Vintage Racecar is saddened to report the death of Tony Maggs. His drive in a Tojeiro-Jaguar at the 1959 North Staffordshire Motor Club meeting at Silverstone epitomised his guile and determination on the track. Coming into Woodcote corner for the final time, he cut inside leader Peter Mould’s Lister-Jaguar. Carrying too much speed, the momentum of this last-gasp attempt slid his car across the track and forced him onto the grass. With his foot firmly on the accelerator, he continued “off track” and side by side with Mould as they crossed the line. Officials declared the race a dead heat and awarded both Maggs and Mould the victory. It was gritty drives like this that contributed to Maggs becoming South Africa’s first Grand Prix driver just a couple of years later.
Born into a farming family in Pretoria, Maggs was expected to carry on the family business. Instead, he found motor racing, and was consumed by the “drug” of the sport. Against his fathers’ wishes he headed to the UK to advance his knowledge of his chosen passion. In 1960, he joined the Chequered Flag stable driving a Formula Junior Gemini; his performances caught the eye of Ken Tyrrell, who was running Cooper’s European Formula Junior team, and for whom he raced the following year. With an array of spectacular performances he became joint champion with the equally spectacular Jo Siffert. 1961 also brought his Grand Prix debut at Aintree in the British GP driving Louise Bryden-Brown’s Lotus 18 to a creditable 13th place.
His first full Grand Prix season was to replace Jack Brabham in the Cooper works team. Brabham was no mean act to follow, having won the 1959 and 1960 World Championships. As the season progressed, Maggs’s confidence grew too, and he finished the year with a podium place at the South African GP, his home event! Despite his continued success in F1, Maggs was replaced by Phil Hill in the Cooper team for 1964. Driving a relatively uncompetitive Centro-Sud BRM he managed admirable finishes at the 1965 Austrian GP, 4th, and a 6th place at the gruelling Nürburgring for the German GP. As with other drivers of the day, he dovetailed these Formula One performances with sportscar and other formulae of racing in Europe, the USA, and his home country South Africa where with David Piper he won the Kyalami Nine Hour Race in 1963 and 1964.
In tragic circumstances Maggs career came to an abrupt and premature halt, in 1965. Driving in an F2 race at the Roy Hesketh Circuit, Pietermaritzburg, he lost control, crashed, and struck a young boy who was standing in a prohibited area. The boy was fatally injured and Maggs immediately retired from the sport.
By Mike Jiggle
