38 replies to this topic

[moffspeed]

Graham Hill was the source of plenty of memorable/amusing quotes during his life. Arguing the case for his disputed Indy win as he had "drunk the milk", worrying about running out of life's essence or chiding Jackie Stewart on his dominant championship year as  "hogging it a bit".

 

A recent magazine advert for a motorsport insurer attributes this quote to G.H. - " I am an artist. The track is my canvas and the car is my brush". A quick internet search also non specifically confirms that this was a Hill quote - if you fancy it you can buy a T shirt complete with the quote.

 

However this all seems a bit pretentious to me and not necessarily in line with his often irreverent approach to life - did he really utter these words ??

[Sterzo]

I shall do some rummaging later, though will probably be beaten to it by others. In the meantime, all I'll say is I can just imagine him saying it with that twinkle in the eye.

[Vitesse2]

Doesn't sound much like Graham to me. Far too sentimental. The only place I can find it in print (but unsourced) is in a 2010 novel - Circus Before Dawn by David Miller.

 

https://books.google...brush".&f=false

 

TBH if I'd been asked which racing driver said it I'd have said either Senna, Prost, Lauda or de Angelis. Maybe Phil Hill. Or possibly Varzi or Nuvolari.

[Ray Bell]

No, they wouldn't say it...

Writers would say that about them. You need a de Portago, maybe Seaman if he'd lived long enough.


Edit: Whoops... maybe John Goss.



.

Edited by Ray Bell, 01 June 2018 - 14:26.

[moffspeed]

No, they wouldn't say it...

Writers would say that about them. You need a de Portago, maybe Seaman if he'd lived long enough.


Edit: Whoops... maybe John Goss.



.

I was struggling to think of any "philosophical" racing drivers and NGH certainly didn't seem to fit the bill. I'm sure many young autograph hunters made the mistake of approaching Graham too soon before the start of a race and received the less-than-philosophical 2 word reply ending in "off".  Maybe if you substituted "track" for "stadium" and "car" for "boot" then it could have been an Eric Cantona quote.

 

Google philosophy and racing drivers and up pops Achille Varzi. It transpires that this is a contemporary Achille Varzi who is an eminent philosopher and publisher based at Columbia University. He just happens to be a 2nd cousin of the Achille Varzi...

[BRG]

Glad that others find this quote a bit odd as it has been niggling at me for several months.  It certainly doesn't sound very Hill-esque to me either.   And illustrating it with a Mark 2 Ford Escort doesn't add anything to its credibility (see p97 of the current Motorsport if you aren't aware of this advert). 

Edited by BRG, 01 June 2018 - 16:15.

[Geoff E]

I knew I had seen it on a webpage in connection with the "Grand Prix Legends" game in the very early 2000s.

It may well have been on Eagle Woman's (Alison Hine's) page http://alison.hine.net/gpl/ dated 2003.

EDIT: Alison Hine was one of the testers in the development of GPL.

Edited by Geoff E, 01 June 2018 - 16:03.

[Doug Nye]

Nah.  I think it is MOST unlikely that any such words were uttered by Graham - much less even thought by him.  This strikes me instead as a precious arty-farty invention...

 

 

DCN

[LittleChris]

I'm thinking Mark Thatcher for some reason

[Dave Ware]

I knew I shouldn't have logged on this late.  Should have gone to bed an hour ago.

 

A Google search reveals a boatload of sites that attribute the phrase to NGH.  I agree it doesn't sound like something I'd expect him to say...but the phrase got attributed to him somehow.  So if he didn't say it, how did it get attributed to him?

 

Really should have gone to bed an hour ago....

[Jim Thurman]

"I never said half the things I said" - Yogi Berra.

 

For those not familiar with him, Lawrence "Yogi" Berra was a baseball catcher with the New York Yankees. He was known for malaprops, which led to many false ones being attributed to him. Even the above quote might be apocryphal, but it makes a point.

 

When it comes to motorsport quotes, many of the attributed ones seem highly dubious at best. Ever notice how many quotes have been attributed to different drivers over the years?

[Vitesse2]

"Never believe anything you read on the internet" - Mark Twain.

[pete53]

I do remember him saying in an interview something along the lines of driving/controlling a racing car is a bit like taming a woman, which is a bit more G.Hill territory than the "I am an artist..." one.

[Vitesse2]

I do remember him saying in an interview something along the lines of driving/controlling a racing car is a bit like taming a woman, which is a bit more G.Hill territory than the "I am an artist..." one.

Are you sure that wasn't Swiss Toni?

 

[7MGTEsup]

"Never believe anything you read on the internet" - Mark Twain.

 

The man was a visionary...

[Bonde]

I believe he mentioned something along those lines in either the book "Graham" (ghosted, I guess, by Neil Ewart), or in "Life at the limit" - I'll se if I can find it...one of these days.

[Sterzo]

I believe he mentioned something along those lines in either the book "Graham" (ghosted, I guess, by Neil Ewart), or in "Life at the limit" - I'll se if I can find it...one of these days.

I've recently reread Life at the Limit, prompted by this thread, and he didn't say it in there. In fact, there's very little philosophising at all.

[Bonde]

I'll just check "Graham", then :-)

[moffspeed]

Incidentally one of the last times that I saw Graham race was at Llandow during the Tour of Britain in 1973 - driving the magnificent Datsun Bluebird.

 

Not much of a brush, a rather tatty and bumpy canvas and NGH not looking too artistic...

[BRG]

There were some odd choices of car for those Tours.  The sensible thing would have been to choose a car that was winning races and rallies (or a Ford Escort as it was otherwise called) but here we had top drivers turning out in all sorts of random cars.  The Bluebird 180SSS being a case in point.

