William Bernard Unett (22 July 1936 – 21 January 2000) was a British racing driver and development engineer, three times winner of the
British Saloon Car Championship
The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by TOCA. It was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and was renamed as ...
in 1974, 1976 and 1977.
[British racing drivers club]
Unett was born on 22 July 1936 in
Wolvey
Wolvey is a village and parish in Warwickshire, England. According to the 2011 census it had a population of 1,942, which increased to 2,121 at the 2021 census.
The village is located on the Warwickshire/Leicestershire border in an outlying pa ...
, Warwickshire. His parents ran a farm and it was being around, then helping repair the farm machinery sparked his interest in mechanics. Instead of following his parents into farming, he joined
Humber
The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between t ...
as an apprentice at the age of 15 which was part of the
Rootes Group
The Rootes Group or Rootes Motors Limited was a British automobile manufacturer and, separately, a major motor distributors and dealers business. Run from London's West End, the manufacturer was based in the Midlands and the distribution and de ...
organisation. He became development engineer, one of a select few, known as 'The Set 'em Alight Boys' due to Rootes Chief Test engineer Don Tarbun's expression 'For **** sake, set 'em alight', often exclaimed by him when facing difficulties. Unett was deputy head of the department for the development of the 'series'
Sunbeam Alpine
The Sunbeam Alpine is a two-seater sports roadster/drophead coupé that was produced by the Rootes Group from 1953 to 1955, and then 1959 to 1968. The name was then used on a two-door fastback coupé from 1969 to 1975. The original Alpine was ...
in 1958–1959.
Career
![Bernard Unett's first racing car Sunbeam Alpine XRW 302](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Bernard_Unett%27s_first_racing_car_Sunbeam_Alpine_XRW_302.jpg)
He began motor racing in 1961. After competing and crashing in a disastrous Club rally, Rootes competition manager
Mike Parkes
Michael Johnson Parkes (born 24 September 1931 in Richmond, Surrey; died 28 August 1977 near Riva presso Chieri, Italy) was a British racing driver, from England. Parkes was born into an automotive background as his father John, was Chairman of ...
encouraged Unett to attend a race meeting at the
Goodwood Circuit, leading him to buy his first racing car, a
prototype from the Alpine development programme registration number XRW 302. After developing it for racing it was in this car that Unett won his first trophy in 1964, the '
Freddie Dixon
Frederick William Dixon (21 April 1892 – 4 November 1956) was an English motorcycle racer and racing car driver. The designer of the motorcycle and banking sidecar system, he was also one of the few motorsport competitors to have been success ...
Challenge Trophy', one of the biggest prizes in motor club racing at the time. The history of this surviving prototype can be found here. The site also has a film and pictorial history of Bernard Unett's career.
By 1965 Unett was married with three children and helped out on his parents' farm when there was time for relaxation. He was now working at Rootes' new technical centre at Whitley where he worked on vehicle evaluation under Graham Robson. During his four years there he was closely involved with the birth of the Hillman Avenger, doing a lot of the road testing. Unett also began racing for the Alan Fraser racing team, who developed the
Hillman Imp for racing from 1964 onwards, competing principally against the
Mini Cooper S
The Mini is a small, two-door, four-seat car, developed as ADO15, and produced by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successors, from 1959 through 2000. Minus a brief hiatus, original Minis were built for four decades and sold during ...
. The team were soon having great success in surprisingly standard Imps. Unett, in a 998 cc Imp, was soon showing a 1299 cc Mini Cooper S the way around the track at the motor show 200 meeting. (The Imp was much better on the corners.)
In 1966 Alan Fraser signed a three-year contract with Rootes to manage their British and overseas racing programme, with Rootes Competitions department manager Norman Garrad continuing to manage the Rally programme. Unett was soon setting lap records in the Imp at
Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently host ...
. At the 1966 Easter meeting he set a lap record of 59.8, an Imp becoming the first car in its class to lap Brands in under a minute, and also won the Edward Lewis Trophy. By August the team had won 16 first places, 2 seconds and 7 class lap records. Unett had also won the Westover Saloon car Championship, a 'free formula' Saloon car series run at Brans Hatch, with 41 points.
[http://www.imps4ever] The Hillman Imp led in the British championship series.
Unett was also having great success racing a
Sunbeam Tiger
The Sunbeam Tiger is a high-performance V8 version of the British Rootes Group's Sunbeam Alpine roadster, designed in part by American car designer and racing driver Carroll Shelby and produced from 1964 until 1967. Shelby had carried out a ...
