John Crosthwaite (9 October 1925 – 5 September 2010) was an English race car designer and engineer, active in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Crosthwaite worked with Cooper Cars, Colin Chapman at Team Lotus and Mickey Thompson as well as drivers Graham Hill, Dan Gurney and Jackie Stewart. He designed and built cars for Formula Junior and the 1962 and 1963 Indianapolis 500. A chassis specialist, he worked at Formula 1 team BRM and later drew up chassis for the Intermeccanica Italia, the Bond Bug and the Reliant Scimitar GTE road cars.
Early life John Crosthwaite was born at Thornaby Hall, Thornaby-on-Tees, Yorkshire on 9 October 1925. He was godson to Harold Macmillan, a family friend and local MP. He had three older sisters and a younger brother. His father, Cedric, was in the Royal Flying Corps in World War I and raced cars and motorcycles. Crosthwaite had a fascination with cars, motorbikes and aeroplanes from an early age. At 14 years of age he was helping to rebuild a crash damaged Invicta. In 1928 his parents separated. He was raised by his mother and his oldest sister Barbara.
During World War II he worked at A.V. Roe & Co (Avro) doing final assembly of Lancaster Bombers. Despite being in a reserved occupation he tried to join the RAF but during the medical discovered he was colour blind. He continued to volunteer for other services until AV Roe finally released him in 1943 to join the Royal Marines. In 1944 he was accepted in the Royal Marine Commandos.
Following the end of the war in the far east he remained in the Royal Marine Commandos until 1947. He left to join the police force for a short period but he could not settle. He was offered a job in Malaya and as an adventure decided to travel overland. Crosthwaite bought a 1944 Canadian Mercury V8 estate ex War Dept. and along with a friend travelled through France, Italy, then steamer to Greece. They encountered bandits, civil war in Greece, fuel shortages, mines and mine holed roads. They found a way across the closed border to Istanbul, Turkey, where they were arrested and interrogated. On release they crossed into Syria through Damascus, then via Baghdad to Basra in Iraq and finally Ahvaz, Iran. Because of the awful state of the roads and despite ongoing repairs, the vehicle finally gave up. His friend joined the Iraq Petroleum Company but Crosthwaite returned home.
Career
Cooper Car Company - Tommy Sopwith
On his return to Britain he went to work as an apprentice at Armstrong Siddeley and studied for the National Certificate in Engineering at Coventry Technical College in the evenings. Any spare time was spent buying, driving and reconditioning neglected cars including a 1937 1100 cc Alta. In 1952 he met Tommy Sopwith, son of Sir Thomas Sopwith, who was also doing a short apprenticeship at his father's factory. They got on well and as Sopwith was interested in sports car racing and knew Crosthwaite was knowledgeable about cars he asked Crosthwaite to be his mechanic. Initially they used an Armstrong Siddeley 3.4-litre 6-cylinder Sapphire engine, Allard JR chassis and preselector gearbox. Sopwith won races at Davidstow, Silverstone and Snetterton in the Sphinx Allard. Sopwith called his team Equipe Endeavour after his father's America's Cup racing yacht.
In 1954 Sopwith decided to expand Equipe Endeavour with some friends and ordered cars from Coopers. From early 1954 to late 1955 Crosthwaite worked with John Cooper of Cooper Cars supervising production and final design of Equipe Endeavour sports cars on Sopwith's behalf. Whilst at Cooper's he worked with Ivor Bueb, Roy Salvadori, Ken Tyrrell and Jack Brabham. Crosthwaite did the rounds of the manufacturers to find suitable engines and decided on a Coventry Climax (which he had seen on a front-engined Kieft) for low weight and small size, and a Connaught engine for power and compactness. He found the people at Coventry Climax keen to develop their engine and increase bhp. Sopwith won races at several circuits, including Goodwood, with the bobtail Cooper Climax and broke the class record at Prescott hill climb. Reg Parnell and Ivor Bueb raced for the team at several meetings. Crosthwaite was therefore in at the beginning of and influenced by the multi-cylinder rear-engined revolution in motor racing.Vintage Drift magazine. Aug. 2003 Because of Equipe Endeavour's success, Crosthwaite was approached by other teams and drivers but he was quite happy with Tommy. However at the end of the 1955 season at Oulton Park, Tommy had an accident, rolled his Cooper Climax and was quite badly hurt after he 'overcooked it' on one of the corners. Tommy's father told him he could continue racing but only in saloon cars. Crosthwaite did not want to work in saloon car racing so he thanked Tommy and decided to move on. Whilst racing at Aintree Crosthwaite had met a young lady, Joan, and was smitten. They married in April 1955 and with a baby on the way he needed to support his family so tried to decide on the best team to join.
