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Philip Porter has written around 30 motoring and motor racing books. Among them, he has written four with Sir Stirling Moss, and one each with Murray Walker, Barry Cryer and Martin Brundle.

Two of his books have won the Montagu Trophy, awarded by the Guild of Motoring Writers for the best motoring book of the year. He has also received the same accolade at the British Sports Book Awards and the International Historic Motoring Awards.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Moss was the hero for a generation of schoolboys. One such was Porter. Four decades on, he and his idol became close friends.

A motor racing enthusiast since childhood, Porter started competing successfully while still at school. He began writing in the 1980s and flying hot air balloons in the 1990s, becoming an airship test pilot and winning the silver medal at the 1991 European Airship Championships. He is the first person ever to fly an airship in Africa.

Since the 1970s, he has owned several Jaguar XKs and two historic E-types: 9600 HP, the oldest E-type in existence, and 848 CRY, which appeared in The Italian Job. He has twice been Chairman of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and is an active member of the Jerome K. Jerome Society.

He lives in a Tudor farmhouse in Worcestershire with his actress wife Julie and Clarence the Cat.

Stirling Moss is the greatest, and most famous, racing driver Britain has ever produced. He is arguably the greatest all-round motor sport competitor the world has yet seen.

His life was an exciting cocktail of innate and honed skills, deadly danger, jet-setting, fast cars and crumpet! Loved by the public the world over and continually courted by the media, he was the James Bond of motor racing, the David Beckham of his era.

This is the fascinating story of the first half of his career, beginning with modest little motorcycle-engined racing cars through to winning with the mighty Silver Arrows. Moss was the first professional racing driver in Britain and one of the first sportsmen to market himself as a commodity.

Infused with patriotism, he persevered with the worthy but very amateur British racing cars of the period until his principles nearly ruined his career. His genius behind the wheel shone through, though, and he repeatedly challenged drivers in far superior foreign machines. The British loved him as the gallant under-dog, their fearless crusader doing battle in foreign lands, sometimes bloodied but always unbowed. Aficionados appreciated a true master at work.

Justice finally prevailed. Having repeatedly suffered desperate luck, his extraordinary abilities were finally and fully recognised in 1955. In Formula 1 he was second only to World Champion Fangio, and a close second at that. He could beat him, though, in sports cars, and his triumph in the 1,000-mile Mille Miglia around the roads and mountains of Italy, averaging a fraction under 100mph (160km/h), stands as one of the greatest feats, in all sport, of all time.

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Foreword by Murray Walker OBEPhilip Porter

Stirling MossThe Definitive Biography

Volume 11929–55

US price $59.95

www.porterpress.co.uk

The most detailed motoring biography ever published, this book describes the first half of Sir Stirling Moss’s remarkable career. This highly readable account paints a vivid picture of the highs and lows, the challenges and the dangers in Moss’s extraordinary life.

After starting to race at the age of 17, Moss carved out a career that took him to the very top, but the ride was a bumpy one with plenty of setbacks along the way. As an antidote to the drama on the track, he enjoyed chasing girls as much as chasing cars.

There is human drama, humour, tragedy and triumph all mixed in with living life to the full at 150mph. A true sportsman and loyal patriot, Moss was an ideal role model in the post-war period and won the deep affection of the British public.

Debunking myths, correcting untruths and adding much new information, this book can claim to be the most intensively researched motoring biography ever written.

Stirling MossThe Definitive Biography Volume 1 1929–55

Stirling MossThe Definitive Biography

Philip Porter

Porter Press International

Stirling MossThe Definitive Biography

Volume 1

1929 – 55

© Philip Porter

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in September 2016

ISBN 978-1-907085-33-8

Published byPorter Press International Ltd,

PO Box 2, Tenbury Wells,WR15 8XX, UK

Tel: +44 (0)1584 781588Fax: +44 (0)1584 781630sales@porterpress.co.ukwww.porterpress.co.uk

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Printed by Gomer Press

COPYRIGHTWe have made every effort to trace and acknowledge

copyright holders and we apologise in advance for any unintentional omission. We would be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgement in any subsequent edition.

