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Millbrook Village
 Millbrook takes its name from the nearby
village where, in the early 19th century, a
flourishing community of Mills nestled around a
picturesque brook. By the late 1800s the population
exceeded 600 but with the last of the mills being
demolished by 1940 it rapidly declined to today’s 140
inhabitants. The village shop, bakery and blacksmith
have all gone and the village school was closed in 1977.
The church remains and its position and height dominate
the neighbourhood.
The Heritage
 In 1923, the General Motors Technical
Committee, under the chairmanship of Alfred P. Sloan Jr,
determined following a rather less than satisfactory
brake test on public roads near Flint, Michigan (the
road was repaved by the highways department between
design changes) that a test surface should be built.
It
was proposed that a piece of level pavement should be
constructed but Mr Crane, an assertive member of the
Committee, suggested that this would only partially
answer the questions. In order to effectively evaluate
an automobile, he decreed, it would be necessary to
provide a hill of at least 10 percent gradient.
The
result was that in 1924, construction began on the
General Motors Proving Ground at Milford in Michigan. A
year later it was widely agreed that test operations on
hill roads was an important part of automobile testing
and the 7.2 percent and 11.6 percent grades were
constructed. Following nearly 40 years of operation of
the oval high-speed track a circular 4.5 mile
circumference banked high-speed track was built in 1963.
Millbrook Proving Ground under
construction
 In the mid 1960s, Vauxhall and Bedford
decided that, whilst the new and almost deserted M1
motorway close to Luton presented some very interesting
testing opportunities, a better policy for future
vehicle development was to learn from the GM experience
and build a dedicated proving ground.
With the
importance of hills now well established, a task force
scoured the UK for a site that was both flat and hilly,
unfortunately ruling out the traditional choice of a
former airfield. At last the Millbrook site was located,
coincidentally but usefully close to Luton and London,
and a smaller version of the North American General
Motors Proving Ground was constructed. The new facility
replicated many of the most successful features of the
Milford site and benefited from the accumulated wisdom
of more than 50 years of proving ground operation.
Construction facts
 Construction work began in April 1968.
2,600,000 cu.yds. of earth were moved to sculpt the
necessary track features into the existing but barren
landscape. At the height of the earth-moving work 51
machines were moving 125,000 cu.yd. of earth each week.
Many ammonites (shell like fossils around 150 million
years old) were unearthed. 3,500 tons of hand laid
granite blocks formed the 0.9 mile Belgian pavé circuit.
73,000 tons of aggregate and 9,000 tons of cement went
into the five lane high-speed circuit. 20,000 cu.yds of
hardcore, 1,450 tons of cement, 4,500 tons of aggregate
and 25,000 tons of sand were used to make the mile
straight. The circular steering pad required 6,000
cu.yds. of hardcore, 1,300 tons of cement and 6,000 tons
of aggregate. Over 200,000 trees were planted including
both conifers and indigenous deciduous varieties,
helping nature to return to an area that for many years
had been notably lacking in natural beauty.
Early Days of Millbrook
 The ubiquitous Viva. For many years,
Vauxhall cars and Bedford trucks, buses and military
vehicles consumed the efforts of the small staff team
based at Millbrook.
Millbrook is 'Privatised'
 In 1988 a new company, Millbrook Proving
Ground Ltd, was formed to trade independently as a
wholly owned subsidiary of Group Lotus.
The entire staff
successfully faced the enormous challenge of
transitioning from a department of a major vehicle
manufacturer to a nimble customer focussed organisation
in the tough world of automotive consulting. Millbrook
had been ‘privatised’.
Post 1993
 In 1993 Millbrook was separated from
Group Lotus by transferring its shares to GM Holdings UK
Ltd. The company continued to flourish as an
independently managed business, focussing investment on
increasingly high technology areas of vehicle design
such as crash mitigation, emissions control and
component durability. The core track-based whole vehicle
durability business was also supported with new
facilities and steady, profitable growth ensued.
Today and tomorrow
 Millbrook now has a world-wide client
base and continues to develop business guided by the
vision: -
'To be the centre of excellence in
transportation test, development and promotional
services at the hub of a world-renowned automotive
technology park.
We will earn total customer satisfaction
by superb services and products developed through
continuous improvement, driven by the integrity,
teamwork and innovation of Millbrook’s people.'
* The Millbrook technology park is located at the centre
of the Oxford Cambridge axis offering automotive clients
such as OEMs tier one suppliers and engineering
consultancies dedicated facilities with direct access to
the world class laboratories, tracks and experienced
Millbrook staff
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