The former chairman and chief executive of Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin, Bob Dover, has joined the board of Zeroshift, which is developing a seamless automated manual transmission for all types of vehicle.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Dover, who oversaw the introduction of models such as the Land Rover Discovery, Aston Martin DB7 Vantage and Jaguar XK8, is joining another well known name from the British motor industry – Charles Matthews, Zeroshift ‘s chairman, who is the former CEO of Cosworth and managing director of Rolls-Royce Motors.
Adam Huckstep has joined Zeroshift as chief engineer – he was the chief mechanical engineer at Ricardo working on the dual clutch transmission for the Bugatti Veyron.
“Zeroshift Ltd is raising eyebrows throughout the industry as a result of creating a potential successor to the highly acclaimed Dual Clutch Transmission” claimed company founder and managing director Bill Martin.
Martin, a New Zealand engineer, conceived the Zeroshift technology by replacing the synchromesh in a manual gearbox with a new device to eliminate torque interrupt during shifts. The company, which has patented its transmission concept, is taking orders for evaluation projects from a number vehicle makers world-wide.
“For a growing business like ours having the active support and involvement of [Dover and Matthews] is of tremendous importance”, said Martin.
“We are close to announcing major licensing agreements with large players in the industry worldwide so being able to call on the expertise of such experienced people is of critical value to us”.
Zeroshift recently moved to a new headquarters building in Milton Keynes providing 12,000 sq ft of office and workshop space.
It is using a 2005 Ford Mustang to showcase the transmission technology. The car is currently being demonstrated to vehicle and transmission manufacturers and auto industry media in Europe.
