"Tributes paid to Coventry engineer who helped revolutionise the automotive industry"

[dutchman]

Robin Price will be remembered as a distinguished automotive transmission engineer, all-wheel-drive expert and enthusiastic private pilot


Robin Price (third from right) with Ferguson Formula One racing car at the Ferguson Formula book launch in 2019

Tributes have been paid to a Coventry engineer who helped to revolutionise the automotive industry.

Robin Price was a renowned transmission engineer who helped to pioneer ground-breaking, four-wheel drive technology.

The 78-year-old died of Covid-19 just days short of his 79th birthday on December 26 at University Hospital Coventry. His illness and death followed a long battle with cancer.

Mr Price will be remembered by many as a distinguished automotive transmission engineer, all-wheel-drive expert and enthusiastic private pilot.

Born in Coventry on December 30, 1941, Mr Price left school at 15 in 1956 and started a five-year apprenticeship as an aeronautical engineer at Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft at Baginton.

In 1971 he joined a new company called FF Developments (FFD) based in Siskin Drive, Coventry, as a design engineer then project manager.

Mr Price was involved in all FFD projects undertaken from its early days of converting Opel Senators to all-wheel drive patrol vehicles for the British Army and transforming Bedford chassis cabs from the Vauxhall Luton plant into 4x4 utility vehicles.

He was instrumental in developing the prototype Ford Sierra 4x4 also Group B and then Group A rally cars.

FFD was particularly proud of its all-wheel-drive engineering for the prototype AMC Eagle, which became the first mass-produced car with full-time four-wheel drive, beating the Audi Quattro to market by several months.

In 1987 Mr Price helped to secure a contract with General Motors to transform its Astro and Safari minivan to an all-wheel-drive variant known as the L van, which entered series production at the Baltimore plant in Maryland in the United States.

This all-wheel-drive production engineering programme was a first for GM and another significant commercial project for FFD.

Mr Price was a global ambassador for FFD.

The P99 Ferguson Climax [pictured above] was the first successful all-wheel-drive Grand Prix car, and it remains the most famous example because of its twin claim to fame of being also the last front-engine car ever to win a Grand Prix.

In 1994, soon after the sale of FFD to Ricardo, Mr Price joined the motorsport transmission technology company Xtrac to manage the Opel Calibra racing car gearbox project, which then was Xtrac’s most complex four-wheel drive transmission system.

When that project finished at the end of 1996, he set up Xtrac’s non-motorsport activities, which over time developed into the successful High-Performance Automotive (HPA) business unit that today accounts for more than a third of Xtrac’s business.

Mr Price’s wife Nicky died in 2016. They are survived by their daughters Michelle and Jackie and two grandchildren - Michelle’s daughter (18) and son (15).