, registration number ADU 180B, in the 1965 season. It was one of the two ill-prepared Tigers that had an embarrassingly short outing at the
Le Mans 24-hour race the year before. Unett, having modified the car, had little trouble beating the competition, receiving glowing press reports. In just over 20 races he had eleven outright wins, nine-second-place finishes and never failed to get placed. He just fell short of winning the
Autosport championship in the final race of the competition, due to a broken fan belt and a broken rear axle. Details of this surviving ex-Le Mans car can be found her
For the 1966 season Unett and Alan Fraser built what was to become known as the 'Monster Tiger'. Driven by Unett and other drivers, it was very competitive, winning many races outright. But Unett lost out on a major title, using his original Tiger as in the previous year, in the very last race of the Autosport 1966 championship. Unett also finished 2nd overall in the Fred W Dixon Marque Trophy in the Monster Tiger.
[British Racing Drivers Club] Continuing to race what were now highly developed Fraser Imps in 1967, Unett won the Grovewood 'Redex Gold Cross' championship. and came 5th overall in the
1967 British Saloon Car Championship season,
battling it out with Ralph Broad's
Broadspeed
Broadspeed Engineering Ltd was a British automobile tuning and engineering company that operated from Sparkbrook, Birmingham, England, principally during the 1960s and 1970s. It was started and run by Ralph Broad, and first became well known for ...
Anglias. In 1968 the take over of Rootes by Chrysler, tougher competition and changes in the rules severely limited the Fraser Imp team's activities and success. After venturing into Formula 5000 in 1969 and 1970, Fraser retired from racing, moving to
Tenerife
Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...
.
Unett went on to race in the single seat Imp powered Vixen cars that dominated the
BP Formula 4
FIA Formula 4, also called FIA F4, is an open-wheel racing car category intended for junior drivers. There is no global championship, but rather individual nations or regions can host their own championships in compliance with a universal set of r ...
championship in 1968, the Vixens winning the first 6 places, With Unett winning the
BP title.
[Car and car conversions June 1977] In 1969 Vixen decided to enter
Formula 3. Unett already had a brief go at Formula 3 using a Lotus 31 in the '
Les Leston
Alfred Lazarus Fingleston (16 December 1920 – 13 May 2012), better known as Les Leston, or in full Leslie Leston, was a British racing driver, born in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire.
Early life
In his early life Leston was a successful drummer f ...
Championship' in 1967, and he started to develop a Holbay powered car for Vixen. However, Unett crashed the car at
Silverstone on its first test and that's as far as the project got. Although walking away uninjured from quite a wreck, Unett then temporarily retired from competitive racing, becoming chief racing instructor at
Mallory Park
Mallory Park is a motor racing circuit situated in the village of Kirkby Mallory, just off the A47, between Leicester and Hinckley, in central England. Originally used for grass-track until 1955, a new, basically oval hard-surfaced course ...
. Unett was a last-minute stand in for a three-man private entry for the
1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally
The 1970 London-Mexico World Cup Rally was the first of two World Cup Rallies to be held and the second of four marathon rallies to be held in a nine-year period beginning with the 1968 London-Sydney Marathon. The motor rally started at Wembley ...
, using a Hillman Hunter. They got as far as
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
before crashing out in a collision with a wood truck.
To end his retirement in 1971, Unett planned a big comeback in
Formula 5000
Formula 5000 (or F5000) was an open wheel, single seater auto-racing formula that ran in different series in various regions around the world from 1968 to 1982. It was originally intended as a low-cost series aimed at open-wheel racing cars tha ...
. He was to buy a
Lola Cars
Lola Cars International Ltd. was a British race car engineering company in operation from 1958 to 2012. The company was founded by Eric Broadley in Bromley, England (then in Kent, now part of Greater London), before moving to new premises in Slo ...
T 142 from racing driver Derek Williams. Williams rolled the car and was killed, ending the deal. His comeback finally came in 1972 with Unett as Rootes' chief Works diver also in charge of the re-financed Rootes competition workshop, with Des O'Dell as competition team manager. The department had 'closed' shortly after their big win with the
Hillman Hunter
Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products ( fur/ hide, bone/tusks, horn/antler, ...
in the
London to Sydney Marathon in 1968, due to Rootes' mounting losses. O'Dell actually run it on a shoe-string budget relying on competition parts sales for finance until Works backing was reinstated in 1972.
Adopting the name Bernard 'Tiger' Unett (with a tiger script, then later, a tiger logo on his crash helmet) he was class winner in the 1972 '
Britax
Britax () is a British manufacturer of childcare products including car seats, pushchairs and high chairs.
History
The company began making automotive safety equipment and accessories in 1938, as well as importing car and motorcycle accessorie ...
