The British Racing Motors V16 was a supercharged 1.5-litre (90.8 cu. in.) V-16 cylinder racing engine built by British Racing Motors (BRM) for competing in Formula One motor racing in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Designed in 1947 and raced until 1954–55, it produced at 12,000 rpm, although test figures from Rolls-Royce suggested that the engine would be able to be run at up to 14,000rpm. The very complex engine was exceptionally powerful for the time, but it initially proved a disappointment, possessing poor reliability so that cars either did not start or failed to finish races. In the 1952 Formula One season, after BRM withdrew their V16 engined cars before a race in Turin while attempting to enlist Juan Manuel Fangio, leaving only Ferrari as the main contestants with no effective competition, the racing organisers abandoned the Formula One series and ran the remaining year's races as Formula Two. Development The engine was designed by a team consisting of Peter Berthon, Harry Mundy, Eric Richter, and Frank May. It was conceived as basically two 750cc V8 engines back-to-back with cam drives and gears in the centre of the engine. Components were manufactured by various British companies, including English Steel – the crankshaft, Standard Motors – machining of the main engine components, sump, etc., and David Brown – the gears. Eventually there were around 350 companies that provided support to the project, including Rolls-Royce, which designed, manufactured and tested the two-stage centrifugal supercharger. The firm also developed the flame traps for the inlet manifold, used to prevent the highly compressed fuel/air mixture from exploding in a backfire. The traps were a first on a car engine, reflecting the supercharger's extremely limited use in automobiles, but had become a necessity on high-powered piston aero engines such as the Merlin and Griffon. Twin-pot carburettors were designed for the engine by SU. The chassis of the BRM Type 15 car designed for the engine was made by Rubery Owen. The gearbox was designed by Mundy based on the one from the German pre-war 1939 1.5 litre V8 Mercedes-Benz W165 car: part of BRM's ethos was to exploit German technology that had so recently been used against Britain during World War II. Cameron Earl had visited Germany to retrieve any relevant documents. Rear suspension of the new BRM was also derived from Mercedes-Benz, and trailing arm front suspension from Auto Union. Girling