40 years of Prodrive: tracing the story of motorsport success

It’s hard to find a definition that adequately covers every part of David Richards’ Prodrive firm – and that’s awkward, as this year it celebrates 40 years of more or less continuous business success, including some of the greatest moments in UK motorsport history. Prodrive’s own brochure description of itself as “the world’s leading independent motorsport company” only goes partway towards doing the job. It certainly encompasses the company’s best-known successes, such as winning enough WRC rallies (46) for Subaru in 18 years to change the entire shape and public perception of the Japanese brand and scoring seven Le Mans class wins and 11 GT titles for Aston Martin since setting up a race programme in 2004. Yet it fails to cover a plethora of other activities. Your long-wheelbase Range Rover Autobiography might well have a mechanised cocktail cabinet made in Banbury. Your Gazoo Racing sweatshirt, your e-bike or your Ian Callum-designed driving simulator could all have had their beginnings there. Maybe Prodrive’s composites department made the immaculate carbonfibre body parts for your £100,000-plus British luxury saloon too. About 15 years into its existence, explains Richards, Prodrive started seeing opportunities in high technology and quality manufacturing and has specialised in such things ever since. In the beginning, there was no plan. Richards’ business career started when he received a last-minute offer to rush to Kuwait and finish organising a car rally for Rothmans, the sponsor. The timing was perfect: at the age of 23, he had just finished his accountancy articles and was having “a kind of sabbatical” co-driving in rallies with Tony Pond. The deal needed instant commitment: he needed to be on the plane the following day. But there was a downside: the previous organiser had been shot. Still, Richards accepted, and things went so well that Rothmans was soon back on the phone asking him to organise a bigger series of events in Qatar. And that worked too. This is an early example of one of his long-held beliefs: “You have to see opportunities as they come – and they will – then grab them with both hands. The trick is not to be risk-averse.” Richards’ business involvement increased, but his participation in rallies continued for a few more years. He dealt well with opportunities to manage other rally projects, notably for Fiat and Ford. Along the way, he became fast friends with rising Finnish star Ari Vatanen, and the pair became top competitors themselves, winning the 1981 WRC title in a Rothmans Ford Escort. After that, Richards matter-of-factly decided that business appealed more than the peripatetic life of a pro rally co-driver (“having two young children made that kind of life pretty fraught”).