From Drawing Board to Chequered Flag

From Drawing Board to Chequered Flag by Tony Southgate

This is the autobiography of Tony Southgate, one of motorsport's most prolific and versatile racing car designerst. The author writes of a career which brought him into contact with some of motorsport's most significant and at times colourful personalities and describes how he helped to raise the performance of their teams by constantly pushing forward the boundaries of racing car design, in particular through a growing knowledge of aerodynamics. His story reveals the intense pressures which racing car designers endure as they seek to create cars which put them ahead of the game despite intense competition. He also recalls moments of great sadness following the loss of drivers in fatal accidents when safety standards at race tracks fell far short of today's acceptable level. The quantity and variety of the book's illustrations emphasize the versatility of the author's skills and their impact on single-seater and sports car design through some of the most interesting decades of racing car development. Teams for which the author was solely responsible for car design during his period of engagement were: AAR Eagle, BRM, Shadow, Arrows, Chevron, Theodore, Osella, Ford, TWR Jaguar, Toyota and TWR Nissan. In addition, he also contributed to the design and construction of cars of the Lola, Brabham, Lotus, Lister, Ferrari and Audi teams.

From Drawing Board to Chequered Flag by Tony Southgate