Professional Engineering

A journey by car around the Millbrook test track is one of many journeys. The steps, water troughs and jagged paving batter, bruise and drench the vehicle with salt; the Alpine-style hills exact the most from the engine; the city driving course puts the onus on the driver’s accuracy; and the “bowl”, a circular, mile-long circuit that encompasses other demanding tracks within its perimeter, provides the perfect opportunity to step on the gas.

Cars, vans and military vehicles have been subjected to this kind of abuse at Millbrook, near Bedford, since 1970. The GM-owned site was chosen in the late 1960s by the US giant over locations in Scotland and Wales because of its proximity to Vauxhall’s operations in Luton and nearby Bedford Vehicles, and because there was a large flat area and scope to build a hilly track without moving too much earth. 

GM had begun designing vehicle proving grounds in the 1950s and Millbrook was chosen with this in mind. “They did this rather than just using race tracks,” recalls Andy Eastlake, who is responsible for business development at Millbrook. “So that’s always been one of the key attributes: it’s designed to test cars – not just to race them.”

From 1970 through to the late 1980s, Millbrook worked solely on GM models. Much of this work was on Vauxhall cars destined for the UK market, but also on military vehicles and, increasingly, GM cars for the US. Eastlake says: “We were testing vehicles for all those markets in our early years, and that was somewhat unusual compared to companies focused on the UK and Europe.”

Changes to GM’s operations in Britain, however, began to shape Millbrook’s current form, as a test and development facility that operates independently of its parent with the wider automotive industry. Design and engineering work for Vauxhall had migrated to Opel in Germany and Bedford Vehicles had entered a period of decline, eventually moving out of the heavy vehicle market. At the time Millbrook had around 200 staff. Eastlake says: “GM didn’t want to sell it. Millbrook is a valuable asset. Further, it’s difficult to replace if you wanted to build it up again.” 

GM decided to put the proving ground and test facilities under the wing of Group Lotus, which included Lotus Cars and Lotus Engineering. Millbrook, with its test tracks, was regarded as complementary to Lotus, which had test and development labs but lacked tracks. Lotus’s successful engineering consultancy also provided a model for the way in which Millbrook could operate. 

From that point on, Millbrook would operate as a commercial player in the marketplace rather than as a sole proving ground for GM. 

“That was the point at which we had to create a brand and market our capabilities,” Eastlake says. “So we created the logo, which actually contains the green and yellow of Lotus, the brand, and we started to build a commercially facing organisation and developed our business.” Expansion was rapid. “I think there was still about £10-11 million worth of business coming from General Motors at that point, but we needed to build that. In the next five or six years we doubled our turnover purely from outside work. For the first time we were competing with non-GM companies, which made things interesting.”