This 60s Racing Icon Was a Firefighting Pump FirstFelix Russell-SawThe Lotus 21 dates from F1's tiniest era, with a 1.5-liter engine and a curb weight under 1000 pounds.Felix Russell-SawWithout racing, Coventry Climax would be an obscure historical footnote. Founded in Coventry, England, in 1903, it was originally a car company called Lee Stroyer. This endeavor wasn't successful. So founder Pelham Lee soon switched to making engines for small manufacturers and at some point afterward rebranded the business as Coventry Climax. In addition to supplying engines to the likes of Triumph and Morgan, another revenue stream was engines for industrial machinery and portable fire pumps.This story originally appeared in Volume 36 of Road & Track.Hearst Owned - Hearst OwnedDuring World War II, Climax-powered pumps played a vital role fighting fires amid the Nazi Blitz bombing raids that devastated Britain's industrial heartland, with the city of Coventry suffering the worst destruction. But it took another conflict to move the story on. Fearing nuclear apocalypse in the run-up to the Korean War, the British government commissioned a man-portable fire pump with twice the power but half the weight of existing designs, light enough to be carried by two firefighters.AdvertisementAdvertisementCoventry Climax's answer to that challenge was an all-new engine created under the leadership of technical director Walter Hassan, who had worked for Bentley during its Le Mans–winning heyday. Alongside him at Coventry was chief engineer Harry Mundy, whose previous experience included working on the BRM Formula 1 team's supercharged V-16.A Coventry Climax Featherweight fire pump in its carrying frame. Featherweight it is not.Felix Russell-SawClimax's new Featherweight (FW) four-cylinder would be humbler than those race units but packed with innovation, using, for example, an aluminum block and cylinder head, as well as a chain-driven overhead camshaft. Those were radical ideas in Britain at a time when most mainstream cars used overhead- or even side-valve engines. First run in 1951, the FW instantly exceeded expectations, producing 40 hp at 4000 rpm while weighing just 180 pounds, complete with the pump it powered and a carrying frame. Climax won the contract, with the government placing a 5000-unit order."It has sometimes been suggested that we laid down this engine with an eye to racing usage, but I can state quite definitely that this was not so," Hassan wrote in his excellent 1975 autobiography, Climax in Coventry: My Life of Fine Engines and Fast Cars.Simple gauges on the Featherweight. It could pump 420 gallons per minute at 100 psi.Felix Russell-SawThe FW's specifications won wider attention when Climax exhibited it at the '53 Earls Court auto show. Cyril Kieft, builder of Kieft Cars racing machines, requested a version for his lightweight sports racer, and Climax boss Leonard Lee agreed to allow the development of an automotive version, the FWA. This got a tougher forged-steel crank, a higher 8.8:1 compression ratio, a distributor ignition in place of a magneto, and twin SU carburetors. Those changes raised output to a claimed 71 hp at 6000 rpm from 1.1 liters of displacement. At the '54 24 Hours of Le Mans, the FWA-powered Kieft Sports lasted more than 10 hours before retiring with a broken axle. The fire-pump engine was racing.The FPF engine in the back of the Lotus 21 has a twin-cam head and a much stronger block than the FW. It originally made 151 hp from 1.5 liters.Felix Russell-SawDemand from other small teams was strong, and nearly 700 FWAs were produced for motorsport. The FWA and its successor, the FWB, also served as the basis for the FWE engine fitted to the Lotus Elite road car.AdvertisementAdvertisementIn parallel to the FWA, Hassan and Mundy started work on an F1 V-8 engine, the FPE, only to abandon the project after believing reports of Ferrari's and Maserati's optimistic power claims. With a projected 250 hp from 2.5 liters, the FPE would almost certainly have been competitive. But the announcement of a 1.5-liter Formula 2 class for '57 became the impetus to use much of the V-8's development work to create a new four-cylinder.Classic Team Lotus arranged for R&T to borrow both the car and the sheet, plus the warehouse for this photo shoot.Felix Russell-SawThis new FPF essentially combined an uprated version of the FW's block, with five crank bearings and wet cylinder liners, and it had the twin-cam cylinder head that had been intended for the V-8. The FPF was quickly