Bilstein creates custom damper solution for Sir Stirling Moss
When one of the world’s greatest ever racing drivers calls you and asks you to enhance his car’s handling, then how do you say no? When the driver in question is the living legend that is Sir Stirling Moss, and the project car the ever-entertaining Renault Twizy, then you have all the ingredients for a fun engineering project.
It all began earlier in the year when Sir Stirling contacted BILSTEIN to ask whether they could personalise and improve the handling of his beloved Renault Twizy, As his favourite form of transport around London’s bustling streets, the able octogenarian still wanted to be able to show a clean pair of (w)heels to anything in the congestion zone’s corners, whilst enjoying exceptional ride quality and comfort.
Thankfully, this is all bread-and-butter stuff to the BILSTEIN UK R&D team – who design, develop and engineer bespoke solutions for government, defence and motorsport applications on a daily basis. With the Twizy back at its Leicestershire HQ, it didn’t take long for the team to dyno, disassemble and begin re-designing the Twizy’s damper units, using technology and know-how gleaned from the company’s extensive motorsport involvement.
After re-delivering the Twizy back to Sir Stirling for his first round of essential feedback, the team was able to finely hone the new settings to get the Twizy handling perfectly for Britain’s most iconic living F1 driver. Working with serial technical partner Eibach, a set of custom ERS springs was also fitted to give the compact EV the kind of handling prowess that befits a multiple GP winner. With a final round of fettling and dyno testing completed, the car was delivered back to an ecstatic owner for his shakedown and approval.
Sir Stirling commented, “The Twizy handles well with these new changes. Really well! It's now ideal in town and softened up enough not to shake me to pieces. Around town the new suspension offers enormous advantages. In my view, BILSTEIN dampers are as good as they get. I remember having them on my race cars way back, but I also remember my sister using BILSTEIN extensively in her driving career because the company was so highly regarded in rallying.”
Richard Anderson, BILSTEIN UK’s general manager said, “It was an honour and a pleasure to help Sir Stirling hone his Twizy to the exact way he wanted it. It’s certainly one of the smallest and lightest cars our team has worked on, but with our friends at Eibach, it was a relatively straightforward exercise to enhance the damper’s operation and rate to create a car that offered both enhanced ride and comfort. Not an easy thing to achieve, but no matter what the brief says, we always have an engineering solution for it.”
For more details on Sir Stirling Moss, visit stirlingmoss.com.
For more details on BILSTEIN, visit bilstein.de.
