Racecar Engineering - November 2005

GWR Predator
Labour of love
One man’s quest to build the ultimate hillclimber resulted
in a car the cynics said would never work. Yet, with
patience, it looks like it might succeed
Words & images Simon McBeath
Seeing him drive a racecar, no one would
doubt the commitment of the 2001/02
British Hillclimb champion,
Aberdeenshire’s Graeme Wight junior.
But this commitment was tested when the driver
turned constructor decided to install a V10
Formula 1 engine into his new creation. Plenty of
‘expert’ advice warned against constructing a car,
never mind using a virtually current F1 engine. But
undeterred, Wight Jnr can now bask in the glow of
satisfaction as he receives plaudits for a fine job
done, even though the stunning GWR Predator is
far from sorted yet.
Completed literally on the eve of its first event,
and at the time of writing after just six closelypacked
events of the 2005 British Hillclimb
Championship (and zero testing), the car has
demonstrated teething problems aplenty, and
some paddock cynicism regarding the basic
concept remains. But assuredly, potential is
beginning to show...
Wight jnr’s 2001/02 championships were
attained in a Gould GR51 powered by a 2.5-litre,
ex-DTM Richardson Cosworth V6 (see Racecar
V10N10). But in 2003 the GR55 emerged from
Gould Engineering, with 3.3-litre Nicholson
McLaren NME V8 power (based on the Cosworth
XB CART engine of 1992, see V14N10). Adam
Fleetwood pedalled one such car to the next two
titles. In 2003 only Wight Junior’s GR51 could keep
in touch on a regular basis, but it was now clearly
underpowered. For 2004 the NME V8 was
enlarged to 3.5-litres, increasing the power deficit
to over 150bhp. By then Wight jnr had commenced
his own project.
But why build an entirely new car? Why not fit
a bigger engine to his Gould, the champion
manufacturer since 1998? ‘It was something we’d
toyed with for a long time,’ said Wight jnr, whose
father Graeme (the boss) also drives, ‘partly to be
“[MARTIN OGILVIE’S]
PCD SAXON BASICALLY
DID IT FOR ME
”
fully in control. But I also enjoy working on the
cars I drive so we thought we’d design our own.
And we also felt we could market something up
here in Scotland.’
Our old car had great handling but it was
underpowered for its weight. So our first concept
was to build a smaller, more nimble package using
the same V6 engine. We’d talked with various
hillclimb car manufacturers, including Gould, but
none of them had what we envisioned. Even an F3
car has lots of intrinsic deficiencies compared to
what you could build. Then we spoke with [former
Team Lotus F1 chief designer] Martin Ogilvie at
Prototype Car Designs. His PCD Saxon basically
did it for me. It was a great advert, so we hired
Martin to take control of the design.’
Readers will recall the Ogilvie-designed 1100cc
PCD Saxon profiled in V11N7 that weighed just
208kg and which subsequently became a class
record holder. For his part Ogilvie was ‘excited
and pleased to be asked, in preference to the
established manufacturers, by the then current
champion to design a car.’
38 November 2005 Racecar Engineering
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