The Piper company was formed in 1966
by the late George Henrotte and Bob Gayler
they started the business from Campbells Garage in Hayes, Kent
trading as Piper Engine Developments
The logo of the Piper came from the trade mark
of Campbells Garage and it gave the new company it's name
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George had been a successful 500cc Formula 3 racer himself
and he had moved on up to running the works Gemini team
Bob Gayler was well known in the racing world for his expert preparation
and he added his technical genius gained from working at
Harry Weslake's research establishment and then with Baldyne Engineering
Ken Packham was a director of a local engineering company called Metallic Components
and he added his expertise and machining facilities to the new Piper company
Tony Hilder was an artist and was working as a freelance designer
and he had for a time worked at Specialised Mouldings
and also worked on projects for Lola and Brabham
His talents had been spotted by Bruce McLaren and he had been responsible
for the body design of the McLaren M1A sports-racer
Tony had designed his own car but he didn't have the facilities to build it
and he had been introduced to George by Peter Orr at George's request
and he joined the team as the body stylist and chassis designer
Tony Hilder is the son of Roland Hilder the renowned English landscape artist
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Rowland Hilder's paintings can be found on the covers of 1970's Shell guides
Along with the everyday garage services came a range of tuning accessories
George and Bob intended to offer race engine preparation
but being disappointed with the products that they could buy
started to produce their own range of tuning conversions
Piper designed the rigid whip free rocker assembly for high revving Ford engines
Not content with just supplying their own range of tuning conversions
the first Piper racing car was designed in 1966
as a rear engined open sports racer powered by a Alfa Romeo twin cam
This first car featured fresh new ideas from the team
and the company was able to design and produce all their own components in house
and a range of machined castings were made available to other race car builders
and Tony designed Pipers own unique trade mark style of mag alloy wheel rim
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Together with a growing range of tuning conversions and accessories
the small Piper company was attracting a lot of attention with the success
of the Alfa Romeo engined car that had been ordered by Gerry Hall
and an order came from Bobby Bell for a Lotus twin cam engined Piper
and another order came from the states from Jerry Titus for a Buick V8 powered car
At the same time a single seater Formula 3 car was designed
and the monocoque was constructed from a folded sheet of Mallite
The company was bursting with original ideas and even at this early stage
they were not afraid to undertake some big development projects
A group of club racing drivers approached Piper to design and build
a lightweight Sports-GT body chassis unit to take Austin Healy Sprite mechanicals
The project got underway and a model made by Tony Hilder was shown at the
1966 Racing Car Show Autospeed Show
but unfortunately with a change to the rules for the following season the group later pulled out
The original design was for a GRP monocoque
but they decided to take the safe route and build the car around a chassis
A full size mock up was exhibited along with the new F3 car
at the 1967 Racing Car Show and the response was encouraging
and around twelve firm orders were placed and a limited number were produced
The first few body shells were made up on the third floor
above the motorcycle dealers Boyers of Bromley
The units were winched down to the street on a Wednesday afternoon
because that was early closing day and there was less traffic around
Brian Sherwood was a clubmans racer who had bought one of the open sports cars
and he had taken it back to have it updated to the latest spec.
Brian was shown the new GT racer that could have the option of Sprite, Imp or Ford engines
Customers could then finish off the car themselves and go racing
some owners would even part trim the car out for road use
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Brian could see the potential of the new GT car but it should use Ford mechanical parts
and be fully built up by the factory and sold as a road car
Brian began to get more involved with Piper's and he spent some time
sorting out the assembly problems and then production continued
The success of the engine tuning side and an increase in orders for the cars
had led Piper's to outgrow their premises in Hayes
Brian had suggested that he could move the race car assembly into his own workshops
But George was more interested in the tuning and development than producing cars
and his reply was that Brian moved all of the car production over or nothing
It was decided that the company should split into two different operations
and Brian took control of the Piper road and race car production
and moved it into his larger workshops in Wokingham, Berkshire
Piper road cars were fitted with the Ford Cortina 1600 GT engine
and tuned with Piper modified cylinder heads and camshafts
Following the success of Piper Engine Developments they had also expanded
and moved into the former premises of Dan Gurney's All American Eagle F1 racing team in Ashford
and then they became what we all now know as Piper Cams
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