Greatest Racecar? Neville Hay’s Long Nose D-Type Jaguar

I’m always torn by this, and it rather dates me in a way, but I did start watching motor racing as a very small boy. I was around in the 1950s as a spectator primarily, although I had started commentating by the end of that decade. I vividly remember cars of that era, but to me there were only two. Most people love the 250F Maserati, I thought it was the most fantastic looking racing car I’d ever seen. It looked like a proper Formula One car and it went like a proper Formula One car. When you think about it, the 250F first appeared in 1954 in the Argentinean GP and Fangio won his last World Championship with a 250F in 1957—I guess there were differences as the years progressed. As a matter of interest, one of the very early cars was the car that Gilby Engineering had which was raced by Roy Salvadori. Indeed, I believe it was Fangio’s car from Argentina. It was the very first production 250F sold to a private customer. On many occasions, when Syd Greene had time to prepare the car fully and Roy was on top form, he could easily keep up with the “works” cars. It was mainly raced in the UK—most weekends of the racing season. He raced the car in six Grand Prix races from 1954 to 1956 (1954, 1955 and 1956 British GPs; 1954 French GP, 1956 German and Italian GPs), but failed to finish at each event.

However, there is just one car for me to be called my favorite, or greatest, racecar—that’s the long-nose D-Type Jaguar. Like everybody else, I saw the very first D-Type when it first appeared in 1954 and thought the long-nose design was so much better than anything else I’d ever seen—let’s face it, it was gorgeous! And still is today.