Creating the original Ford Focus and transforming Bentley | Ti podcast 197

Dan Prosser and Andrew Frankel are joined by Dr Ulrich Eichhorn, a contributor to The Intercooler’s digital car magazine and a heavy-hitter in automotive engineering circles.

Dr Eichhorn was instrumental in the development of the game-changing Ford Focus, after which he was poached by Dr Ferdinand Piëch at the Volkswagen Group. There he led the development of a W12-powered supercar that inspired the Bugatti Veyron before joining Bentley to become its chief engineer. During a long stint in Crewe he oversaw the development of a number of new models that underpinned Bentley’s astonishing transformation. Later he became the most senior engineer in the entire Volkswagen Group.

This is the fascinating story of one of the most decorated careers in modern automotive engineering, told by the man himself.

#carengineer #bentley #cars

This is episode 197 of The Intercooler podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.

The best writers, the finest stories and no ads, all on The Intercooler’s beautiful online car magazine. Visit www.the-intercooler.com.

Welcome back to the intercooler podcast with me Dan prer Andrew Frankle sitting opposite me in our wizzy new studio um and we’re joined by a guest a very special guest actually very special guest one of our newest writers Dr ulri iorn um there he is waving on the screen

Um Olie I’m this is the the point in the podcast where I have to embarrass you by saying that yours has been one of the great modern automotive engineering careers you you worked on the but there there’s a lot more of those well okay you you worked on the original Ford Focus

Chassis which is clearly a big deal um you were a board member at Bentley responsible for engineering um around the time the company went through its tremendous Renaissance and following the dieselgate Scandal you became the Volkswagen group’s Chief technical officer um Andrew ully is clearly a heavy hitter in automotive engineering

Can you just tell us how you guys got to know one another uh I think we probably first met um at Bentley um and yeah we met up a lot over the years um and I well two things i’ I’ve always had obviously the utmost respect for but and and his

Career but actually we we just had a lot of fun together um and we are you know there are Car Guys and there are Car Guys and and I is as car gu as you’ll ever come across um you know a petrol head to his to his bones

And you just just someone who and also as a journalist soor this is a terrible sitting talking to you about iie who been sitting on the screen but iie just communicates in a way that journalists understand um and he was always a really good guy to talk to because there was

Never any um he’d be completely straightforward with you um and and you understood um what he was trying to say so um yeah great it’s great to see you it’s been a while um I hope you’re keeping well um um and I’m really I was really looking forward to talking to you

About U about your life and times really so ear let’s go back to the beginning why cars how did that happen for you why did you become so interested in cars well on on the one hand you may say it was always in the family um when I

Was a little kid U my dad just and grandfather U owned a petrol station and um were when I was three were just taking over a Fiat deal ership or added a Fiat Dealership um and um there is a a picture in the family album that shows three-year-old iie in in short trousers

Uh helping build the workshop with uh with a little garden house putting water into the concrete uh I don’t know how helpful it actually was but uh it was great fun when I look at the picture I cannot remember that uh and from age uh

14 on um not quite legal at the time but uh in a family business you always do what you what needs doing so I worked at the petrol station and I decided then that I’m not going to uh fill up wash change oil Etc on cars for my life but

I’m going to create cars and uh well pretty much that’s what that that was that what brought me there great thankfully my brother took over uh the car dealerships because it’s grown from the one petrol station to several car dealerships and uh that that that too was great

Fun so where do we begin with your actual career ear I mean you studied at darat and then where was your first job in the industry first job in the industry well it was half industry when uh when I had finished um my studies I was offered um

A research assistance job at the University uh which was an international research project Prometheus largely forgotten now uh but it was the first time the pretty much all of the European car industry car makers suppliers and some others uh researched together um and um across across uh boundaries so it

Was ital Italy France um UK a lot worked with Lucas and jaguar which was a great pleasure um and um we worked on Tire Road friction uh I was cheeky enough to put a um a slide from that in uh the yeah my contribution on the ice speed

Record which explains some things why driving on ice is not really that um much recommended so that was that was four years and um I my my sponsor was Porche so that that was pretty good and Volkswagen um and um then when I finished that um there was a crisis in

The Auto industry in general U it was in 1993 um so um I um I sent out a handful of um of CVS and uh applications and I was uh almost accepted by BMW um which after some interviews with Paul Roser and that would have been with their DTM racing

Department wow but they decided to pull out of DTM racing um and um I also had two of two two separate job offers from uh Ford in Germany uh in the uh John Andrews Center in um in Cologne and um because I was very impressed with

Richard Perry Jones I joined Ford now my uh my parents and some of the customers because I’ve been selling cars and repairing cars in our dealership said well o you cannot really do that you canot go to Ford you’re a BMW guy uh Ford is such a step down U but um that

