Hewland
| Private company | |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | Maidenhead, 1957 |
| Founder | Mike Hewland |
| Headquarters | Maidenhead, England |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
|
Key people
|
William Hewland |
| Products | Transmissions, Electronic Data Acquisition and Control Systems |
| Services | High Performance engineering |
|
Number of employees
|
130 |
| Website | Hewland Engineering Ltd. |
Hewland is a British engineering company, founded in 1957 by Mike Hewland, which specialises in racing-car gearboxes. Hewland currently employ 130 people at their Maidenhead facility and have diversified into a variety of markets being particularly successful in electric vehicle transmission supply.
Hewland are currently supplying into Formula 1, Formula E, DTM, LMP, RallyCross, Prototype and GT Sportscar.
Mike Hewland ran a small engineering business at Maidenhead in the UK with the specialty in gear cutting. In 1959, Bob Gibson-Jarvie, the Chief Mechanic of UDT Laystall racing team running Cooper F2 cars, sought help from Hewland as gearbox troubles were experienced. The result of this request came out as six successful gearboxes being designed and built in 1959, and Hewland was in the gearbox business.
The first transaxle product, the Hewland Mk.I of 1960, was a minor modification of the Volkswagen Beetle 4 speed transaxle used upside-down with custom made differential housing side plates for the midship engine Lola Mk.III (John Young tuned Ford 105E 997cc pushrod) built for the new Formula Junior rules (1 litre engine with minimum weight 360 kg, or 1.1 litre with minimum 400 kg) in 1961. Hewland Mk.II was a similar 4 speed transaxle with more modifications for Coventry Climax engined Elva Mk.VI 1.1 litre sports racer in 1961.
Hewland Mk.III of 1962 became the first product for the public, which utilised the magnesium alloy case of the Beetle transaxle to house 5 pairs of bespoke straight-cut constant mesh spur gears with dog rings operated by custom-made brass shift forks. Gear selector shaft was located in the nose housing, unmodified as in the Beetle set up, facing rear-ward at the tail end of the box in the front-side-back position on a midship engine racing cars. The elimination of synchromesh parts provided the space for an additional pair of gears for the 5th speed.
This Mk.III became very popular for small displacement formula cars and racing sports cars, and was the basis on which all the later products were built.
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Wikipedia