Keith Duckworth

David Keith Duckworth ( born August 10, 1933, Blackburn, Lancashire, † December 19, 2005 in Northampton ) was a British engineer who was known by the construction of engines in auto racing and was also referred to as "motor Pope."

Life

Duckworth spent his childhood in Blackburn and attended Giggleswick School in North Yorkshire. His two-year military service, he served in the Royal Air Force and took part there for a short time on a pilot training, but showed no talent. He then completed an engineering degree at Imperial College London, graduating in 1955 with a Bachelor of Science.

His first job was Duckworth at Lotus, where he was involved in the transmission development. After three years he left Lotus and founded in 1958 together with his colleagues there Mike Costin a company to develop racing engines. The name of the company was made up of components of the surnames of the two founders. From " Costin " and " Duckworth " Cosworth was.

The close connection to Lotus and Ford, as well as successes in the early 1960s, the newly formed Formula Junior contributed to the economic success of Cosworth. The company moved to Barnet to Northampton and Lotus founder Colin Chapman persuaded Ford to finance the production of Duckworth's DFV engine.

Chapman wanted to save his race car weight, by integrating the engine as a stressed member in the chassis. This design has since been standard in Formula 1 DFV engine debuted in the third race of the Formula 1 1967 season at Zandvoort. In a Lotus 49 Cosworth engine Graham Hill claimed pole position and Jim Clark race victory. From 1968, the DFV engine for other teams was bought and was in the 1970s the most widely used engine Formula 1 The last team that used the DFV, Tyrrell was in season 1985.

The successes of imports based DFV engine and aggregates it in several racing series, Duckworth made ​​it a wealthy man. In 1980 he sold for tax reasons most of its shares in Cosworth, the company was retained as chairman. Seven years later, he handed over the post for health reasons to Costin. After several changes of ownership and divisions of the company since 1980, were Cosworth Cosworth Cosworth Racing and Pi research sold in 2004 by Ford at Gerald Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven and is now known as Cosworth Group. The 1998 divested entity part Cosworth Technology is now called Mahle Powertrain and one meal.

Duckworth died in 2005 at the age of 72 years.