140 replies to this topic

[bill moffat]

I hope this is not reinventing an old thread but here goes...Most F1 drivers over the years have driven road cars that are predictably sporty..Mike Hawthorn's Mk2 Jag, Jimmy Clark's Elan etc. Some have surprised us..James Hunt's A35 for example ! Could we match every (let's say) post -1960 Grand Prix driver to atleast one of their chosen road cars ??

[Ross Stonefeld]

Im allways amazed when top top drivers dabble in really high performance road cars. I mean, whats the point? You drive a freaking Grand Prix car, even a formula ford is going to lap faster than the latest kit car from Maranello.

So for me its a case of "you arent going to get close, why waste the money" Id be really happy with an RS6 Avant these days. AWD, 400hp, Paddle shifters, and cargo room. So i can haul trophies faster than anyone else

[TODave2]

One curious aspect of F1 drivers and road cars - they pay really high insurance premiums. I guess the insurance companies assume that they will drive flat out everywhere (and are probably not too far from the truth). But it's kinda ironic that the best drivers in the world are considered the most likely to have crashes by the insurance companies...

Although I admit a good track driver doesn't automatically make a good road driver.

So I guess it all makes sense really. Ignore me.

[Holger Merten]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
(...)
So for me its a case of "you arent going to get close, why waste the money" Id be really happy with an RS6 Avant these days. AWD, 400hp, Paddle shifters, and cargo room. So i can haul trophies faster than anyone else

Come on Ross, the RS& has 450 hp, but top speed is regulated: 250 km/h max.

[ian senior]

Quite a few F1 drivers in the late 60s used to drive those nasty mk4 Zodiacs. I can only assume that they were freebies from Ford, there's no other possible excuse.

[Evo One]

Mike Hawthorn also drove a Lancia Aurelia GT - a friend of mine now owns it and has done a wonderful job on restoration.

Jean Behra drove a Lancia B24 Spyder.

[2F-001]

Eddie Irvine has (or had) a Caterham.
(That's aside from his 288GTO and goodness knows what else)

[dmj]

Quite a few of them had or are still having a FIAT 500, including Alesi and older Schumacher. I believe Panis has one too...
Peter Collins had Mk I Zephyr with bumper sticker "I like girls"...
Other matches - Piquet had MB 450 SEL 6.9, I believe Hunt had one too, before he started to trash around that little Austin... Senna and Prost drove MB 500 (or 560?) SECs...
Lancia Aurelia B 20 GT was chosen road car for several drivers in '50's, and I seem to recall that one owned by Lorenzo Bandini was sold at auction a few years ago - so it could be found in GP drivers' garages even after its time...
Villoresi drove a Ferrari 195S in private life.
Am I recalling wrong that Nuvolari drove a Lancia Aprilia?
Porches are chosen by quite a few of them, Frere, Bell, Watson...
Roy Salvadori drove an Aston Martin DB4.
John Surtees likes to keep his cars for decades, including MB 300 SL "Gullwing" and BMW 507...

Sorry for any mistakes, that was from top of my head...

OT, regarding 300 SL, that car had different nicknames in different languages. I know 4 of them:
English "Gullwing", German "Flugelturer", French "Papillon", Italian "Alla di gabbiano". Were there others? - I'd like to learn them, just from curiosity...

[bill moffat]

..Stirling Moss drove a Facel Vega, Chris Amon had a Sunbeam Tiger for a while. I remember Graham Hill driving into the Paddock at Silverstone in an Embassy liveried oddity..was it the Ogle designed Aston...someone will remember I'm sure.

[ian senior]

Yes, it was the Ogle Aston. And wasn't Mr Hill another A35 pilot at one stage?

[Uwe]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
So for me its a case of "you arent going to get close, why waste the money" Id be really happy with an RS6 Avant these days. AWD, 400hp, Paddle shifters, and cargo room. So i can haul trophies faster than anyone else

I assume you mean semi-automatic shifters as in F1, not fully automatic. AFAIK the RS6 can only be bought with an automatic gear change, because Audi has no manual gear that can withstand the forces of 450 HP in combination with the car weight (at least here in Germany).

[Uwe]

Originally posted by Holger Merten


Come on Ross, the RS& has 450 hp, but top speed is regulated: 250 km/h max.

Holger,

if you can afford to buy an RS6, you can afford a few K-Euros for a chip tuning as well. Easy (and expensive) to get a tuned RS6 with 300+ km/h.;)

[mikedeering]

Didn't Hakkinen have a Ferrari until Erja realised there was no room for the shopping (that was his story - I think Mercedes may have had more to do with him getting rid of it than Erja!)

