William George Sadler (3 September 1931 – 5 April 2022) designed, built, and drove his own sports racing cars, some of which anticipated the later Formula 5000 and Can-Am cars. He left racing and earned a masters of electrical and electronics engineering, then went on to design and build light aircraft and aircraft engines, and was involved in the early development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Biography Sadler was born in St. Catharines, Ontario on 3 September 1931 to George and Bertha Sadler. His father ran Sadler's Auto Electric. The company was the Canadian agent for Lucas of Britain. Sadler's early hobbies included photography and ham radio. He dropped out of St. Catharines Collegiate High School to work full-time for his father. At eighteen he was given the job of opening a branch of Sadler's Auto Electric in Hamilton, Ontario.
Sadler was hired by Canadian Westinghouse in Hamilton, where he stayed for five years, becoming a guided missile technician. His specialty was the "Velvet Glove" missile for the Royal Canadian Air Force's CF-104 squadron. While at Westinghouse he was granted a patent on a design for a microwave test apparatus.
In 1953, while honeymooning in England, with travel expenses paid for by Lucas, Sadler saw his first sports car race, which sparked his interest in the sport. He began racing cars when he returned to Canada. After racing a few modified production cars, he began building his first Special one year later.
In the autumn of 1956 Sadler quit Westinghouse and moved with wife Anne and their two daughters, Susan and Catherine, to England to work for John Tojeiro for one year. Sadler's second home-built Special accompanied the family overseas. While in England the family lived in a trailer in Tojeiro's yard. At the Tojeiro Car Company, he was responsible for the design, pattern making, and finishing machine work for two of Tojeiro's new racing cars.
Sadler became an associate member of the Society of Automotive Engineers. He served as Technical editor for Canada Track & Traffic magazine, contributing an article to the debut issue of September 1959. He left that position near the end of 1961.
He started the Sadler Car Company in the spring of 1959 with a loan from his parents and access to Sadler's Electric's machine shop, including their dynamometer. The company's core staff would eventually include body fabricator Mike Saggers, welder Harry Ross, and mechanic Chuck Richardson. Over the course of a few short years Sadler produced a series of sports racing cars, open-wheeled Formula Junior and Formula Libre cars, and go-karts. He built the first rear mid-engine road-racing special, and proved that this configuration was competitive.
At one event, the team's sponsor overruled Sadler's decision that a car was not ready to race. Sadler's place in the cockpit was taken by another driver, and the car went out, overturning on lap two. Shortly after this Sadler announced his withdrawal from racing and car building.
After leaving auto racing Sadler first returned to Westinghouse. He then enrolled at Indiana Tri-State College, where he earned a degree in Electronics Engineering in just two years. From there he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which he attended on a full scholarship. While between colleges he earned his pilot's license. He graduated from MIT in two semesters with a master's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and went to work for General Dynamics, where he managed the Advanced Development Lab in San Diego. Among the projects he was involved with at General Dynamics were the Forward Looking Light Attack Radar (FLLAR), and the Alerting Long-Range Airborne Radar for MTI (ALARM).
Cars non-Sadler Car Company cars One of Sadler's earliest cars was a 1939 American Bantam panel truck that had been Sadler's Auto Electric's delivery vehicle. Sadler completely rebuilt the truck and engine, added a column shift of his own design, and converted it into a convertible with a soft top that he sewed himself.
Sadler did one track outing in the MG TD that he and wife Anne were given as a wedding present by Sadler's father.
The first car he campaigned seriously was a 1949 Hillman Minx. Sadler replaced the car's original four-cylinder engine with a Ford V8-60 flathead V8.
Sadler raced a Singer Sports in 1954. He also made a few appearances in a Triumph TR2 as driver for Southam Sales and Service in 1955 and 1956.
Sadler bought Jaguar D-Type XKD 545 after the car suffered a crash in 1960 at Watkins Glen. He rebuilt it and raced the car at least twice. He later sold it, at one point offering to sell it to Brock Yates for $2000.00. It appears that it was eventually sold to John Cannon.
Sadler Mk.1 Sadler built his first special, the Mk.1, over the winter of 1953–54. He made a multi-tubular chassis of mild steel for it.
Much of the car's running gear and original powertrain came from a Jowett Javelin sedan. The front suspension was independent, with longitudinal torsion bar springs. At the rear was the Jowett's live axle, also suspended on torsion bars. Sadler changed the final drive ratio by using a set of 4.11:1 gears from a Studebaker. The steering system used a rack-and-pinion from a Morris Minor installed upside down, with Morris tie rods and Jowett steering arms, and gave two turns lock-to-lock.
Power came from the Jowett overhead valve (OHV) flat-four engine fitted with a reground camshaft, dual valve springs with competition Jowett outer springs and Austin Healey inner springs, Jupiter R1 pistons, and a lightened flywheel. The Jowett's transmission was also used.
The car debuted in 1954 at Watkins Glenn, fitted with simple aluminum torpedo bodywork and cycle fenders. In January 1955 work started on a new enveloping fiberglass body. During the winter of 1955–56 the Jowett engine and transmission were replaced with a Standard wet liner inline-four engine from a Triumph TR2, and Triumph four-speed transmission. Sadler designed and built his own custom fuel injection system for this engine.
