Interview: Hans Ruesch

Hans Ruesch has had an amazing life. At age 23, he won the Donington Grand Prix (with Richard Seaman as co-driver). By age 40, two of his novels had been made into major motion pictures. By age 70, when most men are retired, he was the world’s leading spokesman against vivisection (medical research involving surgery on living animals). Today, at age 90, Ruesch is one of the last surviving members of racing’s Golden Age, the 1930s. He lives in Switzerland.

Ruesch competed in approximately 100 races between 1932 and 1937. He won 26, including three Grands Prix, the British Mountain Championship, closed circuit races on the frozen lakes of Eibsee and Titisee in Germany, and 13 mountain climbs. Twice he held the record for the “Kilometer with standing start”, which he wrested from the late John Cobb. Like his contemporaries, Dick Seaman and Whitney Straight, Ruesch had the talent and the means to compete and win as an independent. And as with Seaman and Straight, who were both offered tryouts—Seaman with Mercedes-Benz, which landed him a ride with the team, and Straight with Auto Union which he declined with the announcement of his retirement—there was the possibility Ruesch too might have been offered a tryout had an accident not ended his racing career in 1937. Ruesch says both companies overlooked him because of his age, but he wasn’t that much younger than Seaman. Certainly, Ruesch had the victories to warrant their attention.