Keith Greene

The son of Gilby Engineering boss Sid Greene, Keith Greene was born in Leytonstone on the 5th January 1938 and had a successful career in sportscars plus raced in Formula One from 1959 to 1962. He participated in six World Championship Grands Prix and numerous non-Championship races and after retiring from driving he became a team manager and in a rich and varied career would go on to mastermind success in BTCC, F1 and Le Mans.

His father Sid raced, though at the age of 16 had lost an arm in an accident with a bus whilst riding a delivery bike, and would hold the steering wheel of his supercharged MG TA between his knees while changing gear at high speed. However, after a complaint was raised, questioning his ability to control a car, he lost his racing licence though continued contesting sprints and hillclimbs. During the war he served as an aircraft recognition instructor in the Observer Corps, rising to the rank of acting Wing Commander RAFVR and after the war returned to racing and continued until 1953. During this time Sid had built up the Gilby Engineering company, and had been a successful entrant of a Frazer-Nash Le Mans Replica, with which Stirling Moss won the 1951 BRDC British Empire Trophy. Following this came a Maserati 250F and Maserati A6GCS sports car with which Roy Salvadori enjoyed considerable success in the mid-1950s. Keith would accompany his father to races, where he worked as a wheel polisher and pit signaller, recalling how they would “leave Essex for Oulton Park at dawn, stop halfway for eggs and bacon, and no speed limits.”

Keith himself began racing in minor events when he was 17 and went on to enjoy increasing success over the next few years. In 1955 he took a class win at the Stapleford Hillclimb with a Cooper Climax while results in 1956 with the T39 included victories at Brands Hatch and Goodwood Handicaps, second at Goodwood, fourth at Silverstone, fifth at the inaugural Mallory Park meeting plus sixth and eighth place finishes at a Brands Hatch meeting in October.

Most of his racing in 1957 was centred on Goodwood, taking a handicap victory plus two seconds, a third, fourth and seventh and strong results earned him runner up status in the prestigious Motor Sport Brooklands Memorial Trophy to Innes Ireland. He was fourth at Snetterton and had a class win at the Stapleford Hillclimb plus drove a Lotus Sports to second place at Goodwood. He was fourth in one outing with the Gilby Maserati 250F at a Snetterton Formula Libre race in late August, recalling “I’d never driven it before and queuing up for practice oil started pouring out of the gearbox. The lads took it to bits, rushed into Norwich, knocked up an engineering shop to mend it, and got back just before the race. I lined up at the back of a big motley Formule Libre grid. I had no idea what revs to use off the line so I asked Archie what he thought. Max revs was about seven-two so he said, ‘Try six’. When the flag fell I swallowed about eight cars before I even realised I’d started. What a fantastic car. You could go through the old Coram Curve without any effort in a perfect four-wheel drift, thinking you were Fangio. You weren’t, of course. But the brakes weren’t up to much. At the end of the Norwich Straight I was standing up in the seat on the brake pedal, with the bank and the spectators rushing up, going down the box to slow it for the hairpin.” He finished fourth. The Maserati was eventually sold, complete with spare engine, wheels and coach transporter, and eventually went off to Australia.”

He mostly raced a Lotus 11 in 1958 though in one outing with a Lotus 12 he finished ninth at the Kent Trophy at Brands Hatch. He enjoyed a fruitful season with the 11, with three wins and six second places at Goodwood, three wins at Brands Hatch, a second place at Stapleford Hillclimb, third at Snetterton plus seventh in the British GP sports car race. After a season long battle he again finished second in the Motor Sport Brooklands Memorial Trophy. In shared drives Keith was at the Nurburgring 100km to race alongside David Piper in a Lotus Type 15 and finished fifteenth (and fifth in class) then was tenth with Mike Taylor in September’s Tourist Trophy at Goodwood with a Lotus 17.

He contested Formula 2 in the next year with Gilby Engineering’s Cooper T43 and in his first race in March he was eighth at the Lavant Cup at Goodwood. In April he was tenth at Oulton Park’s British Empire Trophy and in the following week at a strongly supported Aintree 200 he was sixth (and second in the F2 class, behind Michael Taylor). He was ninth in the GP Pau and sixth at Mallory Park then in mid July he returned to Aintree with the T43 for the British GP but did not qualify. August saw a second place finish at Whitchurch Airfield near Bristol, to the similar car of Henry Taylor though in two races at Brands Hatch he retired from the John Davy Trophy and did not qualify in the Kentish 100. He was third at a Snetterton Libre race though retired in October at Brands Hatch. In sports cars, an early season trip to the Gran Premio di Napoli at Posillipo with the 11 saw third place (behind the OSCAs of Giulio Cabianca and Walter Breviglieri) in May and twelfth in the Coupe Delaware Deboutteville at Rouen in July. The year saw his Le Mans debut but despite him and Alan Stacey running strongly in the Team Lotus 17 they retired on lap 156 due to engine problems. They had been looking good for the Index of Performance but he described how “we were leading by miles on Sunday morning when the water temperature started to go up. You weren’t allowed to add oil and water within a set number of laps, which was controlled in the pits by a plombeur who sealed the fillers. I went slower, trying to make it last, but eventually it seized.” Reunited with D.Piper for the Nurburgring 1000km the pair were twenty ninth in Piper’s Lotus 15 and in a shared drive with a Team Lotus 17 he was eleventh alongside Tony Marsh at September’s Tourist Trophy at Goodwood. In other Lotus 17 outings that year, he was sixth and fourth at Brands Hatch plus won at Snetterton.

