It is the friends you make along the way who change your life and your work for the better.
Carroll and Peter were both working for
the Ford Le Mans program when they met in 1965
Carroll and Peter were both working for
the Ford Le Mans program when they met in 1965
Alfa-Romeo was the engine on the Brabham
when F.1 came to the first Long Beach GP in 1975. Chiti re-introduced Peter &
Gordon Murray , and this led to a very successful teamwork in F1 with
Gordon over the next 17 years after Bernie invited us in "his office" on
the straightaway of Long Beach.
Edoardo Polli's SDA cat sported 4 of Chiti's engines. Jean Marc Sanchez and Patrick Weismann were part of the crew . JM Sanchez was the link to Victory Team, where we met Felix Serralles. Owner of his own racing team in Puerto Rico, Mr. Serralles seen here with Patrick Weismann, was insuring that his son had technical advantages. We dry-sumped the drives for both teams, and later did 4 speed gearboxes for Victory team, and 6 speeds for Don Q.
Gordon
Murray had just been hired at Brabham, when Pete designed his first trans for
Jack in 1969. When the Brabham team was sold to Bernie Ecclestone Gordon became
chief designer. It was Chiti who in 1975 showed our quickshift to Gordon, and
kick started a collaboration which took us beyond our wildest dreams.
Knee-high, la Sogliola (the Flounder) our pride and joy. First test at
Donnington of the BT55!
In Seville it was not all joy in 1986
In 1992 Gordon came to California to test the prototype transmission for his supercar .
In 1980 we did a radical transverse gearbox which complemented
a very sophisticated suspension design by Gordon. The idea was to make a very
narrow gearbox with smooth sides which would be part of the ground effect
tunnel. I believe Giorgio Piola liked us because we always gave him something
new and different to write about
The articles and drawings of Giorgio Piola were so technically
outstanding, we can only be thankful we had a chronicler for the most enjoyable
times of our career. Our thanks also to the photographer Amaduzzi and
Autosprint.
Interestingly enough we became good friends with our main competitor Williams technical director, Patrick Head. But because he loves transmissions, we just had a brief technical encounter .We did run a quickshift at Silverstone with Couthard testing
and last but not least
my dearest friend and mentor Hubert Schroeder , secretary of the FIA, presenting the world championship cup to Phil, and my first boss in the US, Bill France Sr. a giant and a gentleman
In 1961 these three friends were at Monza when Phil Hill became the first American to win the F1 World Championship for Ferrari. 46 years later they celebrated Phil's 80th birthday in California
Jesse Alexander- Michele Weismann - Phil Hill
Jay Leno's garage 2007
Monza September 1961
