Cosworth

Cosworth is a British automotive engineering company founded in London in 1958, specialising in high-performance internal combustion engines, powertrain, and electronics for automobile racing (motorsport) and mainstream automotive industries. Cosworth is based in Northampton, England, with facilities in Cottenham, England, Silverstone, England, and Indianapolis, IN, US.

Cosworth has collected 176 wins in Formula One (F1) as engine supplier, ranking third with most wins, behind Ferrari and Mercedes.

The company was founded as a British racing internal combustion engine maker in 1958 by Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth. Its company name, "Cosworth", was derived as a portmanteau of the surnames of its two founders (Costin and Duckworth).

Both of the co-founders were former employees of Lotus Engineering Ltd., and Cosworth initially maintained a strong relationship with Lotus's Colin Chapman; initial revenues of the company came almost exclusively from Lotus. When the company was founded in 1958, Duckworth left Lotus, leaving Costin (who had signed a term-employment contract with Chapman) at the company. Until 1962, Costin worked on Cosworth projects in his private time, while being active as a key Lotus engineer on the development of Lotus 15 through 26 (Elan), as well as leading the Team Lotus contingent at foreign races, as evidenced by the 1962 Le Mans Lotus scandal.

Initial series production engines (Mk.II, Mk.V, Mk.VIII, and Mk.XIV) were sold to Lotus exclusively, and many of the other racing engines up to Mk.XII were delivered to Team Lotus. The success of Formula Junior engines (Mk.III, IV, XI, and XVII) started bringing in non-Lotus revenues, and the establishment of Formula B by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) allowed the financial foundation of Cosworth to be secured by the increased sales of Mk.XIII, a pure racing engine based on Lotus TwinCam, through its domination of the class. This newly found security enabled the company to distance itself from the Lotus Mk.VII and Elan optional road engine assembly business, and allowed its resources to be concentrated on racing engine development.

The first Cosworth-designed cylinder head was for SCA series; with a single overhead camshaft (SOHC) reverse-flow configuration, similar to the Coventry Climax FWE engine. A real success was achieved with the next gear-driven double overhead camshaft (DOHC) four-valve FVA in 1966, when Cosworth, with a help from Chapman, convinced Ford to purchase the rights to the design, and sign a development contract, including an eight-cylinder version. This resulted in the DFV, which dominated Formula One for many years.

From this time on, Cosworth was supported by Ford for many years, and many of the Cosworth designs were owned by Ford and named as Ford engines under similar contracts. Cosworth then went through a number of ownership changes. After Duckworth decided he did not want to be involved with the day-to-day business of running a growing company, he sold his stake to United Engineering Industries (UEI) in 1980, retaining his life presidency and day-to-day technical involvement with Cosworth, and becoming a UEI board director; UEI was a group of small- to medium-sized technology companies, which was taken over by Carlton Communications in 1988. Carlton was primarily interested in some of the audio-visual companies in the UEI portfolio, and Cosworth was a poor fit with these; a new buyer for the company in the engineering/automotive sector was sought, and the traditional engineering company Vickers plc bought Cosworth in 1990.

In September 1998, Vickers sold Cosworth to Audi. Audi kept the engineering, manufacturing and casting unit, which it called Cosworth Technology, and sold the race engine division, Cosworth Racing, and its electronics division, Pi Research, to Ford. In December 2004, Audi announced that it had sold Cosworth Technology to Mahle GmbH; the company was renamed as MAHLE Powertrain on 1 July 2005.