Was not the point and uh it turned it turned out great because I had so much um leeway given by Richard uh to influence the way things were happening and developing so could I just interrupt for a second could you just give us you know a minute on um Richard Perry Jones

Um who I think probably most people listening to this will know who we’re talking about but he was this uh he was this incredible engineer who was you know you will remember as well as I just the sort of state that Ford was in at the beginning of the

1990s um and the role he then played which you Bel in play in really transforming that that company and its products into you know absolutely you know wellbeing propositions y um well as you said about me uh previously he he was a car guy through through a lot of people know

That he was a c rally cold driver with bind of Adams U Evans uh when he was when he was young he was a hellishly fast driver himself um and I can on on all any position in the car I’ve driven with him me sometimes me in

The driving seat that felt better but uh with him I always felt okay I’m always feeling okay how regardless how fast someone drives when I know and feel uh that he knows what he’s doing uh as I said before I was also selling cars and sometimes you get in the passenger seat

Uh when uh a possible client makes a uh a test drive and that scared me lot more than Richard’s U most spirited driving um he was put in charge of engineering on in for of Europe in fact that was not his real title at the time uh after the

Disaster of um the of the escort um at the time in the early ’90s yeah because Ford realized that uh they had gotten the car that the Ford system wanted no no risk U cheap to make comparatively cheap uh cheaply engineered um and uh well customers won’t notice that it’s

Not quite as good as some of the others and uh what do customers know in the first place so that caused a serious crisis for for of Europe because uh they were selling a lot of fiestas but you don’t make much money on fiestas uh they

Had just introduced uh were just in the way of introducing uh the uh the Mondo in ’93 but were selling sieras that was the money maker but that was on his last leg so they were not selling enough of them and they were not making any money

On them so the only one that really made money for Ford besides the transit was the escort and they launched a new escort which was a disas um and uh it takes some doing to lose comparison tests group tests uh when the car is brand new against competition that is

About to be renewed in the next two years uh which the escort did especially in one Landmark autocar yes yes escort beats his Rivals and loses I remember it well it was that of course causes more of a stir in the UK than in Germany where we always thought fors are

Rubbish in the first place so you don’t need to read the test because they lose against golf or um even against an open Cadet um German version of the Vox um so U that that was not such a St but still if the car doesn’t sell the car doesn’t

Sell so Ford was a bit desperate and they realized that they don’t know what to do about it so that’s exactly the sort of situation where you get somebody like Rich Perry Jones under normal conditions they probably would not have promoted him that fast and would not

Have given him all the powers that he had because for a while he was wielding powers that were almost not quite almost as absolute as in for of Europe as uh PX Powers a little bit later uh were at FKS so uh Richard decided that um the uh the

Other comp the competition from the Germans and the French in particular uh will they cannot Crump them on um on power trins especially not on diesels not on craftsmanship um not or build quality um and not on a few other things especially brand image so he very clearly decided

Uh to to to to Trump them on uh refinement uh NBA Fe it’s called here on package have a very different styling and vehicle Dynamics ride steering handling which is close to his heart anyway and um he put um young promising managers in charge of these things and

The ride and handling vehicle Dynamics part fell to me so so so is it so I mean those of us who are around at the time sadly Dan was you were still wearing quite short trousers at the time but I was certainly around and when that Focus

Came out 997 98 one of the two yeah 9 97 yeah um and even though we’d already seen how big an improvement over the Sierra the Mondo had been to get out of that Dreadful escort and into that focus and see Ford making essentially the worst CL in the class to becoming

Instantly and by a mile certain for anybody who cared anything about driving the best I mean that was an extraordinary moment and it was I mean we all sort of talk about the rear suspension on that car and you know the the control blade rear suspension and everything but I mean again without

Wishing to sort of you know blow your trumpet too much I mean a lot of that was was you wasn’t it and your team yeah I mean the the things you mentioned all were but individually that would or if it had been only these that would not have been sufficient so uh it

Needed to clearly distance itself from the from the escort and although in the mid ctle facelift a few of the um of the um weaknesses of the escort had been uh ameliorated a little bit although not uh completely taken out um yeah that was the that was the thing that everybody

Notices but the the the step change that it had in refinement of course also contributes to the uh feeling of of very good ride and of the car being together the body shell was much stiffer which helped all of us uh the package was a

Lot better and um it wasn’t for the time an extraordinar tall car in in its class and C-Class and of course CL Loos um styling with introducing the new Edge in its full Glory U that was um also a point of distancing itself from uh the

