John Judd

9/4/1942

Record updated 09-Apr-20

Engine Developments Ltd was founded in 1971 by John Judd and Jack Brabham in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Engine Developments was intended to build engines for Brabham's racing efforts, and became one of the first firms authorised by Cosworth to maintain and rebuild its DFV engines, but has since expanded into various areas of motorsport.

Judd has provided engines for many major series, including Formula One and other smaller formula series, sports car racing, and touring car racing. They have been associated with manufacturers such as Yamaha, MG, and Honda, although they have mainly been a privateer-engine supplier.

John Judd

John Judd founded Engine Developments with Sir Jack Brabham in 1971 to produce their own competition engines, having previously worked together on the Repco Brabham F1 engines. Since then, the company has grown in size from a handful of people to the current 38 employees.

Judd was born in Coventry in 1942. He served his apprenticeship at the Coventry engine company. In the early 60s he worked on the Coventry Climax Formula 1 engine. In 1965 the IAF changed the engine specifiction for Formula 1 for 1966 and Judd worked on an engine project for Sir Jack Brabham with an Australian company called Repco.

When Brabham satrted using Ford Cosworth DFV engines they started a company called Jack Brabham Conversions and hired John Judd in the development department. When Brabham sold Brabham to Bernie Ecclestone, Jack Brabham Conversions became Engine Developments.

In the years that followed Engine Developments prepared Cosworth engines for teams such as Williams, Arrows, Lotus, Ensign and Fittipaldi.

In the late 1970s the company expanded into Indycar engines and in 1980 Judd was hired by Honda to develop F2 engines. At the end of 1982, as Honda went into F1 and Judd began designing his own engines, initially in Formula 3000 but later in Indycars and F1 as well.

Judd engines have been supplied to a number of competitive racing teams, including Honda, Yamaha, Mazda, Toyota, Nissan, and the Williams, Lotus, Tyrrell, and Arrows F1 Teams. Engine Developments supplied engines for various teams in F1 races from 1988 to 1997.

Engine Developments continues to design and manufacture Judd engines, and supplies them to participants in several racing series, including acting as the exclusive engine supplier to the Formula 3000 International Championship since 1996 through Zytek.



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