Coventry Climax

Someone may find this link interesting. They still have a conveyancer forklift repair place on the A49 heading north out of Warrington.

Just reading about Holman Brothers on Wikipedia - it states "1954 or thereabouts Holman Bros took over the Climax Rock Drill and Engineering Works formerly Stephens Iron foundry."

Climax Rock Drill was an entirely unrelated entity from Coventry Climax Ltd.

If anyone else in interested, there was some fantastic coverage last weekend of the Monaco Historic Grand Prix which included the F1 cars from 1961-65, most of which (thanks to the reduced Covid field) were Coventry Climax powered. Footage here - the race in question is at 2 hours 23 mins.

This one has just been shared on FB in reference to Climax. Am I right in thinking the Hobart Works was the former cycle factory by the Labour Office on Cheylesmore (as per a mention on other threads?). Don't think I've seen this image before.

Came across this engineer's tool cabinet in an antiques centre in Leicestershire today. The badge on the front of the cabinet states "Godiva Fire Engines Coventry" together with the legend "Go Anywhere".

With conversation of Coventry Climax on the Trams thread - great shot of the Duke of Edinburgh visiting (presumably Widdrington Road - with Leonard Lee and Wally Hassan -

According to a CET newspaper article this was June 1966 and he is looking at engine intended for Jim Clarke to race at Rheims. He piloted the helicopter he arrived in to J & J Cash's field. The article says he also visited Sandy Lane but I don't remember anything about it considering I was working next door at the time, must have been too busy working !

Walter Hassan was a riding mechanic for Bentley motors in their heydays in the 20s, a great engineer.

Very nice pic! The engine in the bottom right is the Coventry Climax FWMW Flat 16 (ie horizontally opposed) sixteen cylinder with a nominal 3 litre capacity. It was developed from the existing 1/1/2 litre V8 that had secured the World Championships for Jim Clark and Lotus in 1963 and 1965 and was intended for the new Formula One in 1966. Never raced although Brabham and Lotus were reported as preparing cars for its use. Brabham went with a road car derived Repco V8 for 1966 when Jack Brabham became World Champion in 1966 with that combination. Lotus eventually went with a temporary partnership with BRM and used their H16 unit in the Lotus 43. I think that it was only Cooper (at Byfleet) that tested the FWMW in the sole Cooper Type 80 but then went with a partnership with Maserati to use that company's V12s. The heritage of Coventry Climax is of great fascination to me. Incidentally, following the 1966 season, Colin Chapman presented one of the Lotus 33s (actually chassis R14 which had been used by Team Lotus until early 1967) to Leonard Lee to celebrate the success that Lotus and Coventry Climax had enjoyed over several seasons. This was the car exhibited at the Herbert Art Gallery for many years until it was sold by the Lee family in the mid-1980s. It currently resides at the Caister Castle Museum. Ian

Great info Ian Have you seen the pic I posted in post#35 of Colin and Jimmy? I'm a bit of a Chapman/Clark worshipper as a Lotus owner for 30 years.

I have now! Wonder if Toto Wolff or Zak Brown would allow themselves to do that sort of thing today? Great stuff...