jr
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Registered: 20th May 02
Location: Kent
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From Cosworths site
KEITH DUCKWORTH (1933 – 2005)
We are shocked and saddened to learn of our co-founder Keith Duckworth’s untimely death. Everyone at Cosworth sends their deepest condolences to Keith’s wife Jill and his children. Keith was a true innovator and a genuine legend in his lifetime, his name will live on as an integral part of both the Cosworth name and culture.
One of my heroes died last night. Keith Duckworth passed away at the
age of 72. Difficult to sum him up in a few words, but how does "the
greatest racing engine designer ever" sound?
Keith grew up tinkering with machinery, and after national service in
the RAF, he ended up at Imperial College studying mechanical
engineering. He managed to convince IC that a placement at Lotus (then
in North London) was suitable work experience, and after graduating
joined them as 'transmission development engineer' - trying to make
Colin Chapman's "queerbox" work.
At Lotus he met Mike Costin (then Technical Director), and the two of
them decided that there was a better living to be made "messing around
with racing cars and engines". Mike was tied to Lotus for several
years, so Keith started building engines on his own...
Ford-Cosworth engines based on the Ford Anglia unit powered many
successful Formula Junior cars in the early Sixties, going on to
dominate Formula Three.
When the three-litre Formula One was announced for 1966, Lotus were left
without an engine -- Colin Chapman squeezed Ł100,000 out of Walter Hayes
and introduced him to Keith. The resultant family of engines would go
on to dominate racing for two decades.
Keith designed two engines - the 1600cc FVA (Four Valve, Series A) for
Formula Two and as a proof of concept - this was his narrow-angle
four-valve head on a Cortina block. The DFV ("Double Four Valve") was
"doubled up" with two similar heads on a custom-built Cosworth block
and crankcase. It was Keith's first complete engine. It broke a lot of
new ground - designed to be used as a stressed part of the chassis
(Lancia had experimented with this before), compact, light, and more
powerful at about 410bhp than anything else in F1 at the time. It won
first time out, with Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Zandvoort. Rather
than keeping it exclusive, Hayes, Chapman and Duckworth were astute
enough to know that the engine should be available to everyone... and
before long it became standard equipment everywhere.
And it kept winning. The DFV won 155 Grands Prix, against opposition
from many other manufacturers - initially Repco, BRM, Honda, Maserati,
Ferrari, Matra... gradually driving many of these out of F1 until the
grids were 90% Cosworth.
The house that Keith (and Mike) built continued to prosper - the DFV
was turned into an endurance sports car racing engine; a derivative of
the DFV (the turbocharged DFX) became the engine to have in Indy
racing in the States; the FVA's "BD" (Belt Drive) descendents were
successful in many categories of racing and rallying... and Cosworth
started to consult for the world's motor industry on both advanced
foundry techniques and engine design. The company expanded from a pure
racing engine outfit to a small-volume manufacturing facility for
advanced engines... and finally took Ford into F1 with a turbo-V6 in
the mid-80s (despite the fact that Keith was sure that turbos were
illegal -- he claimed that they were effectively a gas-turbine coupled
to an internal combustion engine and that two engines were illegal!)
Characteristically, Keith's turbo was one of the most powerful around,
but the teams Ford placed the engine with weren't competitive and as
the turbo formula wound down it never won a race.... and when
normally-aspirated F1 came back, it was to a derivative of the
20-year-old DFV that most of the grid turned!
Keith started to leave the business in the late 80s, becoming Life
President, and still keeping his hand in with racing engines.
But he was more than just an engineer - Keith was known throughout
racing and industry for his "Duckworthisms". Some of them are such
pithy engineering maxims that it's worth repeating a selection below.
* It is better to be uninformed than ill-informed.
* Development is only necessary to rectify the ignorance of designers.
* If you're telling the truth, it's simple. If you're lying, you have to
remember what yesterday's lie was. It's safer to be honest.
(I suspect this was about Colin Chapman, who used to lie pretty much for fun!)
* Academics are seldom any use at engineering. One must have a mistrust
of theorists.
* First ideas usually turn out to be complicated.
* In engineering there is an answer to everything. It's just that
we're usually too ignorant, or too dim, to see it.
* It costs you very little to scrub out drawings on paper, and to
start again. As soon as you have things in the metal, where you're
fighting to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, that's hopeless.
* A genius can make for penny what a good engineer can only make for
two bob.
* I think that borrowing money is the biggest immorality that there is.
