3 replies to this topic

[Graham Gauld]

This has been a tragic opening few days of March. As already mentioned, Gianni Rogliatti died in Italy and now today I have heard that firstly Peter Agg has died, the man behind Trojan, Lambretta in England etc and now Selwyn Hayward who was the man behind Merlyn cars. He died in the Hopital Pasteur in Nice on Saturday morning. Selwyn had been seriously ill for the past two years and yet still maintained correspondence but two weeks ago he laped into a coma and died.
He was highly regarded by drivers like Jonathan Williams, Teddy Pilette and Tim Schenken and Jonathan would always visit Selwyn when he was in the area. Teddy Pilette was even closer to him as he and his father ran Merlyns in their racing school in Belgium and Teddy cut his teeth racing the marque.
It is tragic that we are losing so many talented people in such a short time.

[David McKinney]

Sad news indeed

Peter Agg would have been 83 next month

By coincidence, only yesterday I was reading a 1968 Autosport feature on Colchester Racing Developments, which reminded me of the large part Selwyn Hayward played in racing at that time

[Richard Jenkins]

Very sad, and sorry to hear of Peter Agg's death too. He remained such an enthusiastic supporter of the sport all his life.

[adamcooperf1]

I never met Selwyn face to face but talked to him extensively by phone when writing my Piers Courage book. He was enormously helpful and great fun to talk to.

In 1963 Piers and Jonathan Williams, Essex boys of course, both drove Merlyns - and a certain Frank Williams served as the latter's mechanic.

As Graham Gauld notes, JJW remained close to Selwyn. However, after nearly 50 years they still disagreed on the cause of the suspension failure that led to the Monaco F3 accident that put Jonathan into the Princess Grace hospital... The only upside was that he met Princess Grace!