Escort and as was as was the name so if if we look into my contribution I was um at the same time at this in this stage I was uh Europe’s vehicle Dynamic manager I was also the global head of vehicle Dynamics bizar I had more people

In the US than in than in Europe I had some in the UK some in Germany some in Belgium on the on the test track L and also had two in Australia which who I only visited two times in in a few years is U but uh that that was a fantastic

Time and in the focus we could bring all the things together that we had learned on on the other cars and that um also formed an identity a vehicle Dynamics Identity or DNA uh that we also Quantified um and it was based on on customer research for driving with real

Customers rather than uh relying on quality data or what the engineers believed which in many cases turned about to be wrong uh or even what your journalists write because that’s not specific enough for uh developing a car and oh hold on so um I I appreciate you just don’t

You just don’t have don’t just don’t have enough words for that oh that’s true but what but what you get when you create a car like that it’s not just a car which exists in isolation and you know comes and goes you created a whole dynamic template a a sort of

Something for Ford to base an identity and a reputation yeah and a reputation and something for you know which I think to an extent is probably still there in the company today this reputation for building cars that were just that bit better to drive when the focus this case

Wildly better to drive um that’ll stay with so they’re kind of still dining out on your efforts whatever it is 27 28 years later on yeah and um that that that is one of the things that I’m really proud of that here as in most other places where I’ve been uh it was

Not just uh iie comes and fixes things and then goes away and Things Fall Fall to Pieces uh a lot of managers um are proud about that because that gives them uh the feeling of uh being their own greatness that’s that that’s not the right approach you want to leave

Something that endures you need to train some people you need to train your success some possible successors not just one and um in the in in all cases we also uh clearly defined what we want put it down in writing in charts in measurements Etc so that it’s not uh

Also not the depending on the on the feeling or taste and ability to to sense things um that was very important and you we had also had a training course for those U but U to to leave something big word to call it Legacy but to change

The uh the company’s DN a little bit that that that was really one of the most satisfying things that yeah that’s a that’s a real achievement isn’t it to to be able to step away and for that group that organization to continue doing excellent work um so I I just

Wonder if during the development of the original Focus if there was a day when you remember perhaps being at LL the Fords proven ground in Belgium isn’t it when you drove a prototype and you thought wow we’ve got this or did it just actually happen over time over a couple of

Years um there were a few such moments and there were a few a few moments in between where I thought shoot this that just doesn’t work um we we we we um with the help of the plant manager stole some rear suspensions from the Mondo estate which is similar in concept but

Different in execution um put them under a folk under an escort estate uh so and which was carrying the new completely redeveloped uh front Strat suspension of the focus uh as compared with the uh less well-designed escort uh front suspension and put everything else in there including some

Stiffeners in the body so we basically had a mule for the for for the focus uh we worked together a lot with uh with with with lotus and with a few others um I remember the contribution from of from miles wow there you go and he he was

Teaching us some things Jackie Stewart of course we only have Jackie every few months or every few weeks if you wanted and um the uh there was one drive day with with this car where I thought okay this is this will this will this is coming together of course none of the

Components uh at this point were as they should be and as they later were but the system Behavior was was correct okay the car was was noisy rattled like a bucket full of screws and uh open uh all around and uh at U at at some time the door locks

Didn’t work so we had to break in through the rear window uh but uh we clearly got the feeling okay this we’re on the right track here this combination works gosh I think I think that’s the first time I’ve heard um that Lotus uh and John Miles were involved in in any

To any extent in the development of that car well we communicated that at the time but uh uh I’ve probably forgotten it it it all it all gets forgotten Andrew just for people who don’t know can you explain who John miles is yeah John Miles was um he was a really great

He was I mean most famous for being Yan rin’s teammate at Team lotus in the late 1960s and 1970 um yeah so Formula 1 driver but also I mean I think he would probably most want to be remembered as um one of the people who made Lotus feel

The way way they are he was a fantastic chassis developer he was a great thinker um he can be fantastically bad Tempo particularly around motoring journalists um he fancied himself in fact he had a column in auto car for years called miles behind the wheel um and he

Actually we used to go up there uh we went up to hethal we’d sit in a room for a couple of days with John and we go out and we’d drive with him he he’s one of the people who kind of taught me how to

You know not drive a car but how to assess a car properly kind of understand what a car was trying to say to me so you a really really great guy wow um but yeah but back to early I’m just aware that we need there there’s so much time

We got to get through and we can spend the entire thing talking about the focus but I think we we probably need to move on that’s right let’s let’s move it on but final thought on the focus if if you’ve had a great big victory like that

If you have that Victory under your belt are you now a man in demand in automotive engineering circles yeah so your career is off and Away now yeah yeah I was I I I got a number of job offers u based on that um and I turned

