About Us
Who Are We?
Whatever you race, new or old, and however you race it, on or off track, only one thing matters when you’re on the starting grid…a winning performance! Welcome to Carwood Brise.
Combining a proud racing heritage – more than 40 years as Brise motorsport – with the world leading remanufacturing and technical capabilities of Carwood, we offer high-performance starting and charging solutions for competition and classic cars. All from our home in Yeovil, Southwest England.
Our team, with a collective 350+ years’ experience, lives and breathes motorsport. Not only do we design and engineer some of the industries most compact, lightweight, and powerful starters, alternators and batteries, we send them around the track too. Pushing our units to the limit in kit cars, rally car, drag, and drift. So, we know they will perform when it matters.
But don’t just take our word for it. Our parts are used and trusted across the motorsport world – all the way from top end factory owned and independent race teams to small workshops and individual enthusiasts. From tarmac and gravel to grass and mud, chances are there will be a Carwood Brise product involved – there is no better endorsement!
So, whether you’re looking to shed weight, fit into a tight space or add more horsepower, you can choose Carwood Brise with confidence.
What We Offer
Race engines are built with one thing in mind – power. So the components that start them must be just as powerful, yet still small and light. At Carwood Brise we’ve made this our mission – producing high output, compact and lightweight starters, alternators and batteries. Indeed, we offer some of the industries’ best – the most powerful, smallest and lightest units. All, so you can achieve your goals. Competing at the very top of your game.
No matter what you choose, you can fit with confidence, knowing that every single unit has been designed, tested and built by us to the highest possible standards. To ensure the very highest performance, in even the most demanding of racing conditions.
Competition starter motors
High-compression, high-performance engines demand more cranking power. Which is why our extensive line-up of gear reduction starters, a direct replacement for the original unit, are engineered to deliver faster cranking speeds and up to 120 percent percent more cranking power. With space at a premium, our compact, lightweight units feature precision machined mounting blocks too, allowing the unit to be rotated 360 degrees for additional clearance and an all-round perfect fit, no matter what the vehicle.
High-performance alternators
With the trend for smaller, weight-saving batteries, current drawn from the increasingly sophisticated electronic systems onboard today’s race cars, can cause the battery to drain all too quickly. Because of this we offer a full programme of high output alternators, designed for maximum output, at both low speeds and high rpm. Our ultra-compact, lightweight units also come in a wide range of bracket configurations for compatibility with many different applications. And feature simple wiring, and a host of optional accessories, for an easy, right-first-time installation.
High-performance batteries
Featuring the latest lithium-ion technology, our range of Antigravity batteries for high-performance applications, ensures up to 70 percent weight saving over lead acid batteries, whilst delivering double the cranking power. With re-start technology, available as a built-in option, users can quickly and easily restart the engine in the event of a flat battery.
Remanufactured solutions
In addition to the above, we also offer a full remanufacturing service for modern, retro and customer starter motors and alternators. Just like our all-new competition range, they are built in-house, to the very highest standards, for a part that performs just like the original, sometimes even better.
BRISE HISTORY
For over 40 years, Brise Motorsport, now Carwood Brise, has been supplying the world’s leading race teams with high-performance starting and charging solutions. But our journey started several decades before that. They say performance is in the blood – and it’s certainly true of our story.
Back in the 1950’s, John Brise became the first ever 100cc Karting Champion, three-times Stock Car World Champion and a 500cc World record holder on the banked Montlery circuit in France. His sons, Tony and Tim Brise, followed in his tyre tracks. They joined the karting circuit, before progressing through the ranks into 1600 Formula Ford, Formula 3, Formula Atlantic, and in Tony’s case, all the way to Formula 1.
Indeed, Tony was tipped for the very top. At only 23, he became the protégé to former champion Graham Hill and looked set for a promising career, when the unimaginable happened. After testing the team’s new Hill GH2 Formula One car on the Circuit Paul Ricard track in France, the Embassy Hill plane bringing the team home crashed, killing everyone on board.
After the tragic accident, Tim, the younger of the two, switched to rallying and drove for several ‘works supported’ teams. He won the BTRDA Gold Star Championship and became an accredited FIA ‘B’ seeded driver.
It was around this time that the seeds of a business idea were formed. An alternator failure, whilst leading the World Championship RAC Rally in 1980, prompted Tim to seek out reliable, high-performance rotating electric components. With little options available, he decided to make them himself. And so Brise Motorsport was born.
Building upon a rich family heritage and expertise in motorsport and engineering, Brise Motorsport started out as a two-man operation in a small premises in Dartford, Kent, with a niche catalogue of starters and alternators for motorsport and aerospace applications.
However, as the technology and market evolved, so did the product line. Driven by a need for more horsepower, to start increasingly bigger engines, gear reduction starters were added. Smaller, lighter and more powerful, they are now a staple of our business.
And with ever more complex electronics fitted on board race cars, we have continued to develop increasingly higher output alternators too. Today, our compact lightweight alternators range from 40 all the way to 200A.
Most recently we launched a range of high-performance, lithium-ion Antigravity batteries with Re-start technology, meaning that racing teams, drivers and enthusiasts around the world can now purchase their entire starting and charging programme from just one supplier, us.
The difference – today we’re known as Carwood Brise, following the acquisition of Brise Motorsport by Carwood back in 2019. Whilst we’re still just as focused on performance parts, the backing of a world leading remanufacturer, with a 240 plus strong team, and a global footprint, has given us a whole new lease of life…with access to new technology, new products, new capabilities and more. We now also offer a full repair and remanufacture service for starter motors, alternators and their components. So, although we have a great history. And although performance is very much in our blood, we certainly won’t be resting on our laurels any time soon.
Motorsport
Our range of high-performance starting and charging solutions covers just about every type of motorsport you can think of. From high-speed circuit racing to a straight line dash from A to B. Sliding sideways round a track to uphill speed trials, staged rallies across difficult terrain, and more. So, whatever your discipline, or level, you can be rest assured that we’ll have the right product for you.
Get in Touch
Whilst you can find answers to our most frequently asked questions on our FAQ page, we know there are times when it’s simply best to talk. So whether you’re looking for expert technical support to help install a product, have a specific application that you need a product for or just need advice on anything and everything to do with performance starting and charging solutions, then please feel free to contact us directly using the form. One of our team will be sure to get back to you just as soon as we can.
