Robin Herd - Topic

Robert John "Robin" Herd CBE was an English engineer, designer and businessman.
Herd studied at St Peter's College, Oxford, having turned down an offer to play cricket for Worcestershire at the age of 18. He initially entered Oxford with a scholarship to study mathematics, however he switched subjects and graduated with a double first in physics and engineering, before joining the Royal Aircraft Establishment in 1961 as a design engineer on the Concorde supersonic aircraft project, focussing on computational fluid dynamics. He worked on the Concorde project for four years and was eventually promoted to senior scientific officer at the age of 24.
He was recruited by McLaren in 1965, having been alerted to an engineering vacancy with the constructor by former school friend and racing driver Alan Rees, and worked on cars, such as the Mallite-bodied M2A test car for the Firestone tire company. The M2A subsequently evolved into the Formula One M2B car. Herd stayed with McLaren until 1968 - during which time he designed their M4B, M5A and M7 Formula One cars, as well as the successful M6A Can-Am car - before moving to Cosworth to design a four-wheel drive F1 car.