Them down all all of them I turned down um to the point where people started hire other car companies started hiring the people around me like Michel ketka Peter shf Stefan geese and and a few more um and uh when P asked me for the third time I remembered a Japanese

Saying if a um if the boss of a big company asks you three times uh you need to go so this is Dr Ferd I couldn’t turn down yeah Dr ferdan P who we recorded a podcast all about him yes a couple of months ago Andrew so probably you were

Right on many things but uh not not not not on all that we can’t talk about that okay maybe that’s another podcast he then went on to be my boss for nearly 20 years yeah goodness me um so brief just briefly on pit did you like him I mean I

I’m clearly we all admired the man and his extraordinary achievements everything from the pors 917 you know onwards but did you actually person to person did you like him um yes yes I liked him um and um not just for being for for being the great

Boss but he was he he was a person of of great depth and uh uh in deep in his heart he was actually a shy person which is one of the reasons why he put up this um impenetrable facade which uh in private you often let

Down this this guard so he uh he always had perfectly prepared texts uh to read when he was when he gave a speech um and he had uh a staff to write that for him of course um and that always felt very stiff um when when uh we had um an

Internal round the first the first Christmas engineering Christmas party uh he gave an impromptu speech which was great and Lively and everything so so behind that as you say impenetrable facade there was a sense of humor in there somewhere oh yes oh I’m so pleased

I’m so pleased he he had he had this this small smile and U when when when when when whenever that came up you know he he he was up to some Mischief um and he he had some great ideas and um sometimes these ideas were just uh thrown in with one sentence and

U but but but you always knew you have a task now and failure is not an option and you just deliver that yeah don’t have to you don’t have to explain how or why or or what you just you just go and do it and uh if it works great because

There were always real challenges never easy stuff at least not to me uh so it um and um when you have had tried with good faith effort everything and it didn’t work and I had a few of those um then you could you could come to and say

I’m sorry Dr P this didn’t work U and then he gave you some suggestions how it might work which of course you had exhausted before already uh and then after two weeks you came back says it still it still doesn’t work but he was clearly working on the principle if you

Want the maximum possible you have to demand The Impossible and he got that do do you think and and you know we need to keep this brief because it’s not really what the podcast is about and we’re really rather leaping forward but just briefly on dieselgate there was a culture wasn’t

There which meant that Engineers weren’t prepared to say we can’t do this within the B SS of you know of of legality or whatever and it was it was that which made them do what they did because within VW and there was this culture of you can’t fail and so rather than fail

They tried to kind of find a way around is is that a fair thing to say some people may have thought that way um but um if you had seriously with full effort tried and couldn’t make it work just like I dis like I explained yeah um

That that was not as good as if you it had worked but it had no real negative consequences okay so uh it was more like uh it was more uh the the these these people didn’t have enough courage uh to go to their boss or the boss didn’t have

The courage to relay it um and had they said at the time that without this and that that doesn’t work and their boss had taken it to their to his boss and and and so on uh that would have really helped the company that would have been

Okay and everything would have been okay okay fine better better than later getting fired or imprisoned sure sure so um a bit don’t look over your shoulder oie because it’s not really there but for people watching um there is a very dramatic looking supercar behind you um

Stunning isn’t it Volkswagen W2 is that right was it Nardo at this point or was that an old name so a concept um Volkswagen Supercar that you were heavily involed in I’m I’m assuming that’s one of the highlights um of your time at Volkswagen that first

In my my the my first three years at Volkswagen was were were in research I was heading Volkswagen research U people always talk about research and development as if it was one thing but uh Volkswagen groups overall development is at that time was around U 30,000

Engineers and uh research was 500 so we were about 1% of of a lot although in research and development it always comes first but this was this was at a time I think I’m right in saying when the Volkswagen group were investing in or both research and developing development

Unlike any other car company in the world I can remember doing I I can’t remember what the number was but it was it was over a 100 billion and it was like more than the GDP of quite a lot of countries the Volkswagen was investing purely in research and development well

I shouldn’t say the real number U it wasn’t 100 billion uh maybe over over a 5e cycle or something like that but uh yes we were we were uh spending a percentage on research and development percentage of Revenue that was comparable with uh meduses U uh but of course we had a lot

Were selling a lot more cars already sure so um that uh and that was all PX investment into the future and um the uh the car you see behind me which is the actual record car um so I’m not in I’m not sitting in my garage uh squirrels that away although

Squirreling is uh closely connected with my family name um but uh this is in the in the ti House museum in uh in walsburg currently um but this was used as a vehicle in the true sense of the word uh to present the W12 engine and the W12

