Interview: Tony Southgate

Tony Southgate began his lengthy career in motorsports by joining Lola Cars in the early days of that venerable marque’s existence. The young Englishman became the first drawing office employee of founder Eric Broadley’s growing company, a firm that would serve as fertile ground for a number of aspiring young engineeers and designers at the beginnings of their careers. Among the projects Southgate was responsible for during his time at Lola was drawing the Mk VI GT car that ultimately served as the basis for the Ford GT40. Deciding to leave Lola, Southgate traveled across the Atlantic to join Dan Gurney’s still-new All American Racers concern, just in time to draw the Eagle Indycar that registered AAR’s first Indianapolis 500 win. A variation of that same design also won the first two championships of the USA’s new Formula A (Formula 5000) series, and among Southgate’s other briefs at AAR was the design of the second Eagle Formula One car, although it never saw the light of day when the program was canceled. Wanting to get back into F1, Southgate left AAR after 1969 and returned home to England to work for BRM, drawing the P153 Formula 1 car that gave that historic firm its last hurrah in the World Championship. He then went on to work for Shadow and Arrows and Jaguar, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. VR’s Mike Jiggle recently sat down with Southgate for an extensive review of his time in the sport, and that discussion will be presented in several installments spread over the coming year, of which this is the first.

You started with Lola, in the early days, with Eric Broadley. I imagine in very different surroundings to the Lola offices of today?