[Uwe]

Lauda had (of course) several Ferraris during his time at Ferrari, but owned a Porsche 911 Turbo privately. He admitted then that he preferred the Turbo, even if he considered it an evil beast ("böse Sau").

And I remember a photograph showing Berger with his red Lamborghini Countach.

[BobM]

I remember reading that Keke Rosberg had a Countach and a 427 Cobra.

Bob

[bill moffat]

I remember a photo of a very uneasy-looking Black Jack posing alongside the Brabham Viva ( the one with the go-faster flashes). Whether he had to drive one of these fire-breathing monsters is another matter.

[Vitesse2]

In his early racing days Graham Hill ran an old Austin 7 Ulster - see "Life at the Limit" for lots od adventures in it!

Wasn't Jenson Button stopped and fined on the spot on an Autoroute in France doing something like 150mph in a diesel BMW? Bet that did wonders for BMW's diesel sales!

[p de vos]

Yes, Alesi and Schumacher M are (or at least were) said to drive Fiat 500's, but my favourite racing driver choice of a private car, if only for the fact that he doesn't drive it because of sponsorship links, is Jacques Villeneuve's Camaro Z28.

[Paul Parker]

Bill Moffat raised the subject of what cars F1 drivers used on the road and quotes Mike Hawthorn as having a Mk2 Jaguar. In fact he drove a modified 3.4 Mk1 (chassis no. S970806DN, reg. no. VDU 881) that he raced during 1958. The Mk2 was not even in production at this time, and of course Mike subsequently crashed fatally in VDU 881 on the A3 public road in Surrey near John Coombs' dealership. The cause of the accident has never been satisfactorily resolved with various theories advanced over the years, but it has been suggested that Hawthorn was the victim of aquaplaning caused by the Jaguar's Dunlop Durabrand tyres that caused him to lose control, hitting the front of an oncoming lorry and then leaving the road before striking a small tree broadside on. It was virtually cut in half and totally destroyed by the impact. The remains of the car were later cut up by Jaguar and the engine sold to German Jaguar distributor Peter Lindner.

The car was actually owned by Jaguar and loaned to Mike by Jaguar team manager and friend 'Lofty' England. It was first registered on October 3rd 1957 to Jaguar Cars Ltd., with steel wheels and overdrive, colour British Racing Green with suede green leather interior. Modifications to the car for racing purposes were carried out at Mike's own car business, Tourist Trophy Garages, according to one of his former employees Ted Papsch, although Jaguar might have also have worked on the car. These mods included higher compression ratio (9:1), 2" carbs, competition clutch, heavy duty front and rear springs, competition shock absorbers, wire wheels and so on.

How many other famous racing drivers have been killed or injured in road accidents? I seem to recall Fangio having a near miss in a Lancia or similar during his career. Doubtless fellow tnfers will know the answer.

[dmj]

Well, Nino Farina and mike Hailwood are two of the others that lost life in road accidents.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by ian senior
Yes, it was the Ogle Aston. And wasn't Mr Hill another A35 pilot at one stage?

And demon tuner thereof, in his incarnation as a director of Speedwell!

pete

[bill moffat]

Mk 1 Jaguar ..sorry Paul ! Hawthorn was allegedly racing Rob Walker in a Merc wasn't he ?

Poor Mike Hailwood met his end in a Rover SD1 I believe ( as did Grace Kelly?). Mike Parkes also died in a road crash ..I think he was driving a Lancia.

[dmj]

I can confirm that Grace Kelly died in a SD1 and I think you're right about Parkes but can't remember what model it was. 2000 Berlina, maybe?
And Hawthorn died while racing with Rob Walker in MB 300 SL, yes...

[Paul Parker]

Thank you for the responses to my question about racing drivers on public roads, although I was aware of Farina (en route to the 1966 French GP in a Lotus Cortina), Parkes (collision with a lorry in fog near Milan in 1977 driving a Lancia) and Hailwood (on the way to or returning from buying fish and chips driving a Rover 3500 SDI in 1981 after colliding with a lorry doing an illegal 'u' turn). Rather I was wondering about others who might have had less publicised incidents, and not necessarily fatal. For instance I believe that Roy Salvadori had a reputation for getting a move on on the Queen's highway, and how about Innes Ireland. Similarily Gilles Villeneuve and Jody Scheckter driving to Modena etc.

Bill: Yes Mike Hawthorn was having a 'dice' with Rob Walker driving a 300SL.