Engine was uh to become the main stay of uh Volkswagen group’s um U luxury cars uh a d segment as we call it in in walsburg and it would be an F segment in worldwide parland uh so um and that was seen as a somewhat fragile engine when

You look at it it’s very Compact and it has bits that are smaller than most 12-cylinder engines and there were some rumors ah this is never going to last and how can how can an engine that is physically um a third smaller than any other 12 cylinder and smaller than all

Uh 10 cylinders in the world and smaller than than many V8s how can that package six liters of displacement and 600 or more horsepower uh so we decided to um after we had showed that in uh in in some uh in some on some car shows in a nicely

Painted uh car not in the matte black as this one is we decided to go with on a with a record for it for the and it was the to be the 24-hour world speed record officially sanctioned by the fa FIA and that’s what this car behind me did and

Was and was that was that a naturally aspirated engine then rather than the TN turbo became verion with trumpets and everything developing 600 horsepower already at the time um and um we slightly detuned it for the record effort because in at n it gets pretty hot during the day and um uh

Uh that there’s a story that I wrote for for the intercooler on that one and it’s too that you classified that as a long read because I never get away without um and U so I don’t want to go into many of the details now but um the

Previous record was held by Ferrari at 285 and uh we ultimately kilometers per hour that is so about um 75 or so Miles hour and uh we better it to 201 202 mil per hour 325 kilm per hour over over what distance 24 hours 24 hours was it 2

Right 24hour world speed record oh wow and of course we we we we did the the very short records you don’t you can’t do with a car that you built for the long one so the the fly the flying kilometer or something you cannot do

With with with a car that is intended to run 24 hours but everything but everything I think from 1 hour onwards uh so 6 hour th000 kilm th000 miles 5,000 kilom we fall within that because we did more than 5,000 kilm in 24 hours and because we also wanted the 5,000

Miles we kept running on after 24 hours and the car was running nicely uh so that’s the same so in total we collected U 12 records six of them Absolute world speed records no one on land has ever gone faster and the others the other six still International class records and

And do they stand oh yes yes that was that was in 20 in in 2001 um and so and they they sted this day yes 200 5,000 miles at 200 miles 5,000 miles and that and that presum that that’s that’s clearly inclusive of stops and you know

Driver changes and filling it with fuel did you have to service the car at all did you change the oil or anything or did you just let it get on with it you changed the oil in the middle of the night just because it’s good practice and we were well ahead of everything

Else um uh we we we did several trial runs and we learned a lot from that um and um in the end we didn’t have to do any repairs in in in the final run that gave us the 200 M hour um we only stopped for changing tires and drivers and refueling

Um if you look closely at the car behind me you see that its ride height is a bit uh is a bit higher than the designers jaro it was actually designed by jaro J not by Joo uh and but that’s because it has two it has a tank with a capacity of

240 lers so that’s 180 kilo to put in the car uh plus uh normal siiz driver so and the whole car only weighs 12200 kilo so um when it’s fully tanked and has a and has a chop in there then it’s uh it’s looking better uh so we only we on

In the in the final run uh it was running like a Clockwork we only had to do as I said fuel stops Drive changes Tire changes wow so can you draw a line from that car to the Bugatti Veron ultimately was there some sort of shared DNA at

All well in in in in a in many ways yes they’re both Mid Engine also the configuration St this has the gearbox behind the engine whereas the Bugatti has it in front uh this one is rear wheel drive but it’s a v uh it’s not a v

Engine but a w engine W12 in this case U6 which in concept is closely related although they share no parts um and um uh we developed uh in the research and development Laboratories uh at the same time actually in U in neighboring booths uh they we did the Nardo the the Veron

Which was not called Veron at the time just had a project code U and the one liter uh car uh so we we span the whole thing from the world’s fastest car the most powerful car and the world’s most frugal car all under the same roof the

Same Workshop wow I I have to ask you just with d we did a podcast very recently about mad engine configurations um and I brought up the W8 were you in any way involved in that was that ever a serious proposition or was it I mean I know that the the engine

Was built and it ran didn’t it but was was that ever a serious production possibility um that was TOs about and if the Bugatti um if the initial Bugatti after under Volkswagen ownership had turned out to be a different car that might have gone in production um because

When you’re only Building 100 cars or less a year you can all go by race car engineering can go with sand casts and Etc so you’re free from uh using anything that uh is used somewhere else whereas when you’re in the thousands per uh per year uh you have to look for

Economies of scale scale sure and um the so when I said earlier that the uh that the the the W6 and the uh W2 are closely related they are because they have one they have one crankshaft and they have uh two Banks one of eight uh each eight or each

Six cylinders yeah but with different basic Dimensions SP spacing Etc uh on and um the uh the the W8 before was three rows of six um cylinders absolutely in line a true W really no an arrow an arrow Arrow yeah write write the letter W on the paper in