promoted to F1 when the privateer Rob Walker Racing Team used an enlarged 2.0-liter version in a Cooper chassis at the '57 Monaco Grand Prix, with Jack Brabham running as high as third before ultimately placing sixth after a fuel-pump failure left him pushing his car to the finish.Hearst OwnedBy the following year, the FPF was winning. Stirling Moss drove another Rob Walker Cooper to victory at the '58 Argentine Grand Prix. Then Maurice Trintignant won in Monaco. With Walker, Cooper, and Lotus all wanting an FPF with more power, a 2.5-liter version was created. It dominated the next two seasons of F1, powering Cooper and Brabham to back-to-back constructors' and drivers' championships.The round logo depicts Lady Godiva, who, according to legend, rode naked through Coventry in the 11th century to protest excessive taxation.Felix Russell-SawA reduced 1.5-liter capacity limit in '61 required another redesign. Climax was working on a new racing V-8, but it wouldn't be ready in time, so a downsized FPF was produced. It couldn't match the power of the Ferrari V-6 yet still took three wins, two of those for Moss in a Rob Walker Lotus. The third win was the first for Team Lotus itself: Innes Ireland drove the Lotus 21 featured here to victory at the '61 United States Grand Prix held at Watkins Glen.AdvertisementAdvertisementNow owned by Dan Collins, who regularly competes with it in historic racing, the car is looked after by Clive Chapman's Classic Team Lotus. When Clive, Lotus founder Colin's son, learned that Road & Track wanted the car for a photo shoot, he ordered it returned as closely as possible to its condition when it won at Watkins Glen. That included removing the branding, as well as the modern rollhoop and FIA-mandated safety light. He also wanted to take off the air cleaners that sit over the carburetors, as Sixties racers breathed unfiltered, but the team couldn't find the right-size Allen key. So please imagine they aren't there.The win delivered by this Lotus 21 was followed by 73 more for Team Lotus. The most recent came courtesy of Ayrton Senna at the '87 Detroit Grand Prix.Felix Russell-SawIn the flesh, the Lotus 21 looks both beautiful and impossibly tiny. The modest power of the 1.5-liter era—this FPF made just 151 hp in its original spec—dictated a minimalist approach well matched to Lotus's pared-back ethos. Every detail is perfect, a tribute to Classic Team Lotus's expertise, although the near-total lack of crash protection for the driver is obvious.The interest in historic motorsport means it is much easier to track down a race-winning F1 car from the Sixties than it is to lay hands on what was a much more numerous fire pump from the same era. So huge thanks to Iain Harpley, a British gearhead who bought an original Coventry Climax Featherweight pump 17 years ago as "something to tinker with" and allowed R&T to borrow it for this story. In contrast to the race car, the FW fire pump with its carrying frame feels large and cumbersome, filling the rear of a Toyota Land Cruiser. It's heavy enough for three people that it inspires plentiful respect for any pair of Fifties firefighters expected to lug one across broken terrain. Yet the same spirit of innovation connects both machines. This really was an era when British engineers were likely to ask "why not?" rather than "why?"Coventry Climax's racing glory would be short-lived. The company withdrew from F1 after the failure of a project to make a hugely complex flat-16 engine. It was then absorbed into Jaguar, where Hassan and Mundy were reunited to work on Jag's production V-12. The Coventry Climax name was still used on industrial machinery, including forklift trucks, until it was absorbed into the morass that was British Leyland.AdvertisementAdvertisementThere are still hundreds of Climax engines out there, many competing in historic motorsport. Chris Gilbert, the U.K. engineer cited by Classic Team Lotus as the go-to guy for all matters Climax, says they remain outstanding powerplants. "They're reliable, they're simple, and they've got plenty of torque, which is unusual for a race engine," he explains. "I constantly have conversations with customers who want more power, and I say that you don't. You want drivability, you want speed out of a corner—that's where the lap-time benefit will always come from."A car-lover's community for ultimate access & unrivaled experiences.JOIN NOWHearst OwnedYou Might Also LikeIf You Can Only Own One Car, Make It One of TheseThese Are the Most Popular Cars by State