[Doug Nye]

Paul is quite right - 'dice' yes, 'race' NO! Rob had been cruising eastwards along the Hog's Back ridge-top A31 road between Farnham and Guildford when a Jaguar Mark I screamed by, its driver waving a vigorous 'V' sign out of his window. It was Hawthorn. Walker reacted instantly, and the 'dice' was on. The Hog's Back ridge's A31 road crosses the main A3 London-Portsmouth road just short of Guildford. There was what today would be called a slip road curving down from the ridge-top A31 to join the A3 just as it emerged from underneath the bridge. Mike and Rob both halted, or at least slowed right down, at the T-junction there where the slip road joined the old three-lane A3 - not a dual carriageway at that time - and then Mike was away accelerating like fury...towards his death. The impact point with the tree was little more than half a mile down the A3... Rob was probably the first to reach the wreck, and he found Hawthorn fatally-injured on the rear seat where he had been thrown by the impact.

DCN

[JacnGille]

There is also the story of the Villeneuve/Pironi driving contests: holding a stopwatch on each other to see who could keep the throttle to the floor for the longest period of time while driving on the public roads.

[conplan]

Senna also had a red NSX and used to do some burnouts at Estoril

[Ross Stonefeld]

Originally posted by Holger Merten


Come on Ross, the RS& has 450 hp, but top speed is regulated: 250 km/h max.

Top speed is the most useless, imo, stat of a road going car. There are very few places and even fewer times where you can safely and easily exceed 200hp, and even less instances where you need to. Id rather have something that can go around a corner at 200kph than go down a straight at 400kph.

All racing drivers should ahve to drive Citroen 2CVs it will, theoretically, keep them under the speed limit

[oldtimer]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld


All racing drivers should ahve to drive Citroen 2CVs it will, theoretically, keep them under the speed limit

And a smile on their face.

[Kaha]

Originally posted by Paul Parker
How many other famous racing drivers have been killed or injured in road accidents? I seem to recall Fangio having a near miss in a Lancia or similar during his career. Doubtless fellow tnfers will know the answer. [/B]

Fangio had an accidend driving a (his?) Lancia Aurelia. Hi was driving with a journalist in Italy when a lorry pulled out in front of them. The lorry driver had missjudged Fangios speed, and they crashed into the lorry. The passenger escaped unhurt, but Fangio got a knock on the head and some cuts in face by the steering wheel.
(This story also features the first mention of the (tall?) story: How do you drive, do you think you are [Great F1 driver]?)
The journalist jumps out of the car and the lorry driver jumps out of the lorry. As the lorry driver though that the Lancia was going to fast he yells "How do you drive, do you think you are Fangio?
The journalist points to Fangio sitting unconscious and with blood in his face and says "No, but he is". The lorry driver start to cry, and screams "I have killed Fangio"

[Keith Booker]

Pedro Rodriguez would turn up in his Bentley Series 1 wearing his 'deerstalker' looking every inch an English Lord! I remember Mike Hailwood arriving at Brands once in a Citroen SM. He couldn't stop talking about the headlights that turned with the steering! Bruce McLaren once arrived in hs one-off M6 coupe road car. There must be many more....... Interesting thread.

[rolando]

In the last part of his life Ricardo Rodriguez used to drive a Ferrari 250 GT 2+2... and Pedro a Porsche 911, though they had very good sports cars since they were very young.

[stuartbrs]

Stirling Moss raced his Mustang in Targa Tasmania in 1991.

And whilst not an F1 driver, Peter Brock a few years later raced his sons 6 cylinder Torana ( although I dont like torana`s much ) and was OMG impressive in it, absolutlely on the limit through the section we were watching from, and a lot quicker than quite most of the more modern machinery *commitment!*

[Wolf]

And to add to list of Moss' fleet an Elan with custom automatic g-box...

Ross- apparently you haven't driven on proper Autobahn... Besides, maybe your choice of sppeds would be right, but with an average driver it's exactly the opposite. : They go through corners with 20mph anyway.

Holger, I thought Audi were to join the 'dropping the gloves (and self-imposed 250 limit)' club? I hear all others are, even within the house (Passat W8, IIRC)...

[Bernd]

A hell of a lot of modern F1 drivers have refurbished Fiat 500's why is beyond me!

I here that Black Jack was given a special edition Brabham NSX by Honda. I cannot imagine him getting in it though these days.

[Wolf]

BTW, doesn't MS drive Brabus E 420 T (at the time allegedly the fastest caravan around with some 450BHP)?

[Ross Stonefeld]

Originally posted by Bernd
A hell of a lot of modern F1 drivers have refurbished Fiat 500's why is beyond me!

