Alumni Voices: 'Aim to be at the heart of where things are being created. That's where the excitement is!'

Why mechanical engineering?

Cars! My father managed a business in Canterbury that owned a fleet of delivery trucks. He was also the proud owner of an SS sports saloon. The company that made these later became Jaguar. I was exposed to cars and engineering at an early age.

As a teenager in the 1950s, I bought the chassis of an old MG that had been left to rot on bombed-out wasteland. I rebuilt it with my dad.

What was it like studying in London in the late 1950s?

My initial experiences weren’t great. My student digs were in Balham, which wasn’t the gentrified suburb it is now. But a friend realised I was having a tough time and he invited me to move in with him. I ended up living next to Harrod’s in Knightsbridge!

What’s your favourite memory of King’s?

I was President of the King’s College London Students’ Union Engineering Society. Leading them through the streets of the capital was always fun. The problem was we usually came within the Parliament area, so the rules for any gathering in the streets were stricter than anywhere else.

I was probably the first engineer to go into Bow Street Police Station without a police officer holding each arm when I took them a firkin of beer for Christmas one year.

I also personally looked after hiding Reggie to prevent him being kidnapped by UCL students, who once stole him and flattened him with a road roller. When we got him back, he was filled with concrete, so I used to move him about the college on a piano trolley.

What’s the key lesson you learnt at King’s?

How to ask the right questions and how to spot when people were telling you lies. We were also taught basic Contract Law, which was invaluable over the years.

What was your first job after university?

I was the personal assistant – or perhaps, more accurately, the ‘go-fer’ – to the Engineering Director at Rootes, then one of the world’s top-ten car makers. This involved troubleshooting or researching things he didn’t want to put into the full engineering system.

How was life at Rootes in the 1960s?

The Rootes family wanted to sell the company, but it had no future range of cars. So it was unsellable. We set about creating a new range and I got the job of designing the engines and became Chief Engine Designer at the age of 25! The scheme failed because it was too expensive.

I then got the job of rescuing the entire project. My solution was to make a new range, the Arrow range, using as many existing parts as possible. I created nine models that sold in 120 countries. I had a £12million budget and an 18-month timescale. The task was completed on budget and on time. This range made the company saleable, saving it and 25,000 jobs.

You established your own company in the 1970s…

I started making replica 1920s-style delivery vans with modern parts. I also made the Cipher sports car. Creating this type of potential high-volume car was what I really wanted to do. It changed the direction of the global motor industry in that I demonstrated that an open car could get through the new Type Approval rules. But I couldn’t secure the backing to build these in high volume.

You went to China in 1981. Can you tell us about that?

After the collapse of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Government invited me to China. The brief: teach them how to plan, design and make cars in high volume for world markets.

What I didn’t know at the time – because China had been closed off from the rest of the world – was that they had no car industry at all. So instead of re-starting their car industry, it was actually starting it from scratch!

You were responsible for the national car of Persia…

The Shah decided the Hillman Hunter was the car he wanted to introduce and build in his country. This was part of the Arrow range and, being responsible for all exports, I sent out large numbers of kits so they could build Hillman Hunters in Persia.

The Hillman Hunter had another claim to fame…

It was the first British winner of the London-to-Sydney Marathon. At the time, the company didn’t have much confidence in its chances of winning, so they only had funding for a ‘works’ photographer as far as Istanbul.

After this, we had to beg, borrow or steal images of our journey, including images of us crossing the winning line in Australia. The publicity we secured on the back of our victory saw the company share price rise 10 per cent.

You came back to the UK in 1983.

I worked in the glass industry at Pilkingtons, then as a consultant to the GKN Group. The remit was simple: ‘We’ve been a major supplier to the British Motor Industry for 50 years. Give us a strategy for being the preferred supplier into the next century.’

My solution was to supply sub-assemblies to the car makers as they are required on the final assembly tracks rather than by function, for example, including brakes, etc. This is now general practice across the industry and it is still taught as part of the mechanical engineering degree at Cambridge.

You then moved into higher education…

I was appointed Visiting Professor at Loughborough with the remit of Design for Manufacture. I also became Design Fellow at Imperial College. I was responsible for a joint masters degree in Product Design with the Royal College of Arts.

You also worked on early electric vehicles…

Around 1967, I was contacted by the Mayor of New York. He said the yellow cabs were choking the city, so could we make them electric. Even before the internet, it took me about half an hour to find out that the major polluter of New York was the power station across the river. If the cabs went electric, the extra pollution from the power station to charge them would makes things even worse. Idea abandoned!

In my own company, I developed what I called the GVT, Global Village Transport. This was a basic range of vehicles for urban and rural use around the world. It started with a small diesel engine and transmission I’d designed, but I was persuaded to go electric. This was too soon in the development of that technology. I should have started with the diesel engine, then gone to electric later. Hindsight is always perfect!

What’s your greatest career achievement?

I suppose spreading the word around the world that British engineering and design is the best. I did this across Europe, the USSR, Lithuania, the USA, Caribbean, Iran, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and many other countries.

You’re now retired. Is there anything left for you to do?

I had extraordinarily good fortune in my career. I was allowed to do things that are now split up into smaller, specialised areas. Very few people have the ‘big picture’ experience I was granted at such a young age.

The only thing left is to build a new global British-owned car company, using technology developed over the last 30 years or so. This would enable a new way of running a global car company and be cleaner than existing manufacturers. So if there are any motor-enthusiast millionaires who want to invest and become billionaires, drop me a line!

Finally, what advice would you give to King’s alumni wanting careers in engineering?

Aim to be at the heart of where things are being created. That’s where the excitement is.