It was with sadness that I was informed over the weekend that Peter Downie, who worked on the production of the Unipower GT cars between 1965 - 1967, had passed away after a long illness.
Peter met his wife Jacqui at Unipower when she was company secretary, he then leaving Unipower in 1968 to work for John Cooper's Formula 1 team, before in 1969, probably through his links with Tim Powell (UPD MD), to engineer Tim's famous Jaguar powered Tramontana 2, power boat.
This led to his engineering engines and transmissions over the next 30-years on over 40 very well known Offshore Power boats such as UFO, Canadian Moppie, Martini, Limit Up and the infamous Virgin 1 & 11 Trans Atlantic Challenge boats. By 1996 he was engineering the Dubai, 'Victory' and latterly Spirit of Norway boats.
The Club sends its sincere condolences to his widow, Jacqui and his son Anthony at this sad time.
Comments