Hell On Wheels

If a Martian fell to earth and asked the meaning of the phrase “better in theory than in practice”, you might never find a more appropriate illustration than the BRM V16. Conceived in the belief that Britain’s best minds could achieve anything, it was a car of not one or two but literally hundreds of parents, co-operating to produce what was intended to be the world’s fastest racing car. And it was doomed from the outset.

It was the idea of Raymond Mays, who had enjoyed considerable success building and racing ERAs (English Racing Automobiles) before the war. He imagined a project where suppliers would come together in the national interest to build a unique racing car for a charitable trust known as British Racing Motors. There were over 300 of them.

At its heart lay a 1.5-litre engine with no fewer than sixteen cylinders, boosted by a Rolls-Royce supercharger. Outlandishly powerful, ear-rentingly loud, to listen to one is to hear a sound you’ll never forget. In fact, you can even listen to its distinctive roar on vinyl, or via YouTube. But it came with two fundamental flaws. The first was that it was being asked to do things no racing engine had achieved before, like producing nearly 600bhp at no fewer than 12,000rpm. As a result, it was woefully unreliable.

Secondly, instead of power initially rising then ebbing away as the revs increased, the engine would produce more and more power until it exploded. So the moment the car got any wheelspin, the revs would soar, supplying even more power to the wheels, which would spin even more. For the driver, the only option was to lift off the accelerator – after which there was no power at all. Nor were these its only problems. The car’s driving position was terrible, its steering poor and its handling wayward. No wonder Stirling Moss described it as, “without doubt the worst car I ever drove”.

Conceived in 1945, its development took so long it wouldn’t make its public debut until the summer of 1950 at Silverstone, where it broke down before covering a yard. Scornful spectators threw pennies into the driver’s seat as it was pushed away. A month later, it appeared to redeem itself by winning twice at Goodwood, but that was against inadequate, largely prewar, machinery, not the state-of-the-art racers it was designed to beat.

The only time the car ran reliably in a World Championship was at the 1951 British Grand Prix when two cars came fifth and seventh, which sounds respectable until you learn that the quicker car was lapped five times by the winning Ferrari.

Then the rules of Formula 1 changed, consigning the BRMs to eke out the remainder of their existence competing in more minor races, which they did until 1955, when the obsolescence of a design that had been started fully 10 years earlier forced them into retirement.

Today, seeing a BRM V16 run is the rarest of treats and, being kind, perhaps we can see now that its biggest problem was being too far ahead of its time. But it also stands as stark proof that without the ability to turn such theory into practice, even the best ideas will never deliver on their promise.