Contents

Foreword ...................................................................................... 7

Introduction ................................................................................ 9

1 The Early Years ........................................................................... 15

2 First Full Season – 1948 .......................................................... 43

3 First Foreign Forays – 1949 .................................................... 67

4 Important Steps – 1950 .......................................................... 87

5 Versatility Proven – 1951 ...................................................... 123

6 Season of Frustration – 1952 ................................................ 199

7 The turnaround survival plan ................................................... 281

8 The Breakthrough – 1954 .................................................... 349

9 A Triumphant Season – 1955 ............................................... 471

Race Results ............................................................................. 616

Acknowledgements .................................................................. 623

Bibliography ............................................................................ 626

Index ........................................................................................ 628

7

Foreword

I regard it as a great honour to be asked to write the Foreword to this book – for two reasons. The first is that it enables me to attempt to put into words my admiration and respect for its subject, Sir Stirling Moss

OBE, whom I regard as one of the very greatest personalities and drivers in the long history of the sport I love. The other reason is that I regard this book as the definitive work on the life and times of this great man.

Like me, Stirling, whom I am proud to regard as a friend, is no longer a young man. His brilliant career was terminated by a still unexplained accident as long ago as 1962 but he is still ‘Mr Motor Racing’, even to countless people who never had the good fortune to witness his supreme prowess. To those who did, he will forever be regarded as the yardstick against which his rivals and achievements should be judged.

Stirling’s motor sport career effectively began in 1948 and so did mine. So, having seen all the greats in action since then, I feel entitled to say that he is right up there with the very best of them. ‘But he never won the World Championship,’ people say. Nor did he, but, against awesome competition and in cars which were sometimes inferior, he finished second four times and third three times in his last seven years of Formula 1.

In his 15-year career he became one of the first real professionals, demonstrating amazing versatility by driving and winning in anything and everything, from 500cc Formula 3 cars to fearsome sports cars and sophisticated Formula 1 projectiles, ranging from front-engined Maseratis, Mercedes and Vanwalls to rear-engined Lotuses and Coopers.

By Murray Walker OBE

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In doing so he won so many truly outstanding races in his relaxed and seemingly effortless, laid-back, straight-arm style, and achieved massive worldwide status at a time when motor racing commanded far less than today’s massively enthusiastic following. You can read all about it in the pages that follow.

What is he like as a person? Friendly, cheerful, direct and straightforward, intensely patriotic (he would undoubtedly have done even better had he not insisted on driving only British cars at a time when they were not good enough), fundamentally decent (he would have won the 1958 World Championship had he not argued in favour of Mike Hawthorn when his Ferrari rival had been disqualified), fiercely determined, awesomely brave (heaven knows how many times he has survived truly dreadful accidents), forcefully clear about what he believes in and what he does not, and a very talented and successful businessman.

How, then, would I sum up Sir Stirling? First of all, as an honest, decent chap, with an outgoing personality, who wins friends everywhere he goes. Secondly, as an uncannily talented racer, the man who competed against and beat no lesser rivals than Juan Manuel Fangio, Jack Brabham, Jim Clark, Dan Gurney and John Surtees, and who won some of the greatest races of all time, the 1955 Mille Miglia and the 1961 Monaco and German Grands Prix [to be covered in Volume 2] amongst them. The man who has been honoured with a Knighthood by the country that he so fiercely supports and who has won the highest regard from so many for so long, supported by his charming wife Susie, whom Stirling would be the first to acknowledge is his rock. He is indeed someone very special.

Now read on – you are going to like it!

9

Introduction

Sir Stirling Moss is an extraordinary human being, although there are many who would claim that he is not human. Certainly many of his feats in his exceptional life have led people to question whether he

can be a mere mortal. His favourite word may be ‘crumpet’ – that old-fashioned word for

attractive females – but his favourite phrase is ‘movement is tranquillity’. He has never been able to sit still. It was true in his racing days and it remains so even now as he advances through his 80s.

Early on he was a horseman, then a racing driver, then a businessman. He needs to be active every minute. When Sherlock Holmes was between cases and had nothing to challenge and stimulate his mind, he took to drugs. For Stirling, his drug is activity.

Like many very active people, he can be short on patience. He finds it difficult to tolerate those less active than him. He has always been in a hurry – in a racing car and in life.