Front of you and you’ll see that it’s closer that that this is more like the engine that we are using uh whereas the arrow configuration and you mentioned in in uh in the aound podcast from uh just just the other day the x24 yeah from roll that’s the same

That’s the same thinking okay so you you just have one crankshaft and you and you keep adding rows of six cylinders to that uh and uh we discussed that we discussed when well if we have that we have the w18 running which was not W but

Arrow um and you could have added one or two more rows because the the these were at 60° angle uh so you could you could have added more more just add keep adding more row to it so so you talked about an x24 that that that not not not not an X

It would would be a wide ankle W because it wouldn’t X okay yeah but uh that of course creates um packages that make it completely infeasible for a car uh as Arrow engines you can probably do that yeah just like uh just like the World

War II um uh the two leading engines one was up an upright uh V12 the Merlin and the other an upside down with a crank shot on top the D the the DB 601 yeah so um that’s uh that’s um weird engine configurations yeah but we decided

Against uh that and there’s a very simple reason for for that the very reason why uh we uh why we created the VR6 in the first place which was before my time U was that um you’re always restricted by length and at that time uh uh my colleagues

Were looking for how to put six cylinders under uh the uh hood of a U of A golf and um that that that just makes it too long if you want proper uh displacement um and with the staggered setup that the VR6 uses which is basically um just like like a straight

Six but every other cylinder is offset yeah um and that gave us within the length of a 2 L 4 cylinder gave us the possibility for three or later more uh lers of six-cylinder so that was a huge Improvement and it opened up putting six cylinders in golf or Passad um based

Cars later called M United as the mqb um and um well once you have a six-cylinder that is as short as um as a four cylinder you might as well put two these together um to have a 12 cylinder that is as short as an 8 cylinder it’s

Clever isn’t it yeah it’s fantastic and not wider too because you’re running a smaller V angle yeah it makes the H it makes the valve drain very complicated but we have complicated valve trins all over the place um but uh the other advantage that it has you get conventional uh intakes and exhaust

Systems so you have the the used intake on the within the V and exhaust on the out outside you can turn that around but we never did on the on the W or VR engines so there’s a there’s a clear lineage from the VR6 yeah um and to the to the

W12 we also did uh experimentally a vr8 wow that’s one one row of Stager cylinders with eight or W8 which is two rows of um of four cylinders stag again was that the the pass out engine that’s the pass out engine yeah um and um I

Homberg I think you who you who you’ve met um he uh he he just bought one of these and it’s one of the smoothest running and smoothest ring you can never get in spite of its flat crank we needed to put in the flat crank to get the

Power then of course you get vibration uh and uh then we put in an elaborate balance shaft uh system system to to kill the to kill the vibration so it it reps up like a small six-cylinder but of course has a lot more power so it it

Seems to me ear after everything that you’ve done in your career at this point so we’re talking early 2000s um you probably could have gone anywhere to work and you chose a small town in the northwest of England what what brought you to Bentley well uh when I joined Volkswagen

Uh I uh had never dreamed of that the that I would be working on 16 cylinder 12 cylinder world record cars Etc I thought otherwise um but um it was it was very simple I wanted to create cars I’d done all these nice things that we talked

About um and um that uh and I’ve always was a fan of powerful and very high uh quality top end cars and uh we we we owned had already owned Bentley a while ul hakenberg and and H wer had been there as Chief Engineers for a while and um B pisher

Was the the group CEO at the time and he asked me when we were driving a car a research car together um if if if I wanted to do that and uh I I didn’t have to to think very much I then drove home uh and uh my wife uh knows

When I’m coming back uh around lunchtime uh there’s a change coming you’re as as we had just moved from Essex to to to walsburg three years earlier uh so she asked well where are we going and I said England and she said okay when I

Need to be packed wow that was that wow brilliant and of course that there wasn’t there was not not a challenge as big as this anywhere else in the group of course in in that year um 2003 uh Bentley sold around a thousand cars still a few rolls-royces amongst them U

And U we had a not fully developed but otherwise fantastic uh Continental GT um and we had uh we had the factory uh completely overhauled they had the new the new engine and a world class engine building facility Etc uh but it was clear that there’s going to be a lot of

Work coming and we had more than on the drawing boards we already had models U of one to one models of the of the Flying Spur um and um so that was that was one of those things that you Dream On Dream of at a petrol station when you’re when

You’re a young chap so I sorry ear just to jump in a moment I remember something that you wrote in one of your articles for us you said that when you got to crew you um you found that lots of the workforce called the place royes they

