The epiphany that changed Vandervell’s life was the 1930 news that Clevite in Cleveland, USA had developed what it called a ‘thinwall’ bearing
At the age of 32, Guy Anthony ‘Tony’ Vandervell had an epiphany. A great motorsports enthusiast who had raced motorcycles since he was 15, and was a dispatch rider in the Great War, he learned of a new kind of engine bearing being developed in America. This was of interest to him because his industrialist father had bought a small bearing business in a London suburb and put Tony in charge, feeling this was the best way to involve his wilful and opinionated son in business.
From this small acorn grew a great oak that would immerse Tony Vandervell deeply in all aspects of Britain’s motor industry. He would support the all-British BRM effort, only to later leave in disgust and found his own racing team, conflating his own name and that of his ‘thinwall’ bearings to create the name Vanwall for his cars.
Racing them from 1954 to 1961, he reached dizzy heights in 1958 by winning the newly established Constructors’ Championship with some of the greatest driving performances of Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks’ racing careers.
Moment of clarity
The epiphany that changed Vandervell’s life was the 1930 news that Clevite in Cleveland, USA had developed what it called a ‘thinwall’ bearing. It replaced the old-fashioned Babbitt bearings that had to be poured in place and laboriously hand finished to size. The new design of bearing was a snap-in part backed by a steel strip, to which a coating of copper alloyed with 25.6 per cent lead and two per cent tin was metallurgically bonded. This was then plated to a depth of 0.002in by a soft but durable alloy of lead and indium that helped the bearing cope with severe conditions.
With the help of his father, who backed him in buying the necessary production equipment, Vandervell successfully acquired the British rights to make the newfangled bearings. By 1936, he was manufacturing them in quantity at the new factory of Vandervell Products Ltd in the west London suburb of Acton. He was up and running just in time to help with wartime rearmament, working closely with Acton neighbour, Napier, producer of advanced aircraft engines.
When the BRM project was launched after World War 2 to build a British grand prix car, Vandervell was an enthusiastic backer in both cash and bearings for its ambitious V16 engine. However, he soon became disillusioned with the desultory progress of the
