Ginger's Way

For many a British businessman, expansion holds about as much allure as an undercooked kipper. But red-mustached, 66-year-old Frank Perkins thrives on it. In the depths of the Depression, when most British businessmen dreaded any venture beyond the lawns of their country estates, Perkins boldly marched out to sell the British trucking industry on the diesel engine. He made his sale, expanded and became England's biggest producer of automotive diesels.

By the end of World War II, when others again cautiously retired to safety, Perkins had the courage to expand once more, thus was ready to cash in on Britain's postwar boom in trucking. "Ginger" Perkins built a 575,000-sq.-ft. plant in Peterborough, Northamptonshire that he claims turns out more diesel engines than any other plant in the world. In six years he boosted sales of Perkins Ltd. from $6 million to almost $39 million. Last week Ginger Perkins was ready to start deliveries on his latest big order: 2,000 diesel engines (at $700 apiece) to Yugoslavia for tractors.

Riches to Rags. The son of a prosperous steamroller manufacturer, Perkins had an early lesson in business failure. After Rugby, Cambridge and a World War I stint in the Royal Engineers, he went to work for the family firm, rose to managing director. But the Depression flattened the steamroller business, and in 1932 the factory shut down. Perkins found himself out of a job, with a wife and four children to support.

While pondering what to do, he pulled out an idea he had tucked away ten years before to improve the diesel engine. Until then, diesels had injected fuel either directly into the cylinder, which made them economical but slow, or through an antechamber, which made them fast but expensive. Perkins combined the best features of each system, and took out a patent. With hard times forcing every British trucker to cut costs, Perkins decided they would welcome an engine that would burn untaxed diesel oil, then about 9-c- a gallon, v. 18-c- for gasoline.

With $34,000 capital--mostly borrowed --he hired two mechanics and a boy helper, rented the ground floor of a private house and went to work. Says Perkins: "In a depression everyone is watching everyone else and not doing anything. If you can get going then, you have them all at a disadvantage, and by the time they think they might start in business, you're well established."

It took six months to put together Perkins' first engine, a four-cylinder monster named "Vixen." Since Vixen had no self-starter, for the first test mechanics unbolted the combustion-chamber caps, ran to a nearby furnace, waited for the caps to get almost red-hot, then ran back to bolt them into place. Heat from the caps ignited the fuel in the chamber; after the engine fired and ran, the entire shop staff retired to a pub to celebrate.

Sputtering Along. For two years the Perkins diesel firm sputtered along on one-engine orders, scrambling for cash to make up the mechanics' wage packets. Disaster threatened in 1935, when the government slapped a heavy tax on diesel oil, making it almost as expensive as gasoline. Instead of accepting defeat, Perkins expanded. He brought out a new, six-cylinder diesel that ran more smoothly than early models and was much lighter, landed his first big contract: 100 engines for Commer trucks. By 1939 he was turning out almost 1,000 diesels a year.

During World War II, Perkins diesels ran generators on the Normandy beachhead, powered Royal Navy launches and hundreds of trucks in British munitions dumps, where gasoline would have been a menace. Rescue craft powered by Perkins diesels saved 13,000 airmen in the English Channel, the Mediterranean and the North Sea.

Perkins' humming assembly lines are now rolling out four types of truck engines for Vauxhall, Rootes, Guy Motors, Ford and Dodge, a tractor engine for Massey-Harris and Morris. Every police launch on the Thames is powered by a Perkins diesel. Although Expansionist Ginger Perkins has taken over more than 95% of Britain's small diesel production, he is still not satisfied. He is getting ready to expand again, soon will add 90,000 sq. ft. of factory and boost production 20%, to 56,000 engines a year.

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