I was going through a pile of papers when I found the order of service for John Cooper’s funeral. I...
What do the following all have in common: Mario Andretti, Jim Clark, Emerson Fittipaldi, Alberto Rodriguez Larreta, Nigel Mansell and...
In my last column, I cited the Connew as one of my favorite stories in motor racing. The Connew PC1 is probably the best Formula One car ever assembled in a shed by three mates. This leads me to ask what is the worst Formula One car ever made? Try...
Early in 1996, I met up with some fellow hacks and someone mentioned that so-and-so was working on Jacques Villeneuve’s...
When I was at school I used to sit at the back of the French class and I always looked busy though I hardly learned a word of French. I looked engrossed in my work because I was designing an Austin Seven-based 750 Special which would make me the next...
Under most circumstances, I run a mile from making predictions. At an early age, I noticed that all bookmakers lived...
The aspect of motor racing which I admire the most is the production racing car industry. You can make a...
In the summer of 1980, I was at Goodwood for a test session. Before I reached the pits, I bumped into Les Thacker, the Competition Manager of BP, who was picking up the tab for the Toleman Formula 2 team, who was dominating the season. Mike Lawrence “Anything interesting?” I...
At the end of May, I was in Italy following the Mille Miglia Retrospective. There was a time when I...
Champ Car racing is in the middle of an ongoing drama, which can be best described as character building. Starting in 2005, CART rules call for 3-liter V-10 engines, just like Formula One. Could it be that some convergence is in the air? If so, we have been there before....
I have just watched “The Italian Job,” the 1969 original. At the time of writing, the remake has not hit Britain, but it makes the movie topical. When the remake was first mooted, the retro Beetle was pencilled in to take the starring role originally created by the Mini Cooper....
Manufacturers are falling over them- selves to put supercars on the market. Not those wimpy things restricted to 155 mph, but full-blooded vehicles which you can only drive hard on some German autobahnen and in downtown Naples. I was once driving a 1954 Swallow Doretti at 60 mph on a...
I once accepted a commission to write a book called AZ of Sports Cars. It was to cover the post-war...
As I write this column in late April, the mass media is full of stories about Ayrton Senna. I must...
We celebrate Ferrari in this issue [Click here to see Ferrari Special Issue], but how much is Ferrari’s success due...
Regular readers of this column will know that I delight in the obscure, so imagine my joy when at the...
At the moment, Michael Schumacher is setting records, that will never be beaten. How can I be so sure? The...
Jenks used to write pieces titled, “Pity the Poor Historian”, where he would list, say, the conflicting reasons for a particular car’s retirement from a race as reported in different publications. I used to think them highly amusing until I became an historian myself. Try this as an easy historical...
Ferruccio Lamborghini, whose businesses included tractors and air conditioning units, once treated himself to a Ferrari. He found it wanting and took it back to the factory, where Enzo Ferrari was dismissive. Lamborghini was so infuriated that he decided to build a better car. It’s not quite David and Goliath—...