Frustrated by the Lotus 17 (describing it as “a piece of garbage”) they hired Len Terry to help cure the car’s handling problem and they soon launched their own Gilby-Climax sportscar. This came out in 1960 and with Len Terry’s design, chassis work by Jack Knight plus Williams and Pritchard bodywork, Keith said it “was a sweet little car, went really well.” Racing Gilby’s Cooper Maserati in 1960 there was a retirement at the Glover Trophy at Goodwood and he made his first GP start in July at Silverstone but retired on lap twelve due to overheating. Further drives in a Cooper brought F1 and Libre wins at Snetterton and twelfth in the Silver City Trophy at Brands Hatch. Unfortunately there was a major accident at Silverstone where he crashed heavily on the opening lap at Abbey. The car travelled along a ditch, then flipped and continued upside down but he luckily emerged relatively unscathed with just minor cuts and a headache. Undeterred by this accident, he was at the Nurburgring 1000km with Doug Graham the following weekend in a Taylor Crawley Lotus Type 15 and the pair finished eighteenth (and third in class) from sixty seven starters. There was one race in an Elva 100 in Formula Junior at Silverstone though this drive ended after thirteen laps due to engine problems and outings with the Gilby Sports saw a victory at Snetterton, second at Mallory Park, third at Aintree and Silverstone and a class win at the Stapleford Hillclimb.

In 1961 he missed the Lombank Trophy in March as the Gilby Climax was unavailable though in the following month he was eleventh at Goodwood’s Glover Trophy and thirteenth at the BARC Aintree 200. There were retirements from May’s Gran Premio di Napoli due to an accident on the fifth lap and at Brands Hatch’s Silver City Trophy in June due to mechanical problems on lap thirty two. He was back at Aintree in July for the British GP, where he qualified twenty third and finished fifteenth while highlights came with a win and second place at Snetterton Libre races in July and August plus second at Whitchurch. He was sixth at the end of August in a non championship Danish GP at Roskilde and fourth in both a Goodwood Libre race and at Brands Hatch’s Lewis Evans Trophy in October. In several outings in a Porsche 356/356B Carrera he was eleventh at the Trophy d’Auvergne at Clermont Ferrand, fourteenth at Oulton Park and eighteenth at the Peco Trophy at Brands Hatch. He was seventeenth at the Tourist Trophy and was scheduled to race the car at the 1000km Nurburgring with D.Piper though they did not attend. Alongside the Porsche there was one outing with a Lotus Elite at the Fordwater Trophy at Goodwood.

Early races in 1962 produced a fourth place finish with the Gilby Climax at the Lombank Trophy at Snetterton, fourth and seventh at Goodwood’s Lavant Cup and Glover Trophy plus fourth at the Brussels GP (taking ninth and fifth (twice) in the event’s three heats). At the end of April he was tenth at Aintree’s BARC 200 then followed it with fifteenth at Silverstone’s Daily Express International Trophy and seventh at the Gran Premio di Napoli. In an outing with a BRM powered car in May, he finished an excellent third in the Naples GP (behind the works Ferraris of Willy Mairesse and Lorenzo Bandini). He also raced the car at the German GP at Nurburgring and was running ahead of Jo Siffert and Nino Vaccarella until the front suspension broke and he went through a hedge, fortunately being uninjured. Although he was at the British GP he never raced but drove John Dalton’s Lotus 18/21 during practice, which was driven in the race by Tony Shelly. There were seventh place finishes in the Crystal Palace Trophy and Mediterranean GP at Enna-Pergusa but using a BRM powerplant he retired from the Oulton Park Gold Cup due to a gearbox oil leak and, in what would be his final GP entry, failed to qualify at Monza. Keith did not consider the BRM V8 as a match for the factory cars and thought it not much better than his 4-cylinder Climax engine. Unfortunately, this was the end of the line for Gilby Engineering as the firm had run into financial difficulties and closed its doors at the end of 1962.

