Stirling Moss, at the wheel of the 1957 Vanwall Grand Prix car at the Nurburgring, shortly before suspension failure ended his day.
Photo: Moss Collection
At the end of the 1955 season, Mercedes Benz made the decision to withdraw from motor racing, partly because of the Le Mans disaster, but in reality they wanted to concentrate on developing their road cars. This left me without a Grand Prix drive for 1956, but I had some talks with Maserati, and they made me a serious offer. However, I wanted to drive for a British team if I possibly could, so in November, I had two test sessions within ten days of each other.
Sir Stirling Moss
The first test was at Oulton Park with both Vanwall and BRM. Tony Vandervell had been manufacturing “Thinwall” bearings for sometime and he had been part of the BRM consortium until he got fed up with it and decided to start his own team. The Vanwall Special ran in 1954 with a 2-liter engine and then as the Vanwall with a 2.5-liter engine in 1955, and was showing some promise. They brought their Cooper-designed chassis, and I have to say the handling was quite good, but the engine left a lot to be desired and had a flat spot at low revs and a misfire at high revs. I also tried a BRM on the same occasion, which was quicker in the damp conditions.
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