Earlier in his life he tried to take up hobbies, but he found they all entailed periods of inactivity. Anathema.

All those involved with him, either professionally or in his private life, follow in his wake and struggle to keep up.

He also possesses a firm resolve. He knows his own mind and where he is going. That he has great determination and single-minded focus is proven by his successes in life.

10

Stirling Moss

A competitive nature and dogged determination are two traits that have run through the whole Moss family, including father Alfred, mother Aileen, sister Pat and, of course, Stirling.

So many of those who are ultra-successful have enjoyed the close support of their family in their younger, formative days and their first steps in the field they conquer. Stirling was no exception and, although his father was initially very much against his son having a go at motor racing, he subsequently gave him his wholehearted support. This extended beyond financial assistance, for Alfred had been quite a useful driver himself and had competed at Indianapolis and Brooklands.

The family were pretty close in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Stirling made his first, tentative steps into motor sport and Pat was starting to make a name for herself in show-jumping. Susie, Lady Moss, comments that besides being close, they were known for fighting each other.

‘I would swear at my sister,’ recalled Stirling, ‘and she would swear back.’Talking about those days, Pat, who died in 2008, remarked that the

family were very competitive among themselves. If they played cards or Scrabble, they would take it very seriously. Actually, the siblings did not get on well until much later in life.

‘The gap between you [in age] matters quite a lot in the early years,’ reflected Stirling. ‘When you get older, it doesn’t come into it. Pat was a pain in the neck, with her horses and so on, when she was five or six, and because I was 11 or 12, we didn’t really get on. Then she did very well jumping so therefore we didn’t share that passion. We got along very well in the later years.’

After establishing herself as one of the top riders in the country and a member of the British team, Pat went on to become the top woman rally driver in the world, her successes coming mostly in ‘Big Healeys’. In 1961 she won the Liège-Rome-Liège, considered to be the toughest rally in Europe, and also finished second in the Alpine and RAC rallies. In 1962 she won the Tulip Rally outright, taking the first of many famous victories for a new phenomenon called the Mini. She was European Ladies’ Rally Champion five times.

With both sister and brother having busy, very separate careers, their paths did not cross that much, although Stirling went back to the family home, by then in Tring, Hertfordshire, at weekends whenever commitments

11

allowed. He was very proud, needless to say, to see Pat do so well on the international rallying scene.

‘She did a terrific job. She was a pretty strong person. She had a lot of stamina. She was very competitive, very determined. To win the Liège outright for a girl...’

The same family determination was evident in the Moss parents. Aileen was Ladies’ Trials Champion of England and Alfred built an empire in the world of dentistry.

Like so many young boys growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, my absolute hero was Stirling Moss. There was no question of me being a ‘Hawthorn man’; I was always 100 per cent a ‘Moss man’ at

a time when enthusiasts were split into two distinct camps. I believe that it is good to have heroes in one’s formative years and Moss was an ideal hero.

Not only was he pre-eminent in motor racing for much of his career, winning for Britain all over the world, often against the odds, but he also possessed a full hand of traditional virtues. He was honest, patriotic, modest and dedicated. Above all, he was a damned good sport. Although fiercely competitive, he did not want to win at any cost. A victory by unfair means was never a victory for this totally principled sportsman.

In defeat, he took it on the chin. There was always another day. In triumph, he was joyful and he celebrated, but in a controlled manner, and he always had a thought for any rival who had suffered, as he so often did, from bad luck or injury. He would be the first to visit any hospital after a race if one of his fellow drivers had been injured. Although never an emotional man, he was not without compassion. Above all, he was ‘British’. This was my hero.

Of course, I never for one second expected that, many years hence, we would become acquainted and then become great friends, that we would produce four books together and that I would then attempt – and I stress the word ‘attempt’ – to write a biography worthy of the great man.

It has been a fascinating challenge and a labour of love.I have received some wonderful assistance, not least from Stirling and

Susie, as I acknowledge at the end of this book. I am fortunate that Stirling allowed me to copy his diaries, although

very sadly those prior to 1954 were never returned by his first biographer.

