Vanwall

Tony Vandervell manufactured Babbit bearings under licence from the Cleveland Graphite Bronze Company. He was one of the original backers of British Racing Motors before growing frustrated with BRM's slow progress. In the early 1950s he entered a series of modified Ferraris in Formule Libre races under the name "Thinwall Special". These were followed by the first actual Vanwalls, known as Vanwall Specials, built to the new Formula One regulations for the 1954 season at Cox Green, Maidenhead.

The original Vanwall Specials used a chassis designed by Owen Maddock and built by the Cooper Car Company. The 2.0-litre engine was designed by Norton engineer Leo Kuzmicki: essentially four Manx single-cylinder 498 cc engines sharing a common waterjacket, cylinder head, and valvetrain, fitted to a Rolls-Royce B40 military engine crankcase copied in aluminium. The car debuted in a Grande Epreuve at the 1954 British Grand Prix but was at a decided disadvantage against 2½-litre Formula One competition. Early development included a switch to Bosch fuel injection — arranged after Vandervell persuaded Daimler-Benz, a major Bosch customer, to allow access — and successive capacity increases, eventually reaching 2,489 cc.

For 1956, Colin Chapman and aerodynamicist Frank Costin redesigned the car with a space-frame chassis, reduced unsprung weight at the De Dion rear axle, and a front torsion bar. Costin's bodywork produced a car "much faster in a straight line than any of its rivals", though the high seating position — the driver's helmet sitting 50 inches from the road — remained a handling liability. A fifth gear with Porsche synchromesh was added to the transmission. The new car won the non-championship Formula One race at Silverstone in 1956 and Stirling Moss drove it to victory at Syracuse, his only Vanwall appearance that year while still contracted to Maserati.

By 1957 the cars had become faster and more reliable. At the end of 1957, alcohol fuels were banned and replaced by compulsory 130-octane aviation gasoline, cutting Vanwall's power from 290 bhp at 7,500 rpm to 278 bhp on the test bed and only 255–262 bhp during races. The team offset this with improved road holding from suspension changes, new steel wheels, nylon-cord Dunlop R5 racing tyres, streamlining, a 5-speed gearbox, and disc brakes.

Stirling Moss joined Vanwall full-time in 1957 alongside Tony Brooks and Stuart Lewis-Evans. Moss and Brooks shared the win at the 1957 British Grand Prix at Aintree — Vanwall's first Grand Prix victory — in car VW 5. Moss went on that season to win the Italian Grand Prix, where he finished with 41 seconds in hand even after a pit stop, and the Pescara Grand Prix.

All three drivers remained in 1958. Moss won in the Netherlands, Portugal, and Morocco; Brooks won in Belgium, Germany, and Italy. Each secured three championship wins, giving Vanwall the inaugural Constructors' Championship that year. Moss nonetheless lost the Drivers' Championship to Mike Hawthorn by a single point. The season ended in tragedy when Lewis-Evans was fatally injured in an accident during the final race in Morocco.

John Surtees campaigned the final Vanwall — a rear-engined machine built for the 1961 3.0-litre Intercontinental Formula, with the engine enlarged to 2,605 cc — in two races, but development was stopped when the formula failed to find success in Europe.

Vandervell's failing health meant 1958 was Vanwall's last full season. Tony Brooks made a single appearance in a lower and lighter Vanwall at the 1959 British Grand Prix, proving less successful against the new mid-engined Coopers. The team tried again with VW5, upgraded and renumbered VW11, at the 1960 French Grand Prix, but these efforts lacked the seriousness of the past. Vanwall finished racing in 1961.

In 2003, Vanwall Cars was formed by Arthur Wolstenholme, producing the Vanwall GPR V12, a single-seater road-legal car, and the Sports Racer. In 2012, the trademark was acquired by Sanderson International Marketing Ltd. In summer 2016, an official replica 1957 Vanwall was completed and sold. In autumn 2020, Vanwall 1958 Ltd — majority owned by Iain Sanderson — commissioned Hall & Hall to build six original 1958-specification continuation cars.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.