Industry News
BRM name to be revived
7th January 2009
The Bee Four electric racing vehicle (ERV) that was announced in October is to race as the BRM Bee Four ERV reviving the BRM brand in its 60th year.
The BRM Bee Four ERV code named the ‘Watt 4’ is an all electric four wheel drive vehicle, designed by Martin Ogilvie, that is capable of producing 700hp or 520kW from motor technology developed at Oxford University. The car will participate in the 2009 British Speed Hill Climb championships with Graeme Wight jr as the driver.
Participants in the project include Rubery Owen, Oxford University, Oxford Brookes and MIRA Ltd and Bee has been signed up as a campaign partner of EEMS – Motorsport Development UK’s Energy Efficient Motor Sport initiative.
BRM was founded just after the Second World War by Raymond Mays, who had built several hill climb and road racing cars under the ERA brand before the war, and Peter Berthon, a long-time associate. Mays' pre-war successes (and access to pre-war Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union design documents) inspired him to build an all-British Grand Prix car for the post-war era, as a national prestige project (which, naturally, he would drive himself!) with the backing (both financially and in kind and labour) of the British motor industry and its suppliers channelled through a trust fund.
This proved to be an unwieldy way of organising and financing the project, and as some of the backers withdrew, disappointed with the team's slow progress and early results, it fell to one of the partners in the trust, Alfred Owen of the Rubery Owen group of companies, which primarily manufactured car parts, to take over the team in its entirety. Between 1954 and 1970 the team entered its works F1 cars under the official name of the Owen Racing Organisation and won 17 Grand Prix’s, The Drivers World championship and 2 World constructor’s titles.
The BRM Bee Four electric racing car will be consistent with BRM's long history of innovation and teamwork, and will be a great demonstration of Rubery Owen's modern day focus on Environmental Technologies. It will also be a 'marker' for a new breed of motorsport, one that minimises environmental impact and is overwhelmingly cost effective, but at the same time phenomenally fast and very 'inclusive'.
Paul Owen, Grandson of Sir Alfred and Managing Director of Rubery Owen's Environmental Technology Subsidiary Rozone Limited said, "Rubery Owen is very pleased to see the BRM name once again being used to drive forward an innovative development to take Motorsport to new levels - for the last decade our Rozone subsidiary has been seeking to develop technologies under the umbrella of "Sustainable Solutions" - solutions that try to balance economic, social and of course environmental considerations, all within a framework of teamwork and co-operation.
"We believe that the BRM Bee Four project demonstrates this perfectly - acknowledging the past, enhancing the present, and creating the future. At a time when we are all examining the 'cost effectiveness' and 'environmental impact' of many parts of what we do, we hope that the project can demonstrate that Motor Sport can be both of these things - but without forgetting the 'social' aspect of the importance of 'fun' enjoyment and competition' - the main reason that we all do it in the first place!”
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