Oliver Carton Winterbottom (24 February 1944 – 6 November 2020) was a British automotive designer who designed cars for
Lotus,
Jaguar and
TVR.
Early years
Winterbottom was born in
Ashford, Kent. His father was born in
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines and between the rivers Irk and Medlock, southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham ...
,
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...
and attended school in
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...
before coming to England and public school. His father took up medicine and qualified at
St Mary's Hospital, Paddington where he met Oliver's mother who came from
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...
.
In 1952 Winterbottom was sent to boarding school in
Staffordshire and at the age of 11 he was committed to becoming a car designer after having made some preliminary attempts to draw a racing car in 1952.
He attended
Denstone College
Denstone College is a mixed, independent, boarding and day school in Denstone, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, England. It is a Woodard School, having been founded by Nathaniel Woodard, and so Christian traditions are practised as part of Colleg ...
like his father and had science on his curriculum, but also was a cross country runner and skilled marksman in the winter season. Towards the end of this college period his father accompanied him to
Jaguar Cars in Coventry to discuss an apprenticeship. He was accepted as an apprentice automobile engineer and in mid-September 1961 he started at Jaguar in Coventry in their apprentice school.
Career
At Jaguar, Winterbottom was part of the team that designed the XJ21 prototype that never reached production.
At Lotus, Winterbottom worked directly with
Colin Chapman
Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman (19 May 1928 – 16 December 1982) was an English design engineer, inventor, and builder in the automotive industry, and founder of Lotus Cars.
In 1952 he founded the sports car company Lotus Cars. Chapman ...
who appointed him to lead the design and safety engineering projects at Lotus Cars. Winterbottom designed the second generation
Lotus Elite
The Lotus Elite name has been used for two production vehicles and one concept vehicle developed and manufactured by British automobile manufacturer Lotus Cars. The first generation Elite Type 14 was produced from 1957 until 1963 and the second ...
wedge design and the
Lotus Eclat
Lotus may refer to:
Plants
*Lotus (plant), various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly:
** ''Lotus'' (genus), a genus of terrestrial plants in the family Fabaceae
**Lotus flower, a symbolically important aquatic Asian plant also ...
.
Winterbottom then worked with
TVR where he designed the
TVR Tasmin
The TVR Tasmin (later known as the TVR 280i) is a sports car designed by Oliver Winterbottom (coach) and Ian Jones (chassis) for TVR and built in the United Kingdom by that company from 1980 to 1987. It was the first of TVR's "Wedge"-series wh ...
launched in 1980.
Winterbottom returned to Lotus and designed the prototype
Lotus M90, (X100), but due to company problems, the car never reached production. He was also head of development for the
V8 engine
A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration.
The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and u ...
used in the
Esprit, project 918.
Winterbottom later became an automotive consultant and served as membership director for the
Coalition of Small Volume Automobile Manufacturers. As of December 2008 Winterbottom was working as a consultant for SAIC Motors in Shanghai.
Personal life
He died on 6 November 2020.
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Winterbottom, Oliver
1944 births
2020 deaths
People educated at Denstone College
People from Ashford, Kent
British automobile designers