von Trips

One lunchtime in October 1960, I wandered into the Fontana Restaurant in Modena to find Wolfgang von Trips sitting alone. Having met him a couple of times, I asked if I might join him and he readily agreed. In those long departed days, having a casual meal with a racing driver was almost a commonplace with no managers, PROs or impenetrable motor homes in the way of an enquiring hack. And my companion was no plain, ordinary racing driver, being a real-life Count – Wolfgang Alexander Graf Berghe von Trips. However, he was known to one and all as Taffy, a nickname he had been given by his friend, the late Peter Collins, for no better reason than, “You look like a Taffy.” He also looked perplexed, for he had much on his mind.

As a staff writer for Autosport, I was in town on a working holiday to cover the Modena GP, an F2 race which had taken place a couple of days earlier. Taffy had finished 3rd, driving the prototype Ferrari 156, the mid-engined car developed from the chassis Richie Ginther had raced (with 2.5-liter engine) at Monaco. It was virtually Ferrari’s GP car for 1961 but not yet equipped with the sleek “sharknose” bodywork that would make it one of the most instantly recognizable Grand Prix cars of all time.