Referred to it as royes because it was Rolls-Royce and so you had to you and your colleagues had to introduce this program this initiative called becoming Bentley yeah and how did people respond to that I mean presumably once you start telling everyone about the wonderful Heritage of Bentley and everything that

The marks stand for and has achieved did people come on board or was there some resistance well it took it it took some time but um they they there was on SE worked on several levels uh one was for the first time uh they had uh security of the future because Volkswagen was

Investing a lot of money much more money than the previous owners of the company had invested in well probably the decades before that um and they and so so that that was was the one thing they had security of a future uh they got got new leadership and we we

All turned out to be rather approachable um then there was the The Daily level where suddenly they got good work wear uh the working conditions improved dramatically uh because we cleaned out the factory took out all the all the old stuff uh that uh had run its course uh

But retaining what made the brand and uh there were we and they they suddenly could get Volkswagen chod seat as uh on on a sort of company Car Pro program um and so on so that that that all helped and uh of course you get some similar

Symbolic points and um one was that um one was that our lore program uh we went to we went to lore threeyear program and um plan was to win in the third year and as a bonus we won one two in the in the third year that was Brian gush’s project

Um also um we um um think thinking back of the War uh the uh there had only been one U attack from German bombers on uh on the on what’s now the Assembly Hall um and as we found out later that was airplane that had lost its way it

Wanted to bomb Liverpool on the way back didn’t find it so when the clouds opened um they needed to get rid of their bomb so they dropped it on what turned out to be Bentley and damaged the substation not much damage done but because uh nobody was expecting an attack um one of

The bombs went into the end of the machine Hall which is now the end of the Assembly Hall the final inspection you you know that from Andrew and I think Dan you to uh and that killed 12 people we found we knew we knew that because we

Had on our home work on Bentley Heritage nobody on the side cared but we put on a big a big plague of remembrance there with a names of the associates grave in in brass and with a big propella there um that was a little gesture but it was

Uh very much appreciated yeah so Andrew they the VW group came in and did it right that’s a great example of it isn’t it yeah I mean there was I think um and this is before O’s time I mean there was obviously some resistance but the fact

Is is that and I think perhaps the point that might have been missed is it wasn’t the choice of you know Bentley under Volkswagen or Bentley as it was it was the choice of Bentley underw or no Bentley yeah um that was the world are

Looking that and and if you think of the transformation yeah that went through that place um you I was quite close to Bentley at the time because I I was you know I was writing stuff about the L more project and obviously um MSB the midsize Bentley

Which became the Continental GT um was the big news um and then suddenly you it it was just like turning on a tap there was so much potential there was so much desire out there people just wanted a Bentley but they just hadn’t been presented with one which made sense

Until then and then these guys came in and you know okay so the Continental GT I think was largely done early by the time you got there but the progression that car then took um and everything else that came along um I hope we got to

Talk about the Mulan as well um one of my absolute favorite cars ever um yeah so I mean clearly there was a there was a colossal adjustment to be made first from Rolls Royce to Bentley and then from Bentley um to you know the Volkswagen group coming in um but I mean

It’s hard to any I can’t I can’t imagine there’s a person in the world who’d think that that wasn’t didn’t turn out for the best well you you mentioned m San so we are quickly running out of time so go on you two can now have your

Moment and talk about the mosan well just just talk to us about can you just talk to us about that engine um and you I know are I I think you’re still the proud owner of an S2 Bentley um with a 6.3 L I think um V8 engine in it 600

Quar six okay um an engine that went into production I think in 1959 correct um and basically which you you kept alive um long after I think almost anybody else would say you’ve got this enormous engine powered by these you know with valves operated by these train

Things called push rods um and you know revving to 4 and a half thousand whatever um how important I it must have been important to the Volkswagen group because they put it back in the arage didn’t they um you know the engine had basically already been killed Volkswagen

Brought it back which again must have reassured an awful lot of people that Volkswagen was quite well motivated U and then you kept it alive um and more than anything else you kept it alive in this wonderful machine the sort of to me the ultimate modern Bentley the car

Which is everything everything I want a Bentley to be in terms of it’s the way that it drives the way that it feels the heft of the car the quality of the car um and that was that was all on your watch wasn’t it yeah yes uh I mean my my

Time at Bentley was nine a total of nine years um which um is um untypical uh for um for board member development uh we normally only last about three or four years um and then something something happens uh so U uh the development of the um so I had the pleasure that the

Development of a number of cars uh fell completely into my tenure so uh it was um from from the concept to the uh to to the start of production uh and the anage was one of those and um that that that car was never the Mulan sorry was one of

Those um the there never was planned to be a successor to the anage because it was seen as archaic and it’s we only making a thousand of these Etc uh but we we all especially Dr pkin and me uh had had the feeling conviction uh that U you

