Darrian



Darrian History

After the lamented demise of Davrian Developments Ltd., a sports car manufacturer that traced its roots back to Clapham in the 60’s, Tim Duffee assisted by two other ex. Davrian men busied themselves with the supply of spare parts, conversions and rebuilds on the existing Davrian fleet. However in1984 the decision was made to build a new car for Tarmac Rallies.
     Geoff Kitney had taken over the driving seat of Tim’s Mk 7a Davrian using a rear mounted Ford BDA engine. To reduce rear weight bias it was necessary to go mid engined.
  
Development.

In the process of the redesign, it was found that so much had been altered, that the new car, dubbed the ‘ Davrian Mark 9’, really needed  completely new moulds and tooling. 
     News of this ‘improved’ Davrian reached other enthusiasts, and soon a further two cars were under construction.
     Tim wanted to build upon the traditional Davrian virtues of good handling, strength and safety, but move the basic concept forwards and concentrate more on competition cars.
 
Testing

The Darrian T9, as it was named, was tested extensively by Geoff Kitney, a highly-rated driver who, by 1987, had won three championships encompassing road, forest and tarmac stage rallies.

Rallying Success

Team Duffee Engineering, from Llangybi in remotest Wales arrived on the rallying map, with a bang. On virtually its maiden outing, their all-new competition car, won the Merlin Fireplaces Epynt Rally, a round of the ‘Motoring News Tarmac Rally Championship’ Geoff Kitney and the T9 were up against a formidable array of men and machinery, including John Price in the ex. Works  Renault 5 Turbo 2, which they beat into second place.
 

DarrianT9  1985 –1990.

Most of the T9’s were produced as tarmac rally cars, although Darrians worked quite well in the forest, Dominic Fratarolli in particular, having great success with his example.
One or two T9’ were produced as race cars, and a few ended up as road cars.

Total production Darrian T9: 39.

T90    1990 – 1996

Darrian development took a major step forward, thanks to the interest of Robin Herd, founder of March Engineering, the largest producer of racing cars in the world.
     Robin Herd came down to Wales, with Bill Gwynne, buying two cars which were completed at Bill Gwynne’s workshops. But Robin  had some ideas to develop the aerodynamics to improve handling and to keep the tail end down as the car flew over brows.
    Tim did a few designs, which he sent to Robin Herd. After studying the drawings, Robin stepped in and helped finance the new tooling, and got his own T9 converted at the same time.
     In 1990 Geoff Kitney clinched the Motoring News Championship first with the T9, which by mid-season was replaced by a new T90. In fact 1990 was an incredible year for the Darrian concern. In addition to the Motoring News, Darrians also won the Welsh Tarmac Championship and the South of England Tarmac Championship.
   Geoff’s T9 was bought by John Dalton, who went on to emulate Geoff’s success with the car, by winning the Motoring News Championship again in 1993.

Racing T90’s

Despite the incredible success they were having in the world of rallying, more and more Darrians were finding their way into racing.
     It was Roddie Patterson’s performance in his Darrian that drew Tim toward circuit racing. Tim had converted Roddie’s roadgoing T9 to T90 specification and he supported Roddie at several Oulton Park races. The T90 racer performed extremely well producing some promising results in the BARC Lynton Trailers Championship.
 
Swansea Institute Team Darrian

As a development of the Higher National Diploma in Automotive Engineering, Swansea Institute purchased a Darrian T90. Their aim was to build the skills of their students by racing a car in the Welsh Drivers’ Championship. This they felt was an excellent way to forge a relationship and partnership with Wales’ most successful competition car maker, Darrian. Driving this pioneering course forward was Roger Dowden. The relationship forged between; Roger, Tim and  Swansea Institute, cannot be underestimated, and really drove Darrian, as a specialist car maker, forward
     During a trip to the 1995 Le Mans with Roger Dowden, Tim thought that it would be worth having a go at the National GT Championship. Spurred on by friend Paul Adams’ encouraging comments and his astute observations, the idea moved apace.
    Ken Thomson had purchased a Darrian T90 during the winter of 93/94 and by 1995 had secured the Scottish Sportscar Championship, to become Scottish Racing Champion. Tim contacted Ken and invited him to form a team with Swansea Institute. Both cars were converted to run Millington Diamond engines.
   In 1996, with the support of the WDA, the car and the team had developed to such a level that they won the extremely prestigious Privilege Insurance National GT Championship at their first attempt.
    The team, SITD, continued to race in the championship until 1999 making technical improvements to the car which would eventually form the foundation of the new Darrian GTR.
    The credibility the Darrian Team gained throughout the motorsport industry enabled Swansea Institute to develop the world’s first Motor Sport Engineering degree which currently attracts 150 students from all over the world. For this achievement Swansea Institute was awarded the extremely prestigious ‘Services to Industry’ award by the MIA. at the House of Lords.
Total production Darrian T90: 26


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