Peter Elleray (born 30 June 1958) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

engineer and race car designer particularly known for designing the

Bentley Speed 8 The Bentley Speed 8 (developed from the Bentley EXP Speed 8) was an Autosport Award Winning Le Mans Prototype race car that was designed by Peter Elleray. The EXP Speed 8 debuted in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2001 and won the race in 2003. I ...

race car. Elleray, who worked for Racing Technologies Norfolk (RTN), also designed the

Audi R8C The Audi R8C is a Le Mans Prototype racecar that was built by Audi and designed by Peter Elleray to compete in the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans under the LMGTP category. It was developed alongside the open Audi R8R LMP category spyder, prior to bein ...

and the British Radical SR9. On 14 September 2007, his involvement was announced in the design of the WF01-Zytek for

Embassy Racing Embassy Racing was a British auto racing team founded by Jonathan France in 2003. Initially created as a conjunction with Xero Competition in the British GT Championship, the team expanded to become an independent team and began to win races ...

, which had a best finish of 4th in its LMP2 category at the 1000 km of Nürburgring during the 2008 Le Mans Series season.

Biography

Elleray attended

Hutton Grammar School Hutton Grammar School is a voluntary aided Church of England day school for boys, with a co-educational Sixth Form. It is located south west of Preston, Lancashire, in Hutton, England. It provides education for boys from the age of 11 to 16, an ...

before earning a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemati ...

from Durham University in 1979. After spending several years in the

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astr ...

field, Elleray took a job with

Tyrrell Racing The Tyrrell Racing Organisation was an auto racing team and Formula One constructor founded by Ken Tyrrell (1924–2001) which started racing in 1958 and started building its own cars in 1970. The team experienced its greatest success in the ...

in 1982 analyzing ground effect tunnels. In 1983 and 1984, he was involved with amateur racing teams before being employed as a designer and

race engineer A race engineer is a motorsport team member who analyses data to achieve the best performance from the vehicle and driver. The race engineer communicates with the team's data analyst, mechanics, and driver, both between and during races. Off the ...

by Arrows F1. In 1999, he became Chief

Designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

for Bentley's prototype program.

Designing the Bentley Speed 8

According to Elleray, he had the basic ideas for the Bentley Speed 8 even before launching the design work in August 2001 with Gene Varnier, the assistant chief designer on the project. By 2003, the vehicle had evolved to accommodate a change from Dunlop

tire A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide traction on the surface over which t ...

s to Michelin tires and also to adapt the front diffuser to the doored-

coupe A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...

design. The ''Los Angeles Times'' praised Elleray's design as exhibiting a "kind of inexpressible British flair and beauty." The car received the Autosport Racing Car of the Year Award for 2003, the first non-F1 car for 14 years to win the award, breaking Ferrari's streak.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elleray, Peter Living people English engineers 1958 births People educated at Hutton Grammar School Formula One engineers Alumni of Collingwood College, Durham