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Men Who Make Transport

21st April 1961, Page 32
21st April 1961
Page 32
Page 33
Page 32, 21st April 1961 — Men Who Make Transport
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

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HAT do you regard as the qualities most needed in the chairman of an international organization directly concerned with the needs of the motor industry? I put this question to • Mr. David Brown, the chairman and managing director of the David Brown Corporation, and his • simple, yet complete, reply of:

Leadership, imagination, stability, good health and even temper" just about puts into a nutshell his own qualification .

He is a man who has stood at the helm of his family business for 33 years and built it up from a small factory engaged in gear manufacture, employing just over 1,000 men, until today the corporation's 14 factories employ over 12,000 people. Under the able leadership of Mr. David Brown the growth of the organization has been swift and purposeful.

But, unlike most men who have reached such a position and find themselves getting on in years, he feels he has only just got going and does not think he has done all he wants to do./ This is the driving force of this inquiring. forward-thinking expansionist-minded industrialist.

The company came into being in 1860, when it was founded by the first David Brown, grandfather of the present chairman, who, at the age of 17, started making wooden patterns for gear wheels. Before long the founder's three sons, Ernest, Frank and Percy, joined the company, and in 1921 the second David Brown, son of Frank Brown, started work, also at the age of 17, as an apprentice in the Huddersfield works.

He was at school at Rossall, but his technical education was completed at Huddersfield Technical College, where he passed the membership exams—" only just," he claims— of The Institute of Mechanical Engineers and The Institute of Automobile Engineers.

• After a thorough soaking in the business" he progressed from foreman, assistant works manager, works manager, to a director in 1929 and, eventually. in 1932 he was appointed managing director.

Shortly before the war David Brown designed and built a tractor from scratch and introduced it in 1939 at the Royal Show at Windsor, when orders for 3,000 were taken. Since then the.tractor side has expanded continually, the production now being 300-350 units a week, and it is hoped to increase this shortly to 500 a week.

It was in 1945 that David Brown made an unexpected move when he took over the -manufacture of the Aston Martin and Lagonda cars. It has resulted in many spectacular 'successes by Aston Martin on the 'racing circuits of the world, coupled with the revival of both marques in production-car form. In fact, a new Lagonda ,model is hoped to be introduced shortly.

The acquisition of •these two companies meant that David Brown had a chance to take a more practical interest in what was, and always will be, his passion—motorcars. It all began in the late 1920s when he acquired the parts of a. Vauxhall-Villiers supercharged special and assembled these on a chassis of his own design. He drove this car many thousands of miles without experiencing any mechanical trouble and achieved several successes in races and sprint meetings.

It is understandable that in town work David Brown uses a chauffeur-driven Lagonda, but frequently in his monthly trips from his office in Piccadilly to the many factories in the Huddersfield area he drives himself in an Aston Martin. On other occasions he is flown in the company's aeroplane, a de Havilland Dove, to their private airstrip just outside Huddersfield. Although he still holds a pilot's licence, David Brown does not often fly himself as there are no airfields in the London area for private aeroplanes and the Dove has to be kept some way out of town.

His leisure hours are spent mostly on his 700-acre farm in Buckinghamshire, where he breeds and trains hunters

and racehorse's. for riding is among the most important of his enthusiasms. His most famous winner was the steeplechaser Linwell, which won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1957. During the winter he spends most week-ends hunting with the South Oxford hounds, for whom he is joint Master, and in summer he plays polo at Ham Club and with the Household Brigade at Windsor. During more leisurely week-ends his time is spent on his 200-ton diesel motor yacht " Astrornar " (from the words Aston Martin), which is based at Poole Harbour.

One of the admirable gifts to which Mr. Brown confesses is the rare ability of being able to relax when the opportunity occurs. He can even take 40 winks in the back of a car. and it is this happy quality of being able to take a little time off to think, or even to stop thinking, that allows him to make a clear decision when it is needed and contributes towards a comfortable old age.

It is rare for the son of an already prosperous business man to succeed to a fortune and a comfortable industrial business and to build up a structure as considerable as that which David Brown built upon the inheritance he gained from his family.

Quietly In Control Sitting in his spacious office facing Green Park, he does not appear to be typical of the business tycoon—nor is he. Instead of strident and bustling, he is quiet, almost diffident, in manner, but at all times gives the impression of being in complete control of the situation. At 57 years of age David Brown might pass for eight or 10 years younger.

However, there are a number of characteristics in David Brown that are not at first apparent. His diffident manner hides a remarkable degree of tenacity, and only in this way has he been able to succeed. By his facility for simplification he can reduce even the most difficult of problems to essentials and, because he can think clearly, he can also talk clearly—and vice versa.

In a philosophiz:a I sense he is not a profound man. His reading is limited to practical papers or books with a contemporary appeal. But he is a man who combines a practical forward vision with knowledge, experience and wisdom. In short. David Brown is shrewd and relaxed. and bent on improving and expanding his flourishing family business.


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