Insight: The UK firm steering the future of the car industry
Titan started in the 1960s making single-seat race cars, but now focuses on electric power-assisted steering
Titan produces some of the world’s most advanced automotive steering systems
We are standing in the R&D headquarters of Titan, the UK manufacturer of some of the world’s most advanced automotive steering systems, looking at a large screen showing a map of the Suzuka Formula 1 racing circuit. A dot moves rapidly around it, representing a car.
In the average teenage bedroom this would be part of an elaborate computer game, but here it’s much more serious. Map and screen belong to a bespoke test rig being used to develop the light, super-secret, by-wire EPAS (electric power-assisted steering) system of a leading F1 car that must remain nameless for now.
The F1 connection is just one indicator of how quickly 60-year-old Titan has progressed in the hands of a new team that started running it in 2015 and took ownership in 2022. Today, the company can create advanced and bespoke steering systems of all kinds: hydraulic, electric/electronic systems, and versatile, microprocessor- controlled, by-wire mechanisms for the cars and commercial vehicles that are just around the corner. Planning a driverless car? They can help steer that, too.
Titan started life in the 1960s making single-seat racing cars, surviving in that business until 1978. At the same time, it was building up a portfolio of engineering activities, and developing a range of Titan engine equipment and oil systems that survive as a profitable sideline to this day.
The company began specialising in mechanical steering in the 1980s, supplying other race constructors and specialist road car manufacturers like Caterham and Lotus. One important application was Gordon Murray’s tandem two- seater Rocket, kitted with Titan gear in 1991, but that was very simple by modern standards. Under its owners of the time, Di Thomas and Oz Timms, Titan functioned mostly as a supplier of precision- engineered parts to clients – until the recession of 2009 arrived and its activities were badly affected.
That upheaval led to the arrival of consultant George Lendrum (now CEO and Titan’s largest shareholder), and it changed everything. Lendrum had been a director of Pi Research, a renowned technology company whose purist principles had been disturbed by its dalliance with the Ford-owned Jaguar F1 team. Searching for other opportunities, Lendrum joined Cosworth, and then RML, but by 2015 he was back at Titan as managing director, tasked with stabilising the business and building a team that today includes another former Pi colleague, chief operating officer Michael Sheridan, sales director Stuart Rossin and technical chief Paul Wilkinson, a highly experienced aerospace and car industry engineer.
“Di and Oz were good, solid manufacturing people,” says Lendrum, “but Titan didn’t have any expertise in electronics or vehicle systems, though it was clear this was where all the action would be. In any case, running a machine shop wasn’t the career I had in mind, given my background, but it was clear Titan provided a great backdrop and opportunity to develop and innovate, and drive into new areas.”
“We were already good at hydraulic steering,” he adds, “but it was clear EVs wouldn’t need hydraulic power packs in future. EPAS was clearly the way to go, and that’s the new direction we set. We decided to concentrate on smaller clients, because performance is where Titan comes from, but also innovative commercial vehicle applications who are also moving towards innovative electric powertrains. Big players like Bosch aim to supply parts at 100,000 a year and more; our message to clients was that we would love a run of 5000, but 50 would be okay as well.”
Though Titan’s development of EPAS has reached an impressive level, no one suggests there isn’t more to do. A recently bought MG TF mule sits in a parking bay of the R&D department, about to play its part in new research into steering feel. Titan engineers are developing what they believe will be better- than-ever algorithms to enhance these elusive qualities, aiming to produce a range of near-ideal driving modes between “track day” and “drive comfortably home”.
Work had to stop during the pandemic in 2020 when Titan used its quick reactions to start making ventilators, running two 60-hour shifts a week, from Monday to Saturday, and working through Easter. It was a major contribution to public health, says Lendrum, but it also helped save the company.
With business back in full swing, Titan is working to support new companies all it can, says Lendrum, even to the extent of taking on some speculative engineering costs without any certainty the aimed-for new products will reach production. “Start-ups need support,” he declares. “And we’re in a better position to help than most because our engineering costs are tiny compared with the big boys.”
At present, Titan’s financial trajectory looks impressive. There are 85 people on the payroll today compared with 30 when Lendrum started assembling his new team. Turnover has climbed from £2.5 million to around £11m.
In contrast to many vehicle tech companies facing the EV future, Titan can look forward with considerable confidence. Electrically propelled or not, all cars will need steering and Titan is a long way down the road to perfecting the EPAS most will need, even for the autonomous cars of the future. Titan’s road, it seems, is relatively smooth and straight.
*When Titan built racing cars*
Titan started life as a manufacturer of 1.0-litre Formula 3 cars, launched by engineer-racer Charles Lucas. His success at racing a team of Brabhams in 1965 led to a short-lived deal with Colin Chapman to run Lotus’s own F3 team. After a dispute over prize money, Lucas moved first to Highgate in London and then to Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire to make his own cars.
The first Titan racing car, the Mark 3, made its racing debut at Silverstone in 1967, winning with Lucas at the wheel. Titan’s supremacy didn’t continue for long, but one international bright spot was a pole position for works driver Roy Pike at Monaco in 1968.
Lucas sold the company in 1971, and built the last Titan racing car in 1978. The firm then turned its attention to engine and race car component manufacture, activities that the company continues today.