primotipo…

Father Time waits for no-one, not even ‘the immortals’, sadly the great man’s time had come- Stirling Moss, 17 September 1929 to 12 April 2020.

What an extraordinary life of achievement.

To me he personified grace, sportsmanship and fairness despite being a fierce competitor, a certain clever conservatism but with an impish naughty streak and sense of humour. He was everything that is great about Britain and the essence of what to me it is to be a Brit.

Without doubt he was the living embodiment of motor racing, his passing deprives the sport of its greatest global spokesman and ambassador.

I can’t remember if I was aware of Stirling before seeing the Chrysler Valiant ‘Hemi’ ads as a kid on Australian telly circa 1970 (remember those?) or whether it was after my interest in the history of the sport commenced a couple of years later.

Whatever the case he has been a constant in Australia since he first raced here in 1956 through the 1961 internationals, then into the Tasman years after he had retired from the cockpit when more often than not he travelled with the circus, and from 1985, first in Adelaide and now Melbourne was a regular in F1 historic support parades and events.

I have a photo of him with my youngest son taken in the Albert Park historic tent, even though it was the five-millionth time he had done that, he still exchanged a few pleasantries with Nick- he still remembers it despite being six at the time, twenty years ago.

RIP from all your Australasian friends Mr Moss, we salute your achievements, applaud the way you conducted yourself and thankyou for all the entertainment and pleasure you gave us…

Credits…

Mal Simpson, Stephen Dalton Collection, John Ellacott

Etcetera: ‘For All The Right Reasons’…

For international readers the Chrysler, Valiant factory shown in the first ad was on a 65 acre site named ‘Tonsley Park’ at Clovelly Park, 12km south-west of Adelaide. The beach scenes will be closeby to that facility on one of the Fleurieu Peninsula beaches.

Etcetera…

A couple of Australian motor magazine covers from Stephen Dalton’s Collection with Stirling on the cover- as he so often throughout the world was!

This photo taken by John Ellacott posted on The Noatalgia forum by Ray Bell is of Stirling giving Paul Samuels’ Lotus 18 Ford Formula Junior a whirl at Warwick Farm in 1961.

His Rob Walker Racing Cooper T53 and Lotus 21 (car in the first photo) were late arriving in Sydney from New Zealand so he jumped into a couple of cars to do some familiarisation laps of the new, quite technical Warwick Farm layout.

Finito…