Paul Emery

November 12, 1916 - Chiswick, London -- February 3, 1992 - Epsom, Surrey (age: 76)

	2 Aspenlea Road, London
	Paul Emery working on a 2.5-litre Connaught engine for a historic racer
	Engine shop
	Assembly and general shop

Emery:

• arch-special builder
• Formula 1 driver
• 500 c.c. constructor and driver
• Connaught driver
• you name it, he's done it

This indefatigable special builder from the 1950s built a wide variety of cars under the Emeryson banner, and competed in the 1956 British Grand Prix in an Alta-engined machine.

After WW II, Paul Emery took over Emeryson Ltd. from his father, George Emery, who had been building racing specials since the 1930s. Emeryson Ltd was bought by American Hugh Powell in 1961. Emery agreed to stay on as the designer. For 1962 Powell established Scirocco-Powell Racing. 'Emerysons' were renamed Sciroccos and fitted with BRM engines. Paul Emery remained involved until the end of the year. He then turned his attention to engine-tuning while his brother Peter carried on the family tradition of building racing cars with the Formula Junior Elfin.

Paul Emery and Willy Griffiths (who came from Roger Nathan) went straight to work on the Imp and got a motor together that was very fast indeed.

After the Imp appeared in 1963, Paul Emery Cars specialised in making the Hillman Imp and Singer Chamois extremely fast. He announced in 1963 a rather neat little GT coupe, built round Imp mechanical bits and pieces. At the time of the article in CCC, Oct. 1965, they were in the process of making one for an American customer.
In 1964 they produced the Emery GTI. Paul Emery Cars prepared and tuned Imps to all shapes and sizes for road and competiton use, as well as marketing the GTI as a sort of complete car.

In 1964, he appeared at the Racing Car Show with a lowered, rakish line in hot Imps.

The machine shop, even though it's tiny, has a crank-grinding machine and a vertical mill: reboring is done on the premises. The Emery men tackle their own blocks, cranks and pistons, which are usually special castings of their own. Rootes pistons are rarely used, although in some capacities it fits nicely. In the 998cc engine, the Rootes 72.5mm bore is just the thing for the job.

Lowering the roofline is also done on the premises. They do it often enough to be very good at it, and the cutting and re-welding can't be detected.

For the Nürburgring race of early September 1965, the two Emery Team cars were prepared with a transistor ignition system, developed by Willy Griffiths and based on a system by Klinger Controls Ltd. This was expected to improve sparking over 6000 revs.

Tony Lanfranchi drove an Emery lowered roof line Imp, February 13th 1966 at Brands Hatch. He lost against Bernard Unett in a Fraser Imp, who set a new class record. (Club racing, All Saloon car meeting)

Presumably Paul Emery himself in an Emery Imp at the Snetterton circuit - event and year unknown.

1964 Nürburgring 500 Km

6 September 1964 - Nürburgring (D): Round 7, International Championship for Manufacturers (Division I)
22 laps of a 14.174 mile/22.810 km circuit - 311.817 miles/501.820 kms were completed
Weather: rain

NRF = Not Running at finish
DNA = Did not arrive

500 km Nurburgring 1965

Two Emery Imps were entered in the Le Mans 24 Hour Endurance Race of 1965 in the 1300cc class. They were to be driven by Paul Emery and Chris Lambert. They were not accepted.

(What about competition numbers 90 and 96 ?? mention on the Merica site...)