I have a 1.4 litre automatic 4-door Renault that I saw for sale literally sitting on theside of the road. Immaculate condition, 'british racing green' exterior 'butterscotch' interior (its very bentley ) all for about $750. If it ever breaks down it will be cheaper to buy another one than to fix it. For whatever reason its fantastically fun and really challenging to do anything with. Fastest ive ever been is an estimated 87mph, whilst going downhill, whilst slipstreaming a Toyota Racing Development lorry on the highway into Indianapolis (we were a long way away though, hence the hill)

[klipywitz]

Dunno, but I am sure all of them envied the really old (brown) passat with a coca-cola-bottle-cap-as-the-foot-support-in-what-should-be-the-accelerator car I learned to drive in.

Anyway, Senna was really, really fond of jetskiing. I recall him travelling in between islands in a beach city near Rio, which sometimes took more than 3 hours....

[bill moffat]

hmmmm...returning to the thread. Does Jabby Crombac still own the Elan which Jimmy Clark passed on to him ?. Is it the same S2 fhc ( I think) which featured in the Lotus advert...the one where Jimmy sits on the bonnet with the proclamation "I drive my Lotus Elan for pleasure, not because I have to " ( or similar). Continuing the Lotus theme does Mario Andretti still keep a Lotus road car ? Seem to remember he had an Esprit Turbo during his JPS days.

[dmj]

Originally posted by Wolf
And to add to list of Moss' fleet an Elan with custom automatic g-box...

IIRC nowadays he mostly uses a scooter to commute through London traffic.

[jarama]

Alberto Ascari bought a Mk VII Jaguar saloon for road use, while Fangio and Farina bought C-Types but didn't use them, according to Andrew Whyte's "Jaguar" book on Sports Racing & Works Competiton Cars to 1953.

Carles.

[bobbo]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld


I have a 1.4 litre automatic 4-door Renault that I saw for sale literally sitting on theside of the road. Immaculate condition, 'british racing green' exterior 'butterscotch' interior (its very bentley ) all for about $750. If it ever breaks down it will be cheaper to buy another one than to fix it. For whatever reason its fantastically fun and really challenging to do anything with. Fastest ive ever been is an estimated 87mph, whilst going downhill, whilst slipstreaming a Toyota Racing Development lorry on the highway into Indianapolis (we were a long way away though, hence the hill)

Ross:

In the same vein, I just picked up a 1980 Mazda GLC 1.4 litre, 5 speed (!st & 2nd gear synchronizers almost gone!!) and I've been having an absolute ball flogging it along the back roads near my home. I'd forgotten how much fun one can have with a (very) little HP, mediocre brakes and front engined, REAR WHEEL drive car! I paid $300 for it and it's worth every penny in entertainment value!

Bobbo

[Vilcornell]

Mike Hailwood was use to travel in his Citroen Maserati.
The book "A man called Mike" tell that he was excited by the long wheelspin that was possible to produce with that car, due to the FF and good horsepower.....

[Wolf]

Villcornell, I guess that would be Citroën SM... Just saw one not long ago.

[Vilcornell]

Wolf,

may it be the same car?
Long nose and a strange coupè-style rear body (and of course Maserati engine)?

I ask 'cause I often see one in a tire workshop near my home

[KJJ]

There are a couple of good Innes Ireland road car stories in Jenks’ book “A Passion for Motorsport”. Using his Aston to tow a GT40 to the Zeltweg sports car race in 1966 and combining with DSJ to cut up some unsuspecting fellow on the autobahn in a Ford Sierra. Then there’s the one about him burning off Martin Brundle and Ron Dennis in a Lada taxi!

Here in Mid-Wales some of Ireland’s exploits in his E type Jaguar have entered local folklore.

My favourite story is the one about his wife doing the shopping in the BRP(?) Ferrari 250 GTO.

[dmj]

Originally posted by Vilcornell
Wolf,

may it be the same car?
Long nose and a strange coupè-style rear body (and of course Maserati engine)?

I ask 'cause I often see one in a tire workshop near my home

Definitely is - SM is official name of the model but Citroen Maserati is also enough for most car nuts to recognize it. Quite a lot survive, even in Croatia I know for at least two...

[Wolf]

Sorry, Villcornell- what DMJ said. I wasn't correcting You, but giving official designation.

[oldtimer]

Originally posted by KJJ

My favourite story is the one about his wife doing the shopping in the BRP(?) Ferrari 250 GTO.

And why not? One of the beauties of the 250GTO was its ability to handle everyday traffic.

[bobbo]

Originally posted by KJJ


. . .Here in Mid-Wales some of Ireland’s exploits in his E type Jaguar have entered local folklore.

My favourite story is the one about his wife doing the shopping in the BRP(?) Ferrari 250 GTO.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!

Could you share some of those "local folklore" stories with us??

Please??

Bobbo