John Piper

A teenage obsession and desire to push my own vehicles beyond their original performance parameters led me to a successful career in high performance design and engineering.


After graduating from Kingston Polytechnic with an Engineering degree my career to date includes F1 and Le Mans sports cars, World Rally Cars and Superbikes, Electric Hybrid Supercars and a World Land Speed winning vehicle.


I have now returned to the passion of my youth with the experience and expertise to transform what are now classic cars into vehicles fit for the new age of motoring.

This is me straight from graduating in engineering from Kingston Poly as a weekend mechanic for a club racing driver.

I joined Williams as a design engineer at Williams F1 working on the prototype Metro 6R4 Group B rally car for British Leyland.

Dave Price Racing Formula 3 Team my first job as a mechanic with a professional team.

Moved to Benetton F1 as a design engineer for their F1 gearboxes and suspension dampers.

Progressed to race engineer at Williams F1 for Nigel Mansell during the ‘85 season and designed the gearbox for this car the FW10.

Asked by Ross Brawn the Technical Director, to join TWR for the Jaguar XJR14 Group C sports car as Chief Designer to lead the design of the transmission system and day to day management of the design office. Winning Le Mans with the team in 1990 and the World Championship in 1991.

Recruited as Founder Technical Director of Prodrive Engineering and led the design of the four wheel drive system for the Subaru World Rally Car.

I spent a year as the Race Engineer for the Harrods sponsored McLaren F1 GTR sports car finishing in 3rd place at Le Mans 1995 with Derek Bell, Justin Bell and Andy Wallace driving.

‘Best Car Prize’ at the Detroit motor show. Chief Designer of the Ford Indigo Concept car at Reynard Racing Cars.

I formed Reynard Special Vehicle Projects with Adrian Reynard, and as Technical Director one of our major projects was the Panoz GT1 Le Mans sports car.

Established Piper Design as a consultancy in London and designed and built the Foggy Petronas World Super Bike for Petronas.

Piper Design was chosen by Suzuki to undertake the build of the concept prototype of their new GSXR 600.

In 2005/6 JCB recruited me to be Chief Designer of the JCB Dieselmax setting a new land speed record of 350mph at Bonneville Salt Flats.

I returned to Williams in their Advanced Engineering Division as Lead Engineer to set up the powertrain team for the design of the prototype Jaguar CX75 hybrid super car.

The venture capital arm of Lloyds appointed me as their Technical consultant on the board of directors for their sponsorship of Marussia F1 team.