Keith then concentrated on sports cars and had a successful season with a Lotus 23 in Sports and Libre races in 1963, with wins at Brands Hatch and two at Snetterton. He was second in a British GP Sports car race and the Lavant Cup, third at Aintree, Crystal Palace and the Guards Trophy plus had two fourth place results at Oulton Park. He was third in class with a Ford Cortina at an Aintree saloon car race and in shared drives in an MG Midget there were fifteenth place finishes at the Nurburgring 1000km with Alan Foster and at the Tourist Trophy alongside Andrew Hedges.

Continuing with the MG Midget in 1964 he was eighth at Oulton Park and thirteenth in the Whitsun Goodwood while two outings at Nurburgring produced sixth (and third in the 1300cc GT class) at a 500km event with Alan Foster and twenty fourth with Andrew Hedges in the 1000kms. He and Andrew Hedges reunited for the following year’s Nurburgring 1000km in the MG and were twenty seventh while co-driving an Austin Healey Sebring Sprite with Clive Baker they finished sixth at the Nurburgring 500km event. There was also one outing in Alan Foster’s BMW in the British Saloon Car Championship, finishing tenth at the British GP meeting.

In two races at Brands Hatch in 1966 he was eleventh in a Peter Sellers Racing Lotus 35 in May at the Les Leston Formula 3 Trophy at Brands Hatch then seventeenth at the end of August at the Les Leston International Trophy Support Race with an Alan McKechnie Racing Cooper T83. There was another Saloon Car Championship drive in May where he finished eighth at Silverstone with Alan Foster’s BMW 2000 Ti against a strong field including Jacky Ickx, Peter Arundell, Anita Taylor, John Rhodes and Chris Craft.

Sharing Robert Ellice’s Uptune Lotus Elan 26R, there was a fifth place result in the Milford Films 500 at Brands Hatch and he and Henri Perrier were twenty fourth (and second in class) in a Porsche 911 at the Nurburgring 1000km. He and John Hines teamed for two races in 1967 with a Lotus 47 though their Nurburgring 1000km and the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch races ended due to mechanical issues. Then, in a one off return to the Saloon Car Championship in 1971, he was sixth in a Wylie’s of Glasgow Ford Escort RS 1600 at Snetterton.

As his career as a driver wound down he still remained very much involved in the motor racing industry. becoming a team manager in F1 and sports car racing, and one of the most highly regarded team managers in the business. Gilby Engineering produced shock absorbers for Armstrong, which at one time supplied the majority of the F1 grid, and Keith eventually became their Competition Manager. He would go to all the Grands Prix, “carrying in the back of my Cortina the shock absorbers for every team except Ferrari and Honda, who used Konis. I did all the settings for the different cars and circuits.” This in turn led to him becoming team manager at Alan Mann Racing and they would go on to dominate the British Saloon Car Championship in 1967 and 1968, overseeing the Ford Falcons, Lotus Cortinas and Escort twin-cams driven by Frank Gardner. Running the Falcons in 1967, he told how “Frank was fantastic, always the clean white socks, always the dead-pan Aussie humour. And brilliant at sorting the car. During practice he’d come in; ‘It’s like a sack of shit around Paddock, KG. What’ve you done to the castor angles?’ So we’d play with things a bit, adjust this, adjust that, he’d go out again, and we’d be on pole by a second and a half.” From there Keith moved to Broadspeed, then Alain de Cadenet’s Ecurie Evergreen, Bernie Ecclestone’s Brabham team (with Graham Hill, Carlos Reutemann and Wilson Fittipaldi as drivers), John Fitzpatrick Porsches, Gordon Spice’s Capris, Richard Lloyd’s GTi Engineering, works March-Nissans, the Toyota World Sports Car programme for three seasons in Japan and at Le Mans, Vic Lee Motorsport’s BMWs in the BTCC, the BTCC Renault team, Courage-Porsches at Le Mans in 1996, Callaway Corvettes for Rocky Agusta plus he also ran Jonathan Palmer’s Bruntingthorpe organisation.

Regarding his years of managing, he said that “being a good team manager isn’t about being tough on people. I always had infinite patience with mechanics and drivers. You need to understand what they’re saying and thinking and translate that into a better performance. Having been a driver yourself helps a lot.” He stated he stopped competing as a driver “because, racing against Moss and Clark and Gurney, I knew I wasn’t good enough. Getting a group of guys to pull together, coaxing a victory out of all of them, that gave me a true feeling of achievement.” Living on the Isle of Wight, Keith enjoyed sailing, both full-size boats and radio-controlled models but passed away after suffering a cardiac arrest on the 8th March (just 17 days after his lifelong friend Chris Craft).