Doug Nye: The shed that spawned Tyrrell’s Formula 1 championship winners

On the soggy Sunday morning at the Goodwood Revival meeting one of my earliest memories flashed back to me. It was around 1948-49, when tiny me was raised from bed by my mum to look out the window. Against an inky sky brilliant searchlight beams were sweeping from some point beyond the house roof opposite.

We lived in Guildford, Surrey. Mum explained the beams were “just like the war”. Next day I asked where they’d come from. The answer was Stoughton Barracks, on its hill a mile west from us.

I could not know that amongst the wooden wartime huts in the Barrack grounds were two which, around 10 years later, would be sold off to a local round-timber merchant – dealing in entire tree trunks – from a yard near Ockham village… barely six miles east.

Meantime, in the late 1950s, I was walking the four miles to school up the then-A3 Guildford Bypass when I found a small transporter parked. Its rear doors were open, and – oh my. Inside was a racing car…

A single-seater, centre seat, rear engine, skinny wheels. Wow! I read the name, ‘Tyrrell’. This was the self-same stretch of road on which I’d previously had a real Mr Toad moment seeing – and hearing – the works Jaguar team of three D-types braying up the hill past me. The flame of enthusiasm ignited.

The local timber merchant who had bought those two Stoughton Barracks three-bay timber sheds – which possibly housed ‘my’ searchlight battery crews – was Ken Tyrrell. He’d had them unified, in 70ft x 20ft tandem six-bay form, in his Ockham yard as his embryo racing team’s workshop.

Ken had been RAF aircrew, a flight engineer. Invited by friends to Silverstone to see a motor race he’d thought “Bet I could drive as quick as that”. He’d promptly bought a 500cc Cooper upon which he painted a woodman’s axe motif. That – I am sure combined with his often rugged driving style – promptly earned him the nickname ‘Chopper’ Tyrrell.

He progressed to establish his own Tyrrell Racing Organisation, running effectively quasi-works Cooper Juniors and F3 cars, out of what became known as the ‘Tyrrell Shed’. Through 1962 such drivers as Rhodesian John Love, South African Tony Maggs and Kiwi Denny Hulme handled the FJ Tyrrell Coopers, and into 1963 American Timmy Mayer made his name in one and earned a works F1 seat alongside Bruce McLaren for ’64. First of course he drove alongside Bruce in their embryo McLaren team Tasman Coopers ‘down under’, but was killed in his at Longford, Tasmania.

Following Timmy’s promotion, Ken needed a new driver for his quasi-works 1964 1-litre F3 team. Goodwood track manager Robin McKay suggested he try a young Scot named Jackie Stewart. Ken knew Jackie’s older brother Jimmy vaguely from the 1950s, and rang him to ask “Is your brother serious about racing?”. The rest is familiar history. Out of that wooden shed came the cars JYS raced to 11 major F3 race wins that very year. His Formula 2 Tyrrell Matra followed for preparation there, then the 1969 F1 Matras in which he clinched his long-expected first World Championship – then the first Tyrrell F1 car, and its 1971-73 twice-World Championship-winning successors.

Into the later ’70s and ’80s the old shed became first Tyrrell’s fabrication shop then a store as team operations centred upon their adjacent custom-built modern factory. Team Tyrrell survived from 1974-97 before ailing Ken sold out to Craig Pollock, whose replacement BAR operation later morphed via Honda and Brawn into Mercedes-AMG today. The Ockham works became a party-goods logistics outfit, and when I last saw the Tyrrell Shed there it was jam-packed with tons of imported tat…

“I called Goodwood about the Tyrrell Shed. The response was positive”

Around 2019 the owners decided to build upon the site. But, appreciating the shed’s F1 history, someone suggested re-erecting it at Brooklands. Shifting the shed – disturbing its asbestos-packing – risked prohibitive expense. Brooklands said no. Tyrrell author Richie Jenkins energetically sought an alternative haven. In 2022 it was really for him that I called Goodwood where the Duke’s response was characteristically both instant and positive. After support from Ford and Sir Jackie (amongst others) the Tyrrell Shed now survives at the Motor Circuit where its products were so often test driven.

At its Revival 2024 re-opening, Martin Brundle recalled his early Tyrrell times, after being accepted as a novice Formula 1 driver, initially on a heavily incentivised three-year deal, £30,000 initially, year two £60,000, and year three £120,000. One memorable downside was when Ken summoned him to Ockham, a three-and-a-half-hour drive from his King’s Lynn home, “for a chat”. He took a seat in Ken’s little office, whereupon  ‘Chopper’ slid a tray full of oily gearbox dog rings before him, picked one – showed Martin the damage his driving had inflicted upon it last time out – “…told me how much it cost him for a replacement and gave me an enormous bollocking for it… after which I drove three and a half hours home again”.

Tyrrell the teacher paid off, again as Martin recalled: “I then became the very best gear changer in Formula 1” – and, never forget, sports-prototype World Champion Driver, too.

Doug Nye is the UK’s leading motor racing historian and has been writing authoritatively about the sport since the 1960s