidying case was separate from the cylinder block and the cylinder headand incorporated quite a large number of oil seals which on the final designwe eliminated. The final chain drive was split in two so that we had - two -we had a step drive and - this was - this eliminated the chain whine which wesuffered on the original design. The engine was originally designed as a3.2 litre and - as a 4 cylinder of about 2 litres. We made prototypes ofboth. The 4 cylinder was used to get a speed record at SheBecker? In the Goldie Gardener MG car. This never went into production because it -

exhibited some minor vibration which was not acceptable to the Jaguar Car andthe 6 cylinder finally went into production as a 3.4 litre engine. This wasintroduced in a two-seater form, the XK 120 - which was a two-seater sportscar and - in order t o publicise it we took it to SheBeck? And – put up a veryhigh speed.

A well-known Coventry character named Sutton - we always called him SophieSutton, he was a - he also was a Daimler man, ex Daimler man and - he used torace Lee Francis before the war and - he was our road tester at that time.Now we also - about the same time as we were introducing these cars, the RACput on the first production carrace at Silverstone to be run after the war and -it was thought this would be a very good - means of publicising the XK car – butof course we were quite uncertain as to what the car's performance was in

comparison with other cars that we would have t o race against. In order tosettle this doubt - Mr Lyons - thought we should, we hired the – Silverstonetrack, the club circuit and - Lofty England, myself, Bill Haynes and Sir William,together with Ernest Rankin who was our publicity man at the time went to Silverstone and - we set out to see whether we could achieve the known speedsthat other cars could obtain on this circuit and England and myself had severalgoes and we were not quite there but we were determined and eventually weexceeded the then standing lap record after having carried several straw balesaway but - it - proved the point and - those cars raced and - we won I thinkwe got first, second, this was - Leslie Johnson drove the winning car – FritzF in the lead but he had some trouble, I forget what it was, he fellout and - Peter Walker finished second.

It was about this time when I became aware of the Coventry Climax needed a ChiefEngineer and in nineteen, February of 1950 I joined Coventry Climax in that capacity.Well when I came to Coventry Climax, I found that there was a lot of engineeringto do, they had - some difficulty with their final drive on the fork truck. This -this received my attention for the first month or so and very shortly afterwardsI had heard from an old friend of mine Harry Munday that - he was looking for anopening and - we, Mr Lee took him on as Engine Designer - just about the time whenwe had set out to produce a new fork lift truck transmission and - this was workedon for some months - and - this is where we come, when the engine, the new enginefor our design. We of course at Coventry Climax we had made portable fire pumpsfor the Home Office throughout the war and - this at the time of the - the - it wasabout this time the Korean War was causing a lot of headaches and the Home Officedecided it was time to re - to - to modernise their fire fighting equipment and -they issued a tender for a portable fire pump which was to weigh half the weightof the wartime pump, and pump twice as much water - this we picked up and – workedon - quite successfully inasmuch as we designed the pump, produced the prototype,had it accepted and were in production in twelve months. Now this - engine pump -were of light alloy which - entirely of light alloy which was quite novel. All the old fire pumps were made of bronze and were heavy of course and the littleengine of course was very very light for its power and - it became known to themotor racing boys that - this engine was in existence so it was not long beforeone found its way into - an MG I think it was and - this rather whetted ourappetite for - the competition world.

What really impelled us to give this motor racing - thing - a certain amount of -backing was the fact that we found when we went to America in about 1951 that thename of Coventry Climax was quite unknown - we weren't hoping to sell fire pumpsand - small engines but - we found we were - they thought that we made windmills and - were mixed up with the Melibdenum Company of America and when we came backsomewhat disappointed Mr Lee - Mr Lee expressed the thought that - we ought to gomotor racing, this would get our name known t o the world. He was – strengthenedin this because - shortly before the Jaguar Company had won the first La Mondeand - it appeared to us that as a result the Ministry of Supply gave them acontract for a new tank engine and - Mr Lee therefore said well we must go motorracing otherwise we shall not get the orders that we were seeking from the Ministryof Supply for our smaller - small engines for generator sets which we made in

addition to fire pumps during the war. We therefore put quite a bit of effort intotuning and making these engines for the then Formula 3I think they called it, itwas a sports model formula for which 1100cc engines were the rule and - our enginefitted very well into this size and made quite a name for itself. It was aboutthis time that - several of the car construct, racing car constructors came to usand asked us if we would consider building a Grand Prix engine - which was a 2½ litre formula at that time and Mr Lee agreed and we worked on an engine which wasa 2½litre formula at that time and Mr Lee agreed and we worked on an engine whichwe called Type No. FPE which was a V8 of 2½litres capacity and it was designed togo into a Keeft? car and - a Lotus, Cooper and one or two more. Now at the timewe built this engine and we tested it and - we were guided rather by the publishedpower figures of the competition - the Mercedes were - probably was the - one thatwe were most worried about and - in our ignorance we considered that the powercurve that we had produced would not be competitive. In fact now we know that – itit would have been very competitive and in fact would have won races. Howeverwe spent two years developing this engine and - we - we felt that it was notcompetitive in - at that time. However - a new formula became popular, theFormula 2 which called for a 1½ litre engine and - we felt that if we cut the V8 in half in effect and used the cylinder, the one cylinder head of the V8 anda new crank case, 4 cylinder crank case for it that we would kill two birds withone stone, that we would have a good Formula 2, 1½ litre engine which would bemuch easier to develop than the 8 cylinder and that finally we would be able toutilise the knowledge that we gained on the 4 cylinder and put it back into the V8 . Well this engine, the FPF proved very successful and - it - began t o makea name for itself. Now it was - very shortly after this during the same yearthat - Stirling Moss who was racing a Cooper car at this time decided to have ago at Formula 1 which was a 2½ litre formula still with one of our formula 2engines bored out a little to 19OOcc'S and this engine in the very light Coopercar managed to win the Argentine Grand Prix against full 2½ litre cars and this was really the thing that set us going. They also won the Monaco race -following- which really set the pace - in fact it was this that changed the -the face of motor, British motor racing entirely with the little rear enginecars - weighing far far less than the then conventional Grand Prix car. Thesefirst two Grand Prix to be won by Coventry Climax in - the Cooper car owned byRob Walker was - in 1958 and - of course the winning of these races really putthe pressure on us. The Lotus and Cooper both asked us to - re-design theengine to the full 2½ litre capacity which was the maximum capacity under thatformula and - this we did for the 1959 season. This new FPF engine 2½ litre capacity developed 240 horse power at - 6750r.p.m. and - these engines enabledus t o gain five firsts, and three seconds and quite a few other odd places inthe 1959 Grand Prix - series.