Mario Illien

Mario Illien (born 2 August 1949) is a Swiss engineer specialising in motorsport engine design who comes from Chur in the Canton of Graubunden, Switzerland. Despite living in a country in which motor racing was banned in 1955, when he was six years old, he developed an interest in the sport during the 1960s while following the career of Jo Bonnier, a Swedish expatriate living in Switzerland. He trained as a technical draughtsman, graduated in mechanical engineering from Biel University in 1976, and joined Mowag in Kreuzlingen designing diesel engines for armoured vehicles. In 1979 he moved to the UK to work in the design department of Cosworth Engineering in Northampton, where he spent five years.