' Saloon car championship in a MOPAR Hillman Avenger. Unett also had great success in a Hillman Hunter. A film made in 1972 called 'Some go quicker than others' (available on YouTube) featured Unett, Des O'Dell and the Chrysler Dealer team Hunters in a heat of the
Castrol
Castrol is a British oil company that markets industrial and automotive lubricants, offering a wide range of oil, greases and similar products for most lubrication applications. The name ''Castrol'' was originally just the brand name for co ...
Production Saloon car series, in which Unett was competition winner in his class in 1973.
Also in this year, Unett entered a Hillman Hunter in the Avon/Motor magazine 2000 mile Tour of Britain, with Brian Coyle as co-driver, and finished First in class, 9th overall.
His biggest success came with the
Hillman Avenger
The Hillman Avenger is a rear-wheel drive small family car originally manufactured by the former Rootes division of Chrysler Europe from 1970–1978, badged from 1976 onward as the Chrysler Avenger. Between 1979 and 1981 it was manufactured by ...
in the Rootes (later Chrysler) works Dealer Team managed by Des O'Dell, with which he won the
1974 British Saloon Car Championship season. Unett won the 1600cc class on eight occasions, with victories at Brands Hatch,
Mallory Park
Mallory Park is a motor racing circuit situated in the village of Kirkby Mallory, just off the A47, between Leicester and Hinckley, in central England. Originally used for grass-track until 1955, a new, basically oval hard-surfaced course ...
,
Snetterton
Snetterton is a village and civil parish in Norfolk, England. The village is about east-northeast of Thetford and southwest of Norwich. The civil parish has an area of . The 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 201 people living in 74 h ...
, the
Thruxton Circuit
The Thruxton Circuit is a motor-racing circuit located near the village of Thruxton in Hampshire, England, United Kingdom, about 30 miles north of Southampton.
It has hosted motorsport events including the British Touring Car Championship, B ...
and Ingliston. Also in '74, he was first in class and 11th overall in the 'Access'
RAC Tourist Trophy
The RAC Tourist Trophy (sometimes called the International Tourist Trophy) is a motor racing award presented by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) to the overall victor of a motor race in the United Kingdom. Established in 1905, it is the world's ol ...
and with co-driver Geraint Phillips, Unett won his class, was 13th overall and took the manufactures team award in the Avon/Motor magazine 2000 mile Tour of Britain.
In 1975 Bernard Unett was elected to the British racing drivers club,
but the 1600cc Avenger was not competitive enough to get consistent results against the newly introduced Toyota Celica and finished up with only three class wins and out of the top three in the Saloon Car championship. However, in the Avon/Motor magazine Tour of Britain, Unett (with Co-driver Neil Wilson) came first in class, Third overall and his team won the 'Trade Team' award for Halesfield motors.
Unett sidestepped the Toyotas in the following two years by dropping a class racing a 1300 cc car. MOPAR, the parts and accessories firm sponsored the car, with Unett himself running the operation from his Wolvey home with mechanic Tony Bradshaw and Unett's wife Joan who managed the team. They went on to win the
1976 British Saloon Car Championship season and the
1977 British Saloon Car Championship season.
[Autosport 19 January 1978] in a 1300 cc
Chrysler Avenger, Chrysler having taken over the ailing Rootes group.
In the 1976 championship, Unett had a run-away victory, with ten class wins in ten races. In the 1977 championship Unett won his class nine times against increasingly tough opposition from the Mini of
Richard Longman
Richard Arthur Longman is a British racing driver and renowned motorsport preparation expert. He was twice champion of the British Touring Car Championship (then known as the British Saloon Car Championship) in 1978 and 1979 driving a Mini 1275 ...
. Eventually results ended in a tie with Unett and
Tony Dron having 52 points each. A protracted dispute followed due to loose wording in the rules for point awarded for fastest lap, but after some weeks, Unett was declared champion for the third time. To add to confusion that has lasted to this very day the new sponsor, Tricentrol, changed the name of the championship from 'Touring car' to 'Saloon car' championship in 1977.
Unett began to compete in rallies and in 1977 he took part in the
Galway International Rally
The Galway Rally, Galway International Rally is an annual motorsport tarmac rallying event held in Galway, Ireland. Promoted and organised by Galway Motor Club, the rally was first ran in 1971. The Galway International Rally is the oldest Inte ...
using Hillman Avenger modified for group 1, finishing 6th overall and winning the team prize with Robin Eyre-Maunsell and Derek McMahon.
