A brief history of Piper Cars

Posted by John Mellberg September 28, 2020

A brief history of Piper Cars

The 1969 Piper GTT

The Piper marque, found it's start in a garage in Hayes, Kent, England. It was started by George Henrotte, former head of the Gemini Formula 3 racing team, in 1963. Their first offering was an open sports racer. It drew much interest and before long many other investors got involved. It was a purpose built, mid-engine racecar offered with Lotus Twin-Cam power.

The first road-going Piper was the GT, unveiled in January 1967. It enjoyed a very warm reception from the motoring press at the time. The car used a box section, steel, "back-bone" style chassis (a la Lotus), which was bonded to the body, and featured BMC components and A series engines, such as used in the Sprite. The body unit, with Chassis, was made available, sans drivetrain, for £399. Later Piper opted to fit Ford, rather than BMC engines. After some sorting, production of the GT's moved to Wokingham, Berkshire.

The roadgoing Piper was known now as the GTT and sold at £1,355 in complete component form with Ford 1,600 cc GT power with Piper Engineering Cams and modified heads. The core of the chassis was a box section, tubular spaceframe, with stressed panels at high load points. The independent, double wishbone, front suspension came from the Triumph Herald, while the Ford live rear axle was located by double trailing wishbones and anti-tramp rods. Front disc brakes, a set of specially designed alloy wheels, adjustable shock absorbers and luxurious interior trim were all included in the comprehensive kit. The smooth, aerodynamic fiberglass body no doubt inspired the company to quote optimistic performance figures of 0-60 mph in six seconds and a maximum of 120 mph.

Brian Sherwood's Piper Sports Racer coupe.

Another important name in Piper history enters the story in early 1967 – Brian Sherwood. He owned one of the Piper Open Sports Racers and took it back to the Hayes workshop to have it modified into a Coupe. He also offered to help with production of the GTT, joining in the effort to work out various issues with the fit and finish of the cars and make the product ready for sale.

One of the early Piper customers was a man named Bill Atkinson, who had bought an early GTT and made a number of further improvements to the design. Bill recalls, "It was an early shell, in British racing green, that I saw on my visit to Campbells Garage that started my interest in the Piper. I had driven my Rover 2000 down from the North East to have a modified cylinder head fitted". Upon bringing the car back to the factory at Wokingham, he presented his work to the team. This ultimately resulted in his hire as workshop manager and he eventually became a partner in the company.

In 1969 Piper unveiled a prototype of an ambitious group 6 racer, the GTR. It featured a monocoque construction with a chassis made from end-grain Balsa Wood, sandwiched in fiberglass to make a strong yet very light structure. The first car was powered by a 2 liter BMW engine and driven by Brian Sherwood, but it proved very unreliable. Nevertheless, two cars were planned to be entered for Le Mans 1969, but it was not to be. All efforts were then focused on the 1.3 liter car, which was completed just in time for Le Mans. The four cylinder Piper GTR was entered for Tim Lalonde and John Burton by Lalonde's Equipe Concorde. This meant that Sherwood, for whom the larger engine car was built, had to sit Le Mans out.

When the small team arrived at Le Mans, the Piper GTR was completely untested. Lalonde set out in the first practice session and immediately ran into trouble. The rear-mounted radiators were less effective than desired and the car ran hot. However, the Piper was blisteringly fast both on the straights and in the corners. As it stood, the car could not be sorted out in time and with only one driver qualified, the GTR was not allowed to start. That said, there was a rumor that the Piper was 7 seconds per lap faster than the French cars in their class so the officials went out of their way to get rid of the Piper.

1 of 4 Piper GTR Group 6 racecars.

In the midst of this, Piper suffered a terrible blow when, on the evening of Dec 18, 1969 Brian Sherwood was tragically killed in a car accident on the A20 in Kent, close to Brands Hatch. In the wake of this, Bill Atkinson and his friend Tony Waller took the helm of the company and ceased any further racing activities.

The company reconstituted itself as Embrook Engineering and renewed their focus on refining the GTT. The result of their efforts was the P2, a purpose built road car which added 6 inches to the overall length of its predecessor and a strengthened fiberglass body.

The GTT's bulge in its hood was replaced with a scoop and the pair of headlights were changed to quad units under Perspex, initially. Later, the sealed headlights gave way to new regulations and were replaced with pop-ups to meet new height requirements. It was a luxuriously appointed grand tourer boasting Ford Power and Weber carb's.

Piper P2's in a row, including later models with pop-up headlights

Production moved to a larger facility in Lincolnshire and the GTR was even resurrected as a basis for their foray into the, just erupting, Bug craze sweeping the specialty car industry. Atkinson was also working on a new model, the P3.

The introduction of VAT forced Piper to switch from component to turnkey cars. Initially, the company's future looked promising, but issues with external suppliers and the economic conditions of the day presented an increasing challenge. Meanwhile, Waller and Atkinson went into partnership with two other individuals in a new venture to produce bathroom fixtures, so the company was dissolved in 1974.

As such, the P3 did not see the light of day. In all around 100 cars were produced. There were an estimated 20 of their various racecars, 4 GTR's, 38 GTT's, and 41 P2's produced.
Bill Atkinson and Tony Waller continued working together until 2013, when they decided to retire from their business. Bill continued working, designing and selling kitchens, for a couple more years. As he tells it, "Having reached 72 and working since I was 14, I decided to retire myself. I am still working in my garage, of course, but at least it is doing things that I am interested in". Bill has worked on the restoration of a number of cars, including a Piper and a TVR, in recent days. His current project is an old Vauxhall 14.

Today the marque's legacy is preserved by a close knit community of owners in the Piper Owner's Club, who possess a new, much improved, chassis jig to make both GTT and P2 chassis as well as glass and Perspex screens and the original body molds, all of which are a great help to would-be restorers and owners needing spares.

Note: This article originally appeared in the UK Edition of Rare Component Cars in 1998, but has been updated for accuracy and enhanced with additional detail.
Special thanks, for certain information and various images used, go to Bill Atkinson and Andy Czakow of the Piper Club.

Pipers at a track day!

The Piper P2, in early configuration.

An early P2 with a custom air dam and interesting paintwork.

The Piper P2, in early configuration with Perspex covered headlights.

The Piper P2, in early configuration with Perspex covered headlights

Members of the Piper Owner's Club, including Bill Atkinson at far left.

The Piper Sports Racer.

The Piper P2.

The Piper GTR Group 6 racecar

Brian Sherwood's BMW powered Piper GTR.

The engine bay of a Piper P2,
showing off its Piper Cam setup.

An example of Piper's first purpose built road cars, the GTT.
Note the shorter wheelbase and bulge in the hood,
which denote this car from later P2 models.