Duckhams Cosworth

Having secured a sponsorship deal with Duckhams Oil to pay for at least some of the expenses, de Cadenet commissioned Murray to design a bespoke DFV-engined sports prototype using as many of the suspension components of the Brabham BT33 as he could. In true wheeler-dealer fashion, he then sourced the engine at McLaren – the very V8 that had powered Bruce McLaren to victory in the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix. De Cadenet could borrow the engine under the condition that he had a fresh-faced McLaren engineer rebuild it to see if this work could be done in-house. As de Cadenet’s luck would have it, this young engineer was John Nicholson, who would become the foremost preparer of DFV engines for decades to come.