Lotus Engineering
In autumn 1955 he joined Colin Chapman who was starting Lotus cars. Crosthwaite worked in the Experimental Department at Lotus Engineering and helped develop and refine the Lotus 11 and Type 14 Elite. He also acted as Chapman's senior racing mechanic and they competed all over the UK, as well as Le Mans, Imola and Monza. He worked alongside Graham Hill, then a gearbox mechanic and Mike Costin, the 'Cos' in Cosworth. Keith Duckworth (the 'worth' in Cosworth) worked there during holidays from university. Cliff Allison was their most successful driver at that time.Sports Car and Lotus Owner (April 1957)
In late 1956 the Suez Crisis meant that petrol was rationed in the UK and motor racing banned. Colin Chapman asked if Crosthwaite would go to the US with Team Lotus as he needed a senior mechanic to prepare the Lotus cars for the Sebring 12-hour race in March 1957. Chapman finished first in class. Following the race Crosthwaite went to work for Jay Chamberlain the Lotus importer in California. He also found a lot of work successfully preparing Coopers and Lotus cars for races in California and Nevada. The drivers he worked for included John Biehl, Frank Monise, Ignacio Lozano, Jock Ross, Leon Miller, and Skip Conklin. There were always a couple of sports / racing cars in the garage or on the drive. He attended race meetings to modify and fine tune the cars for races at Pomona, Riverside, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Torrey Pines and Laguna Seca.
Dolphin Engineering
Early in 1959 racing driver John Biehl introduced Crosthwaite to anglophile and race car enthusiast Buddy Hull. Buddy had come into some money and was very keen to get involved in building race cars himself. They started as a partnership, Hull as MD and financier and Crosthwaite to design and build a Formula Junior for their company "Dolphin Engineering". This was a single seater mid-engined car with a fibreglass body. The regulations stated that the car's engine/gearbox were based on a production car of 1100cc or less. The chassis, suspension and bodywork were unrestricted. The chassis was a straight tubular steel space frame. The engine was a 1100cc Fiat and the gearbox an inverted Fiat 600. It had pressed steel wheels and the fibreglass body was made with the advice of a local boatbuilder. The front suspension and brakes were modified parts from a non-runner NSU Prinz that Crosthwaite had. The rear suspension he designed and manufactured himself. Late in 1959 the prototype was raced at San Diego and finished 5th. They decided to tidy up the prototype and go into production with the Mk 1 Dolphin. This tidying up turned into a lot more than that so the only thing left of the prototype was the basic chassis frame and bodywork. Formula One World Champion Jack Brabham test drove the Mk 1 Dolphin at Riverside International Raceway Because of the increasingly competitive Formula Junior market, Crosthwaite decided to design a Dolphin Mk 2 in 1961 (also called the Dolphin International). Twenty six were produced. It had a tuned 997cc Ford Anglia 105E engine sourced from Mike Costin of Cosworth in the UK. The new body was drawn to be as small, smooth and aerodynamic as possible. After all the hours spent making Mk 1 body moulds they decided to produce a master 'plug' made of aluminium for the fibreglass body of the Mk 2. This 'plug' was produced to Crosthwaite's specification by the local racecar body shop of Troutman and Barnes. Dolphin Engineering tooled up with jigs for all the welded parts and Crosthwaite designed cast magnesium wheels for the car. The Mk2 was successfully raced by ex pat Ken Miles (a close second place on its debut). Kurt Neumann won in a Dolphin International at Riverside in June 1962. Count Giovanni Lurani, who was instrumental in persuading the FIA to make Formula Junior an international class, described the Dolphin as the best American Junior constructed. Original Dolphin cars are still raced today at historic car events.El Cajon Valley News 4 February 1960San Diego Union newspaper 15 May 1960La Jolla Journal 19 May 1960El Cajon Valley News 26 May 1960Sports Cars Illustrated Dec 1960 (later Car and Driver)Motor Racing magazine Jan 1961Autosport Magazine 14 April 1961Autocar magazine April 1961Car & Driver magazine Aug. 1961Santa Barbara Road Races programme Sept.2/3 1961Racing Cars of the World. Author - Peter Roberts. Reference book. Published 1962 Longacre Press Ltd.Vintage Motorsport Sept/Oct 1993Vintage American Road Racing Cars 1950–1970. Pages 65-67. Authors-Pace/Brinker. Book published 2004. Classic & Sports Car magazine Feb 2005
Indianapolis 500 - Mickey Thompson
1962 Indianapolis 500