[Galway Advertiser archive] He also entered the Manx rally (now called the
Rally Isle of Man) in an Avenger with Paul White as co-driver, finishing in 6th place with 13021 points. In the same year, Unett was awarded the very first
British Racing Drivers' Club
The British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC) is an exclusive invitation-only members club for racecar drivers who are judged to have achieved success in the upper levels of motor sport for a number of seasons. Except under exceptional circumstances, me ...
'Silver Star', one of the UK motor sports most prestigious awards. In 1978 Unett did the development testing for the
Chrysler Sunbeam
The Chrysler Sunbeam is a small supermini three-door hatchback manufactured by Chrysler Europe at the former Rootes Group factory in Linwood, Renfrewshire, Linwood in Scotland, from 1977-81. The Sunbeam's development was funded by a UK Governme ...
Lotus, which was renamed the
Talbot
Talbot was an automobile marque introduced in 1902 by English-French company Clément-Talbot. The founders, Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury and Adolphe Clément-Bayard, reduced their financial interests in their Clément-Talbot ...
Sunbeam Lotus when
Chrysler sold the company to
Peugeot
Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis.
The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and the ...
. Unett and co–driver Terry Harryman took a works development 8-valve Brazilian Sunbeam (WRW 29S) to
Galway
Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a city in the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay, and is the sixth most populous city on ...
to compete in the 1978
Galway International Rally
The Galway Rally, Galway International Rally is an annual motorsport tarmac rallying event held in Galway, Ireland. Promoted and organised by Galway Motor Club, the rally was first ran in 1971. The Galway International Rally is the oldest Inte ...
, but crashed out in appallingly wet weather, with only a handful of cars reaching the finish line.
Unett became involved in world class competition when The Sunbeam Lotus took part in international rallying, going on to win the
RAC Rally
Wales Rally GB was the most recent iteration of the United Kingdom's premier international motor rally, which ran under various names since the first event held in 1932. It was consistently a round of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) calen ...
in 1980 in the hands of
Henri Toivonen
Henri Pauli Toivonen (25 August 1956 – 2 May 1986) was a Finnish rally driver born in Jyväskylä, the home of Rally Finland. His father, Pauli, was the 1968 European Rally Champion for Porsche and his brother, Harri, became a profess ...
and the
world rally championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...
(manufacturer) 1981, (teams again being managed by Des O'Dell)
with Unett being development engineer, test driver and part of the roadside rally support team. Some of the Coventry development team (including Des O'Dell and Paul White) then moved to Paris to work on competition cars including the development of The Peugeot 205 turbo 16, the first purpose built four wheel drive rally car. Unett remained in Coventry and in 1981 worked on the development of the Talbot Samba for rallying, but this project was abandoned the following year, ending competition participation in Britain for several years. At the end of 1984, Peugeot Talbot announced a return to rallying in Britain through a dealer team, involving Bernard Unett in the task developing the Peugeot 205 Gti for rallying in group 'A'. Having been promised a Group 'B' car, in mid 1984 Unett took a squad of mechanics to Paris to work on the 205 turbo 16 set aside for the British rally dealer team. It was the car Bruno Saby had used on the Safari Rally so was in need of quite a re-build. The 205 Gti first competed in the 1985 'National Breakbown Rally', first leg of the 'RAC Open Championship', drivers being Louise Aitken-Walker and Mikael Sundstrom, but neither finished. Aitken-Walker managed a class win in the following Irish rally. Then, in time for the Scottish rally, the 205 turbo 16 was ready, where Sundstrom drove the car to victory. The 205 turbo 16 went on to win both the constructor and driver titles in the
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...
in 1985 and 1986, drivers being
Timo Salonen
Timo Salonen (born October 8, 1951) is a Finnish former rally driver who won the 1985 World Rally Championship season for Peugeot. It was commented of him that he stood out from other drivers, because he was overweight, wore thick glasses and smok ...
and
Juha Kankkunen
Juha Matti Pellervo Kankkunen (; born 2 April 1959) is a Finnish former rally driver. His factory team career in the World Rally Championship lasted from 1983 to 2002. He won 23 world rallies and four drivers' world championship titles, which we ...
respectively,
under the Paris-based team. Unett also co-ordinated the 'Sunbeam Ti Challenge' series, a competition for less experienced young rally drivers, using an uprated version of the road going 205 Ti model. Unett was forced into retirement in 1988 when a back injury he suffered in a shunt ended his direct involvement in motorsport.
[autosport 27 January 2000] In 1995 Bernard Unett became a Life member of the British racing drivers club.
Bernard Unett died of cancer in 2000.
Racing record
Complete British Saloon Car Championship results
(
key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)
† Events with 2 races staged for the different classes.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unett, Bernard
1936 births
2000 deaths
English racing drivers
British Touring Car Championship drivers
British Touring Car Championship Champions