12

Stirling Moss

At times the diaries are a challenge to understand but the ‘translating’ has been made possible by Stirling’s generally excellent hand-writing. Occasionally I encountered little mysteries and made deductions, and sometimes there can be confusion about an identity. For example, Stirling refers to his father variously as ‘Alf ’, ‘Alfred’ and ‘Dad’, and once or twice I wondered whether ‘Alf ’ could be Alf Francis, his long-time mechanic. And, there again, perhaps the odd mention of ‘Francis’ is not his mechanic but car constructor Francis Beart. Sometimes it was impossible for me to determine the identity of a person mentioned just by a first name; if someone’s significance has been missed, that is down to my ignorance.

I have striven hard to dig deeper than ever before, to enlist the aid of more sources – both contemporary and more recent, including interviews, magazines and books – than anyone has previously consulted, bearing in mind the potential pitfalls of inaccuracies and contradictions.

With contemporary magazine accounts, I found frequent anomalies in the ‘facts’, with, for example, the reason for Stirling’s retirement from the 1955 Italian Grand Prix being given variously as ‘axle problems’, ‘piston problems’ and ‘gearbox problems’. Of course, one must remember that the journalists concerned were usually working to tight deadlines, that they were sometimes fed untruths or biased views by the participants, and that key facts could emerge long after they had gone to press.

Similarly, many of the books that I relied upon for added facts and colour turned out to contain inaccuracies. It is all too tempting to criticise but the sum of knowledge increases as time passes and all of us who have written books have a few ‘facts’ we wish we had never committed to print.

It can be amusing to trace sources used in other books. Some writers have been so bold as to copy out great chunks from earlier books, without any form of acknowledgement, and sometimes the ‘root’ source was one of the contemporary magazines, occasional mistakes and all. In this way, certain errors have been perpetuated.

As a child, I read Alf Francis’s book, Alf Francis – Racing Mechanic, and found it enthralling. However, when his facts and his stories can be cross-checked against other sources, particularly Stirling’s diaries, it becomes clear that some of the ‘colour’ is pure fiction, perhaps added by his ghost-writer, usually to improve a yarn or to portray Alf in a flattering light. Unfortunately, quite a few later authors have taken these writings as gospel.

13

Having said all that, I am sure someone will come along and be able to prove me incorrect in certain facts or contentions, but I have tried very hard to verify everything or, when relevant, provide the conflicting data where period sources disagree. There are, I have to say, a few instances where I have had to rely on Alf Francis, unquestionably a brilliant and intensely loyal mechanic and a most important character in the whole Stirling Moss story, and I just pray I have not been taken in! It is so difficult, at times, to sift the wheat from the chaff.

I have endeavoured to present more than just a complete and accurate account of Moss’s competition career. I have also tried to produce a comprehensive, rounded portrait of this remarkable character, social life and all. My book is not intended to be a eulogy but a balanced assessment of a complex personality. Having said that, there are few, if any, warts, because of his innate decency.

I have long considered Stirling Moss to be the greatest racing driver of all time. I contend that this judgement should embrace all forms of motor racing, not just Grands Prix. Modest as ever, Moss has never accepted

that he was better than Fangio in single-seaters, but he could certainly beat him in sports cars. Throw in the other things Moss did at the highest level – such as saloon car racing and his brief but incredibly successful rallying career – and we can argue that he was the greatest all-round motor sport competitor of all time. That he was never World Champion was simply fate.

This book, the first of two volumes, tells of his formative years, his early successes, the blind patriotism that was nearly his downfall, his flashes of brilliance tempered by mechanical failures and inadequate machinery, his triumphs with his own car against works opposition, and, finally, his rise to full recognition and success at the highest level, which included one of the greatest achievements in the entire history of sport.

This is the story of a special man and a unique sportsman in the first half of his remarkable career.

The start of the 1948 Goodwood 500cc race with Moss in number 7. He won his first race. (Grand Prix Library)

The Cooper Mk III at the 1949 British Grand Prix meeting where he took another win. (David Weguelin)

Victory on the big stage in the 500cc race at the British GP meeting at Silverstone gained valuable publicity.

The Cooper-JAP 500 Mk III seen at Shelsley Walsh in 1949 in 1,000cc form. (MAC Archive/Murray Hardy)

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This book was

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Stirling Moss The Definitive Biography

By Philip Porter