1965 Le Mans 24 Hours Competitors & Results

24 h Le Mans
Race: 13,461 km * 348 laps = 4677,110 km
20 June1965
12th round of the 1965 World Championship source

Pos.  NO  Driver / Nationality  Car                   Entrant     Laps Time/retired    Group   Practice
      69 Chris Lambert / GB     Emery - Hillman Imp   Paul Emery        Not accepted   P1.3

an advert in Autocar, 26 November 1965: Performance + Imp & Chamois conversions ! Why not out-Imp and out-Chamois all your fellow drivers ? Show them something new and unexpected from a car like yours: a dazzling acceleration, a catch-me-if-you-can top speed. The secret's simple. A Paul Emery conversion gives your car a sporting chance. Stage I to stage IV. Four steps up the high performance path give you the raciest little car you've ever owned. With conversions ranging from as little as £27.10.0 Paul Emery-upmanship is cheaper than you dare to think. Why not write to find out more ? PAUL EMERY CARS 2, Aspenlea Rd. Fulham W.6. FUL 2763

Norbert Dietsch worked for the late Paul Emery. He also decided to enter himself as a driver and raced for around 4 years across the UK in Oval circuits where they averaged 16 seconds per lap on 1/4mile Oval circuit! This was either on a shale, tarmac or concrete track in a car that only had a 1150cc Hillman Imp Single Overhead Cam engine.

Graham Davies worked for Paul Emery. He came from Richard Miles (Downton, London), doing A40 tuning. On Downton Engineering Works he writes:

The best race of my life was @ Brands Hatch, it was the last race of the year & we had already won the 1300cc Championship. BMC asked if we would fit a 1000cc motor for this race to try & beat the Fraser Imps, that had been running rings around the Minis all year. We did ! After practice the grid was: front row the 2 Imps with the A40 in the middle & that's the way the race went. The people in the stands were standing & cheering on the battle. We came 2nd & all 3 cars were within a few feet of each other at the finish. When the car got back to the paddock area, you could see tyre marks on both sides of the body from the Imps. Great Race. Of course I then went onto work with Imps with Paul Emery. The above period was 1964-66.

	1965
	CCC, September 1968
	1969 September

Literature

Emery GTI. - Cars and Car Conversions 1965, March
Testing the Emery GTI

Testing the Emery GTI. - Cars and Car Conversions 1965, March

Cut 'n' shut / photography by Elisabeth Lewis; Max Le Grand. - Small Car 1965, February. - p.46-47
Emery Imp: Watch out, it burns (Road test)
4 photos: Elisabeth Lewis at Putney Reach, London and Max Le Grand at Brands Hatch, Kent

E is for Emery : improved (and how) Imps : the tuners. - Cars and Car Conversions 1965, October. - p.257-258

Imp improvements. - Cars and Car Conversions 1966, September. - p.185-188
About the accessories and equipment available for the Imp.
reprint in Unique Master Portfolio. - p.46-49
according to reprint dated 1967

• Jack Knight (Developments) Ltd
• V.W. Derrington Ltd
• Roger Nathan
• Lynton Garage
• Mangoletsi
• Arden Conversion
• Paul Emery Cars
• Taurus
• etc.

Some converted Imps we have tried. - Car and Car Conversions 1966, September. - p.195-196
Emery stage 1; Hartwell stage 3 (CLJ 195C) ; Nathan's Impudence II (317 XOV)
Reprinted in Unique Master Portfolio, p.64-65 (quoted as from 1968)

Fit an Imp : want a light-weight 'cammy' motor in your 'A' series car? - Hot Car 1971, September
how to change your A-Series engined car to Imp power.
The driving force behind doing this is because a Paul Emery 1100 Imp engine Dastle can not be caught by a Ford 1300 Dastle which shows how impressive the Imp engine is and a better alternative to Ford or BMC engines. Being a one page article it does not have much information. It particularly looks at fitting to a late series BMC A series gearbox as fitted to the Spridget and Minor and shows how to convert the bell housing and modify the sump to take the vertical installation.
For a picture see the Stevenage Imp Club AC

Paul Emery. - Thoroughbred and Classic Cars 1976, June
interview

Paul Emery - Grand prix driver
Emeryson Cars Ltd.
Emeryson 500 Paul Emery - Formula1 Driver
Colin Chapman's single Emeryson appearance (good reading)
Paul Emery - F1 / Designer
How André Pilette managed to fall into the Emery trap for the second time / Mattijs Diepraam