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1999: James McKnight
James McKnight (1938-)
114th President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
McKnight was born in 1938.
After leaving school he undertook an apprenticeship with GKN. Afterwards he worked for Ford Motor Company, where he spent 14 years. His last position was Manager in Heavy Advanced Truck Engineering. During this time he was the manager of the team which undertook the design analysis on the highly successful Ford Cargo Truck.
In 1977, he joined the British Leyland Truck and Bus Group as Chief Engineer. He was a key member of the team the developed the classic Roadrunner, the Lynx Citybus, and upgraded the Olympian double-decker.
McKnight was part of the group that bought out the Leyland Bus Group from Rover in 1987. Later sold on to Volvo, he subsequently led the efforts in designing the low floor Volvo citybus for world markets, which incorporated many innovative features now standard on today’s buses.
In 1995, McKnight led the management buyout of Volvo’s Product Development group to form Leyland Product Development Ltd (LPD). This is a medium sized company specializing in the design of commercial vehicles and second generation low floor buses.
He has served as President of FISITA, the world body for automotive engineering. In 1992 he set up the first Student and Young Engineers Conference at FISITA, which saw representatives of 30 different countries brought together.
James McKnight was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1999.
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