The Triumph engine threw a rod at the Harewood Acres circuit on 4 August. Sadler replaced the damaged four-cylinder with a Canadian-built 1956 Chevrolet small-block V8 displacing and making with dual four-barrel carburetors. The TR2 flywheel, clutch, bell housing, and transmission were carried over, and an adapter was made to mate the engine to the bellhousing. Sadler also built a new rear suspension that replaced the original Panhard rod with a custom frame to reduce wheelspin. The final drive ratio was changed to 3.54:1
Sadler Mk.2
Wheelspin continued to be a problem with the Mk.1, and Sadler felt that an independent rear suspension (IRS) was the solution. He was already planning to race the car overseas, so it would have to comply with new rules enacted by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) dictating certain basic dimensions. He had also acquired a 1934 ENV preselector gearbox. To add the IRS, accommodate the new transmission, and comply with FIA rules, he decided that a new chassis was needed, and this led to the Mk.2 being built.
Using the ENV preselector allowed the car to dispense with clutch, pressure plate, and flywheel. The gearbox was mounted at the rear of the car. With this close-ratio 4-speed unit, the next gear could be selected at any time, and the shift triggered by cycling the clutch pedal.
For the Mk.2, Sadler laid out a ladder chassis with main tubes of diameter chromoly steel. It was sized so that the cockpit would be wide, as required by the FIA. The Jowett kingpins and upper wishbones were carried over from the Mk.1, as was the Morris Minor steering rack, although in the Mk.2 the rack was moved forward. The front torsion bar springs used in the Mk.1 were replaced by a lower transverse leaf spring. Initially the drum brakes and wire wheels were Austin-Healey pieces.
The rear suspension was Sadler's original design. He took the rear axle from a 1940 Ford V8 and cut the axle tubes cut off, then machined the housing sides to accept roller bearings and adapter plates. Spicer 1310 U-joints from a 1950 Canadian Chrysler were adapted to fit modified GMC 3 ton truck propeller shaft sections with splines, that then mated with Spicer 1350 U-joints that in turn attached to the axle stubs. The rear wheels were located by two long A-arms, and the wheels suspended by a transverse leaf made to Sadler's specifications.
The car underwent several updates. The original 265 CID V8 was later replaced with a Canadian-built version of the 1957 Corvette engine fitted with a Duntov cam, lightened valves, a Delco dual-point distributor, and a trio of two-barrel carburetors in place of the original dual four-barrels. The engine was bored out to . After returning from England, Sadler replaced the Healey front drum brakes with Triumph discs and installed a new body. Rear radius rods were also added later, as were front lower A-arms and Armstrong springs and shock absorbers.
Sadler's 1958 win at Watkins Glen in the Mk.2 caught the attention of Earl G. Nisonger, president of the Nisonger Corporation, an auto parts supply company and British parts importer handling Smiths products. Nisonger convinced Sadler to replace the used running gear on the Mk.2 with new parts, and hired Bob Said to drive the car.
Sadler Mk.3
After the updates to the Mk.2 were completed, Nisonger commissioned Sadler to build a completely new car that he would also sponsor for the 1959 racing season.
The Sadler Mk.3 that resulted was smaller, lower, and lighter than Sadler's earlier designs, with a more powerful engine. The first car was built over the course of seven weeks, for a cost of $10,000. The Mk.3 had a wheelbase of and tracks of in front and in back. The car weighed .
Instead of a Mk.2 style ladder chassis of large-diameter tubes, the Mk.3 had a space frame of square-section seamless chromoly tubing. In front was an upper and lower A-arm suspension with coil springs over Koni shock absorbers. In back Sadler installed a low-pivot swing axle with trailing arms. A Girling disc brake with aluminum caliper was at each wheel. Steering was by rack-and-pinion, and the differential was a Halibrand quick change unit.
The car's engine was a 283 CID block bored and stroked out to , with a compression ratio of 11:1, a Racer Brown "Super-Torque #2" camshaft, and Hilborn fuel injection. Power output was . The transmission was a BorgWarner T-10 four-speed, and both engine and transmission were offset to the left.
The car that Nisonger sponsored raced as the Nisonger KLG Special, named for the KLG sparkplug line that the Smiths Group had bought from Kenelm Lee Guinness. Drivers were Sadler, Paul O'Shea, and Bruce Kessler.
A total of eight Mk.3s were built in 1959. Years later Sadler built a new Mk.3, largely out of spare parts, which he campaigned in vintage races.
Sadler-Meyer Special John van Meyer owned a cycle-fendered Special built for prewar road racing that he campaigned in early SCCA road races and hillclimbs. The car started with a Ford Flathead V8, which was first replaced by a Cadillac engine, and later with a Pontiac V8.
In 1958 Meyer approached Sadler to have him update the car and return it to competitive form. Sadler carried over the Pontiac V8, Borrani wire wheels and De Dion tube rear suspension from Meyer's old roadster, but fabricated a new ladder chassis and added an enveloping body. The car was completed in 1959.
The Sadler-Meyer carried Meyer to his second New York State Hillclimb Championship in 1959, and set fastest time-of-day at the Giants Despair Hillclimb in 1960, 1961 and 1962. Meyer eventually sold the Sadler-Meyer and moved on to other cars.