Tony Southgate (born 25 May 1940,Coventry,England) is an English engineer and formerracing car designer. He designed many successful cars, includingJaguar'sLe Mans-winningXJR-9, and cars for almost every type of circuit racing. He was responsible for the chassis design ofFord'sRS200Group B rally car. Southgate was employed as chief designer or technical director for manyFormula One teams for over twenty years. These teams includedBRM,Shadow andArrows. Southgate retired after producing theAudi R8C, which was a major influence in theBentley Speed 8, which won Le Mans in 2003. He continues to be a regular visitor to current and historic race meetings.
Southgate is the only chief engineer to have won theTriple Crown of Motorsport with his cars:Indianapolis 500 withEagle TG2 in 1968, theMonaco Grand Prix with theBRM P160B and the24 Hours of Le Mans in 1988 and 1990 withJaguar XJR-9 andJaguar XJR-12.
Tony Southgate became interested in motorsport during his engineering apprenticeship and, like many aspiring racing designers in the late 1950s, was a member of the750 Motor Club.[1] The 750MC was a training ground forColin Chapman,Eric Broadley,Brian Hart and others who achieved success in motorsport. In 1962 Broadley gave Southgate his first job, as adraughtsman forLola Cars.[2] Southgate gained a broad grounding in many areas of motorsport design while at Lola. He was involved in projects as wide-ranging as the lithe, 1.5 litreLola Mk4A Formula One car and the 5.0 litreLola T70[3][4] sports car. He also assisted with designs forIndyCar chassis,[5] one of which evolved into theHonda RA300Hondola Formula One race-winner.
It was his experience with single-seater and IndyCar designs which promptedDan Gurney to hire Southgate for hisAll American Racers team, based inCalifornia, to design some of the second generation ofGurney-EagleUSAC racers. The highlight of Southgate's time with AAR was whenBobby Unser won the1968 Indianapolis 500 race in one of Southgate's Eagle cars. The Southgate-designed EagleFormula 5000 car also found some success.[6]
In 1969 Tony Southgate moved back to the UK and took a job as Chief Designer for theBRM Formula One team. Southgate's first BRM car, theBRM P153,[7] appeared in time for the first race of the1970 season inSouth Africa. BRM enjoyed a renaissance with the P153 and its successor theBRM P160. The P160, in particular, was highly competitive during the1971 season; driversPedro Rodríguez andJo Siffert often ran near the front of the field, only for poor reliability to let them down before the finish. Continued development work reaped vast improvements. In the latter half of the season Siffert andPeter Gethin (who had replaced Rodríguez following the latter's death) won back-to-back victories in theAustrian andItalian Grands Prix. Gethin's victory atMonza was taken at an average speed of over 150 mph (240 km/h) and stood as the fastest ever Grand Prix win for over 30 years.
Although the BRM team finished second in the Constructors' Championship standings the end of the season, the achievement was marred by Siffert's death in a non-Championship race atBrands Hatch. Unfortunately for BRM and Tony Southgate his1972 design, theBRM P180, was not as competitive as the previous model. Siffert's replacementJean-Pierre Beltoise managed to win a rain-hitMonaco Grand Prix in the older P160, and with it take BRM's final Formula One victory. During the 1972 season BRM and Tony Southgate parted company. BRM finished the season in seventh place.
At the end of 1972Shadow Racing Cars founderDon Nichols approached Southgate to design a Formula One car for his team to enter in the 1973 World Championship. Shadow had already been involved in theCanAm sportscar series for nearly two years, and withUOP sponsorship Nichols was planning an entrance into Formula One. Southgate designed and built the first Shadow Formula One prototype, theShadow DN1, in his own garage inLincolnshire,[8] where he had moved to be closer to the BRM factory inBourne. However, production was soon shifted to the US, to where Southgate once again relocated.
DriversGeorge Follmer andJackie Oliver were immediately competitive in the DN1. In 1974 the Southgate-designed Shadow DN4 earned first and second in the CanAm championship. In the same yearPeter Revson died while testing theShadow DN3 atKyalami.
Tony Southgate designed theShadow DN5 for the 1975 Formula One season. The car proved very fast, withJean-Pierre Jarier andTom Pryce both winning pole positions during the year, however it had poor reliability, often retiring when in a points scoring position.
At the end of 1975 the withdrawal of Shadow's main sponsorUOP prompted Southgate to move toLotus, where he worked alongsidePeter Wright on theLotus 77 andLotus 78 until the middle of 1977.
After Lotus, Southgate returned to Shadow, but left the team again at the end of 1977 together withFranco Ambrosio,Alan Rees,Jackie Oliver andDave Wass to formArrows.
Arrows' first car, theFA1, was almost identical to theShadow DN9, which Southgate had designed while at Shadow. The FA1 was comfortably leading its second race, theSouth African Grand Prix, at the hands ofRiccardo Patrese, when its engine blew, forcing it to retire. The Shadow team successfully sued Arrows for infringement of its copyrights and the Arrows FA1 was declared illegal in a UK court judgement on 31 July.[9] Southgate had anticipated this and had completed an alternative design dubbedArrows A1 which was swiftly produced without Arrows missing a race.
Southgate also designed theArrows A2 andA3, before leaving the team to work as a freelance engineering consultant.
Southgate returned to Formula 1 towards the end of 1980 to designTheodore Racing's TY01 to race in the 1981 season.
When Theodore was merged intoEnsign at the end of 1982, Southgate and John Thompson founded a design consultancy namedAuto Racing Technology, that worked forFord on two major projects, including development of theFord RS200.[10]
In 1983 Southgate designed his last Formula 1 car, theOsella FA1E. The design was severely constrained as Osella Squadra Corse did not have sufficient finances to build an entirely new chassis, forcing Southgate to adapt some parts (gearbox and rear suspension) of theAlfa Romeo 182 of previous year to fit an engine fromAlfa Romeo.
After the experience on Can-Am cars with Shadow, Southgate collaborated with Ford in 1982–83. with the goal to improve theC100. Helped by John Thompson, realized the MkII version that raced in last races of 1982, then realized the new Mk III, but in March 1983, Ford cancelled its activity in sports cars, after the first tests made atPaul Ricard Circuit.
After the work onFord RS200, in 1984 Southgate moved toTom Walkinshaw Racing, where he headed the design of theJaguar XJR-9[11] andXJR-12. These won theWorld Sportscar Championship three times and the Le Mans 24 hour race twice. The XJR-9 also raced in North America in theIMSA GT Championship. It won on its debut at the24 Hours of Daytona in 1988, and in the final race of the season at Del Mar.[12]
He remained at TWR until 1990. Southgate subsequently worked on sports cars forToyota (Toyota TS010 1991–93),[13]Ferrari (Ferrari 333 SP 1993–95),[14]Lister,Nissan (Nissan R390 GT1 1996–97)[15] andAudi (Audi R8R andR8C).
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