There is an inevitability about a new thread headed with just a person's name, and so it is with this one, the second one I have had to do in three months. With great sadness I must report the death of David Warwick last Monday afternoon, just 2 days after his 88th birthday, succumbing to pneumonia after a longish period of respiratory problems going back to early last summer. Despite cataract problems, a series of laminated A3 prints of his racing cars helped to keep his spirits up.
David is one of those persons of whom most of you will not have heard, unless you are especially familiar with the formative years of Lotus racing cars, or have a specific knowledge of, or interest in small 1960s marques, or may have heard me droning on about DRW racing cars. Permit me to expand a little as I do not wish my friend's passing to go unmarked.
David Warwick was the eponymous DRW behind the small marque of ten cars designed, with the exception of the mk4, a design by his friend Len Terry, and built from 1959 to 1970 with his colleague the late Jack Murrell, covering 1172, (3 races) , Clubmans, Sports Racing, Formula Ford and F100, all of which acquitted themselves well, some especially so, and over a long period. Geoff Oliver was also part of the team in the early days.
At the school which he attended, following in the footsteps of their mother and older brother, both of whom went on to eminent medical careers, David and his twin brother readily settled into the wider curriculum subjects, where it was encouraged to think freely, moving away from conformity and encouraging initiative and discovery, and it helped that various engineering and other practicalities were on offer. The brothers found their natural niche. David followed the engineering path, completing a motor and general engineering apprenticeship.
Mike Costin recalls David as one of the ad hoc "volunteers", ie doing your day job then working for ACBC for nothing late into the night.... in the early days at Lotus, and cites his work at the time of the design and build of P3 as very important, mindful of the rudimentary facilities at Lotus. With a taste for that sort of work David found himself at Connaught for a period, mainly on road cars, only on the edge of the racing operations, but 2 of the old race mechanics there recalled him as a very competent young man with a good ethic.
Back at the expanding Lotus works towards the end of 1955, he rapidly became a key part of the Development/Experimental team under Willie Griffiths, joined shortly after that by Jack Murrell, both being part of the team which moved to Edmonton, as the works racing efforts became more focused. David was heavily involved with the development of the 12, 15 and 16, and was at le Mans and elsewhere with Elevens from 1956 to 1958, and with a 17 in 1959. Like Jack he was with the F1 and F2 cars at races.
Brief conversations with Cliff Allison and Pete Lovely early this century confirmed the high regard in which David, inter alia, was held by them, and by ACBC.
Opting with others not to move to Cheshunt in 1959 David and Jack started their own venture, their endeavours being well chronicled in period in specialist magazines, originally working with John Campbell Jones out of the well known Shaftesbury Mews, later moving to a garage in Highgate where they did retail work on specialist and competition cars.
The original 1172cc car at the end of 1959 morphed into the 105E powered mk2, raced very successfully by Jack in 1960, and later by others, followed by 2 mk3s in 1961, Geoff Oliver proving a master of his craft with many wins and top placings, sharing the Motor Sport Brooklands Memorial Trophy with Laurie Keens and Jon Derisley. The other was built as a front engined Formula Junior car for Jack, essentially as an experiment, risky in the face of the Lotus 18s and 20s etc, but it acquitted itself well. The other mk1, the Oliver car, after Lew Bergonzi had it, later became the entry car for Mike Wilds to start what would be a very successful and long career.
The mk4 was an 1100cc car in a venture helping their friend Len Terry, and once set up Geoff Oliver was probably the class of the rest behind Mike Beckwith's superb Lotus 23 in 1962. Geoff continued with the mk4 in 1963 and the mk3s went onto successes with David Soley/James Manfield, and Albert Leonard on Northern circuits, then John Bromilow and Tony Youlten at al, culminating in Deryck Cook's brilliant 1968 and 69 seasons, in 1969 10 wins and 2 places out of 14 races in good fields in a car in its 9th season, so the design was right..
The mk6 sports racer was Imp powered, DRW being the first to develop that engine, starting in September 1963, self designed, self built and self developed from scratch. Funding separate race cars out of a working business meant slow progress at times, but the car showed well, culminating in the mercurial Peter Voigt showing his mastery on the hills with it in 1968 and 69.
The mk 7 was a successful Clubmans car from 1968 under the new post-1965 regulations, three being built, Jack winning a series of 8 races from 10 in 1968.
The mk8 was the Formula Ford car, with self developed engine for Jack and then Geoff Oliver in 1970 and 71, both of whom had good results in a very competitive class, and the mk9S was built for the F100 series, but designed as a group 6 car, with Garo Nigogosian, who enjoyed success with it, and at times raced very successfully with one of DRW's old 1650 Ford engines from the old mk4 from 1963 and 64.
But the world as they knew and loved it had changed, Championships abounded everywhere, Formula Ford had become what we know it to be, Clubmans was Mallock, Mallock everywhere with the occasional Gryphon etc, and sports racers were big budget cars. The time had come to stop, and concentrate on providing a specialist service to a specialist clientele. This carried on until 1981 by which time Jack had moved to West Wales and the retail motor trade, and David moved to Gloucestershire where he developed a successful specialist trailer manufacturing business, exhibition, display, retail, catering, medical trailers being the norm until he retired.
David Warwick was a talented, intuitive engineer, someone who could see a solution not a problem, and a skilled fabricator and mechanic. For him the design and build was what it was all about.
David was highly regarded by his peers, and by drivers, as well as by Mike Costin and Colin Chapman. That is sufficient recommendation in my eyes.
Another of the old school has left us.
RIP
Roger Lund