* As far as I can see, in a large company the last thing you can
afford to do is not to start replying immediately a question is
asked.
* One of the things that I have often done wrong was to stop
projects at stages of development, because we couldn't afford to
produce triumphs of development over design.
* To my thinking, turbochargers in Formula 1 engines were always
expressly against the rules.
* One of my principles is that young fools go on to become old
fools.
* Inherently, by nature, I'm one of those people who'd rather do a
few things very well then what I see as the other extreme, which
is to make a nonesense of lots of things.
* I used to think that thinking ability is the important factor in
life, rather than having a good memory. It wasn't until later that
I realised I'd also been gifted with what appears to be a very
good memory too - and I hadn't realised the advantages of that.
How can people ever learn from their experiences if they've
already forgotten what they were?
I'll let Keith leave his own epitaph:
* I still don't want to be seriously rich. Neither am I interested in
external honours. Having had a go at beating the world at building
racing engines -- I do like that. That's a reasonable accolade
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jr
Member
Registered: 20th May 02
Location: Kent
User status: Offline
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To sum it up, before silly people put Essay
the bloke was a ledgend, some of the stuff he came up with was simply genious, and founded one of the most important and sucesfull tunning and developement companys of all time
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Butler
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Registered: 2nd Jun 05
Location: London
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 RIP motorsport owes alot to him
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Charlene
Member
Registered: 29th Sep 04
Location: Darlington
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Graeme
Premium Member
Registered: 26th Jul 04
Location: Northampton
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he lives like 2 miles away from me, i know his wife and that is pretty sad news!!
RIP
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MKC
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Registered: 8th Oct 04
Location: Bath
User status: Offline
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RIP
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Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
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R.I.P.
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deanmcreynolds26
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Registered: 15th Sep 03
Location: E46 //M3
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R.I.P
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Ryan_G1
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Registered: 29th Aug 05
Location: East Ayrshire
User status: Offline
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R.I.P
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ed
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Registered: 10th Sep 03
User status: Offline
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There's some cool statements there at the end. I'm going to take a few of them on with me as I become and engineer.... 
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Graeme
Premium Member
Registered: 26th Jul 04
Location: Northampton
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at least his current wife will carry on driving her escort cosworth which must be one of the best looked after one and least thrashed one around!!
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Brycey
Member
Registered: 19th Sep 05
Location: Lichfield, Staffordshire
User status: Offline
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RIP To a true legend!
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John G
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Registered: 18th Jul 05
Location: Wirral, Merseyside
User status: Offline
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rest in piece buddy - true lover of motors
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Nismo
Member
Registered: 12th Sep 02
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by C4 WLK
at least his current wife will carry on driving her escort cosworth which must be one of the best looked after one and least thrashed one around!!
That car is built and designed to be thrashed , people who dont want to should own a micra , it saddens me to see such cars not used for there sole purpose on the road.
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Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Online
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A car which your late husband helped design is hardly something not to cherish. In this case I'll let her off. RIP.
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Nismo
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Registered: 12th Sep 02
User status: Offline
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then she should have 2, one kept away and one that she tests her late husbands work!
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Scott F
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Registered: 24th Feb 05
Location: Northumberland
User status: Offline
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gutted. The man was a genius. R.I.P
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SVM 286
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Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by jr
To sum it up, before silly people put Essay
the bloke was a ledgend, some of the stuff he came up with was simply genious, and founded one of the most important and sucesfull tunning and developement companys of all time
Jesus H Christ Jimbo! Didn't even know he'd passed away.
That is very sh*tty news.
The man was part of a breed that is simply ebbing away in the current climate and modern world.
That's another hero and motorsport legend we've lost.
Very very sad indeed, especially at this time of year.
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Robin
Premium Member
Registered: 7th Jan 04
Location: Northants Drives: Clio 182 Cup
User status: Offline
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i dont knw what to say
many people will not fully understand the importance of this man, but he was a true legend, one of the best engineers ever, and so good with lateral thinking to get the best out of what was available
at least the company name and lives on to keep everyone remembering him
R.I.P.
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Demo
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Registered: 27th Sep 01
Location: south wales Drives: astra sri ecoflex
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RIP
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jr
Member
Registered: 20th May 02
Location: Kent
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by robmarriott
i dont knw what to say
many people will not fully understand the importance of this man, but he was a true legend, one of the best engineers ever, and so good with lateral thinking to get the best out of what was available
at least the company name and lives on to keep everyone remembering him
R.I.P.
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