Introduction

Bernard unett was born in Wolvey, Warwickshire in 1936. The village was only ten minutes drive away from the huge Humber and Rootes factories at Ryton and Stoke. Rather than follow his parents into their farming business, he joined Humber as an apprentice at the age of 15, later joining Rootes and graduating to their chassis experimental department. He moved into a staff job in the development department working on the Rapier and Alpine programmes and was in charge of the department within a couple of years. Unett with his five colleagues were known as the 'Set 'em alight boys' due to the antics they got up to. Mike Parks, Formular one driver and senior competitions manager at Rootes, who had come second driving for Farrari at Le Mans in 1961, persuaded Unett to watch the 1962 Tourest trophy at Goodwood. Unett's only competition experience was the odd sprint and a desastrous club rally the previous year. But watching real motor racing set him on his way to buy a surviving Alpine prototype, registration number XRW 302, from the development department and begin racing at the Peterborough meeting at Silverstone that September. "The stewards deemed my driving to be so hairy that they would'nt let me run the second race" said Unett. But his driving quickly improved.