Need to have a car in this class uh to give strangers it may sound a Halo to the midsize bentle as as it was called for a while as you rightly said for Andrew um so um we we started doing a pre-development program um retaining some of the base dimensions but um well

As Colin chap would said from here designs itself uh if you uh if you keep the if you keep the um the engine put in a new uh 8-speed gearbox from ZF and and so on then my guy surprised me by presenting me with a new rear suspension

Which they had done as a black project hidden from me because I’m not the only one who’s doing black projects um so black meaning unauthorized yeah so um they um so we we we have the pieces to put together and of course in uh in design styling uh they they’re always

Working on uh what to do next and uh into which direction to take it etc etc and you in in retrospect a lot of people then saw the front end styling of uh the uh of of the um the brooklands and the lines of the Brookland as a pre

As an intermediate step between the anaj and the Mulan which it was um so um we we we put all these pieces together and um then um um decided to make a a proper project out of it but by that by that time uh a

Lot of the the stuff was there um and we just put the Bentley pieces together can I but can I can I can I ask why given that you had this state-of-the-art modern twint turbo W12 engine which would have been far more powerful far more efficient um and already in your

Cars why would you not then have used that why did you decide to you know go with the old Soldier instead well part part is that uh this is one of the character engines the defining engines of Bentley over the long time U and because of the uh it it’s relaxed

Power delivery uh but relaxed but supreme power delivery um we we just thought this is the the one for the top for the top bandl and um when you put once you put the W2 uh in U you uh you also should go to the uh to to a

Four-wheel drive other otherwise you’d have the same engine rear wheel drive Etc and the car would lose everything against the Flying Spur so we decided to uh separated in character a lot from the Flying Spur um and uh that was The Logical conclusion uh and uh in its development

We always refer to the Flying Spur before we got that name of course as the four-door GT yeah and I mean you you’ve driven that a lot also at Nardo uh and I mean you can testify that uh besides being a bit longer um and slightly less Nimble

Although G GT is not that Nimble to begin with but um otherwise it drives just like the Continental GT and we wanted a completely different experience here that’s that’s why we perpetuated the W2 the the V8 yeah these takeovers by giant multinational corporations for instance the Volkswagen group buying

Bentley it works when the buying party shows real respect for the the heritage of the independent car maker doesn’t it and that’s clearly listening to you you talk here early the group really held Bentley’s Heritage in the highest regard yes absolutely absolutely I mean uh some

Of the U some of the group board members U had uh vintage Bentleys um in the privately Etc so I mean we didn’t when you think about it what sense does it make um to to to buy uh typically at a premium uh a haloed um

Historic U company or brand and and and then not use it yeah it’s true but also to you I mean w Bentley himself I mean he was an engineer through and through and the qualities that he admired most were just engineering stuff to the highest possible standards and

That must have really just you know even though you know he was doing that aund more years ago that must have must really resonated with you yeah yeah and I always had a picture of him in my office uh to look over looking over my shoulder and um he

Um and that was that that that was true inspiration I mean he never worked that crew his years in bentle were the critic good years much before that uh but um still um it’s the it’s the spirit of meticulous engineering creating the best Solutions go starting uh from first

Principles really understanding uh the chain of cause and effect and then uh getting uh the result and the effect that that you want that’s the mark of the of of a great engineer um and really going to the the root cause and to the bottom of things uh rather than uh

Letting yourself get fobbed off with superficial uh pseudo explanations and uh that was what was behind uh his uh engineering of his two rotary engines and of his for the airplanes in World in in World War I U and that that’s also behind uh his uh his car engines uh and

Uh uh when you drive them uh and I’ve driven his his own 8 liter that Rolls-Royce took away from him when they took over the company I’ve driven that I’ve driven that and after a kilometer or so driving okay I could be driving that 4,000 miles now and wouldn’t

Wouldn’t mind that yeah and and that feeling we also kept alive and we moved that on and on and you find someone of that even in thean ah well there really is only so much ground you can cover in an hour or so but early it’s been fascinating it

Really has thank you so much for coming on um sharing your your thoughts and your memories um yeah you can come back yes it’s been great we’d love to do it again iie um to everyone watching and listening um hopefully you enjoyed that one I thought it was a good episode uh

So please remember to just subscribe or follow if you’re watching this on YouTube subscribe to our Channel if you’re listening to it as a podcast just hit the little follow button or the Subscribe button um to you oi thank you so much for coming on and hopefully we

Can do it again at some at some point well thanks it was a pleasure I always like I always like to talk about cars as you have noticed oh good so do we thanks silly all the best thanks a lot thanks Andrew bye