[D-Type]

There were some odd choices of car for those Tours.  The sensible thing would have been to choose a car that was winning races and rallies (or a Ford Escort as it was otherwise called) but here we had top drivers turning out in all sorts of random cars.  The Bluebird 180SSS being a case in point.

The Bluebird SSS was good enough to win the Safari.  So not exactly "random".

[kayemod]

The Bluebird SSS was good enough to win the Safari.  So not exactly "random".

 

"...but here we had top drivers turning out in all sorts of random cars."

 

Money talks. In an era when F1 drivers weren't paid today's huge sums, this was good good publicity for some unlikely car manufacturers, as well as being a nice little earner for the drivers. I suspected at the time though, that a few of them weren't trying all that hard.

[h4887]

He said " Stop bloody well calling me Norman!"

[moffspeed]

The Bluebird SSS was good enough to win the Safari.  So not exactly "random".

The Safari was a fairly rugged test - but believe me the track surface at Llandow in those days made East African roads look like billiard tables...

[BRG]

The Bluebird SSS was good enough to win the Safari.  So not exactly "random".

Previous Datsun and later Nissan editions of the Bluebird did win the Safari, it is true (although not much else) but not the bloated 180SSS model that Hill was saddled with.  And I don;t recall it being any sort of success as a racing car either.

[f1steveuk]

I'm an artist, well I have been told I am, and all I need is a glass and a bar..........................

[BrmBoy]

' "The track is my canvas,

the car is my pen" – Graham Hill

Sometimes all you need is a good quote'

 

Mangling a metaphor for humour sounds much more like Hill but I have no idea if it is genuine!

 

A verbatim quote from the Adrian Flux Motorsport advert in MotorSport September 2018 page 64

https://www.adrianfl....uk/motorsport/

 

Edited by BrmBoy, 27 July 2018 - 12:06.

[Ardmore]

Just browsing through some old magazines and there in the February 1967 issue of the American publication Auto Racing was the quote you've been looking for.

 

 

 

These are the last two paragraphs of the article.

 

[RCH]

"Motor racing's quiet man"; "none of the magnetic flamboyance"??

Was he actually writing about Graham Hill?

[cpbell]

Sounds like the journalist invented the quote to make Graham sound more intense and serious than he already was.

[Doug Nye]

That story was credited to Jeff who?

 

The Graham we knew is the Graham who, when asked by entrant Colonel Ronnie Hoare, how the car had been during his winning drive in the 1964 Goodwood TT, replied: "The car?  Oh just like a f------ tractor...".

 

Artistry my Haas.

 

DCN

[john winfield]

If a journalist winds you up and you keep your mouth tight shut, rather than say something rude, I suppose you could be perceived as 'a quiet man'.  Just a thought. 

 

Jeff Scott became known for motor sports broadcasting in the USA: 'Weekend on Wheels' etc. When the Can-Am series was televised in the early 1970s Scott anchored the coverage with Tony Moy of Page & Moy. (American Comment, Motor Sport, August 1971). A 1970 New York Times article, covering an award won by the 'Weekend on Wheels' programme, refers to Scott as a 'former race driver'. 

[BRG]

"Motor racing's quiet man"; "none of the magnetic flamboyance"??

Was he actually writing about Graham Hill?

Bear in mind that this was an American journalist writing for an American journal and doubtless not unreasonably applying American standards.  To this day, we Brits have a reputation for being reserved.  I still struggle to imagine Hill saying that stuff though!!

[kayemod]

Bear in mind that this was an American journalist writing for an American journal and doubtless not unreasonably applying American standards.  To this day, we Brits have a reputation for being reserved.  I still struggle to imagine Hill saying that stuff though!!

 

 

...unless of course NGH was just having fun with the interviewer, a bit of a piss take.

[Vitesse2]

Or even, given the date, could it possibly be based on some sort of misreading/misinterpretation/deliberate misrepresentation of some PR bull**** put out by Ford and/or Lotus to remind people about the forthcoming DFV, which had first been announced in 1965? TBH 'a cool quiet man' fits Jimmy a lot better. But it would be around the time Graham signed for Lotus.

[Charlieman]

...unless of course NGH was just having fun with the interviewer, a bit of a piss take.

Some interviewees are flummoxed by bizarre questions. Others take things in their stride and deliver an equally bizarre response.

[raceannouncer2003]

Probably this Jeff Scott?  Auto Racing was published in New York and that's where this Jeff Scott was from:

 

https://www.racingsp...cott-USA-I.html

 

Vince H.

[john aston]

Just browsing through some old magazines and there in the February 1967 issue of the American publication Auto Racing was the quote you've been looking for.

 

 

 

These are the last two paragraphs of the article.

 

The plot thickens  - in my 1966 Shell Graham Hill Grand Prix Racing Book,  price   two shillings and appearing to be published as a pre season guide ) he says broadly the same thing -

 

In some ways , I'm like a painter with his canvas and brush. For me, the canvas is the circuit and the brush is the car . .....Just as the artist puts the right paints on this brush  to make the picture exactly what he wants it to be, so do I have to put my car right (he then goes on to talk about preparation etc ) 

 

I don't believe for a second that our man sat down and wrote the 25 page glossy magazine (it isn't a book except in its title ) himself , so although there are no credits to writers, photographers or anybody other than the printer I assume some PR guy at Shell was told to cut and paste what he could find on stuff like regs and racing glossary and then to talk to NGH for some quotable quotes. Maybe this was the original quote and Auto Racing 'borrowed ' it ?  

 

ETA I have just rechecked and some of the pics are credited to Maxwell Boyd - I wonder if he did the words too ?  

Edited by john aston, 01 December 2020 - 17:30.

[Ray Bell]

Let's see...

 

This is the bloke who said, "If I stuck around at BRM any longer they would have painted me dark green."

 

That sounds more like him.