Drivers

Paul Emery

George Emery began building racing specials in the 1930s, his son Paul working as an apprentice with the business. After the war the pair built a prototype single-seater which was powered by a Lagonda Rapier engine, which dated back to 1934 and which produced prodigious amounts of horsepower. The first Emeryson was quick and Eric Winterbottom won with the car at the Gransden Lodge airfield circuit in 1947.

The Emerys then planned a car for the new F1 regulations but as there was no money to build it, they turned instead to the new Formula 3 and Emeryís innovative thinking and resourcefulness enabled the company to sell a number of customer cars. One of these cars was later converted for Formula 2 and fitted with an Aston Martin engine and the car ran in several Formula 1 races, notably in the hands of a rising engineer called Colin Chapman.

The car was later fitted with an Alta engine and Emery himself raced it in British Formula 1 events and by 1956 this was a very competitive car. Emery duelled Stirling Moss for victory at Crystal Palace that year, Moss driving a Maserati 250F! At the British GP Emery was able to take on several of the Maserati 250Fs but the car suffered engine trouble early in the race. That was the zenith of the Emeryson story and by 1958 Emery turned his attention to racing Connaughts for a new team owner called Bernie Ecclestone.

In 1960 however a group of racers agreed to fund the construction of a new series of Emeryson cars. The team took over the Connaught factory in Send, near Woking, in Surrey and started out with an F2 car and in 1961 built a Coventry Climax-engined F1 car. Several cars were sold to the Ecurie Nationale Belge. A Formula Junior car proved to be quite competitive and a young Mike Spence made his F1 debut with an Emeryson before the team was sold to the American Hugh Powell. Emery stayed on to design cars which became the Scirocco F1 cars.

The family tradition continued with his son Peter building Elfins. Emery died in 1992.