Stirling Moss RIP

The first time I saw Stirling Moss was in 1962. Recuperating from his crash, he had been invited to be guest of honor at the SCCA races in Courtland, Alabama, on a deserted airfield in the middle of nowhere. A Jaguar dealer had supplied Moss with one of the new E-Types and he was driving it around, accompanied by a local beauty queen. Moss had the car in first gear (which if you don’t know E-Types is low enough to pull stumps) with the choke turned up so that the car crept along by itself while he sat on the top boot with the girl and steered with his feet. Sadly, I didn’t get a photo, but it is a picture that has always stayed in my memory.

 

Based on Sir Jackie's description of Stirling as a "gadget man", and of his house, it seems that he might have been the inspiration for Wallace of "Wallace & Gromit" fame!

 

"There's no cheeeezzze Gromit! Not a bit in the howssse...... "

("A Grand Day Out"....off to the moon in search of some cheese, no? Not "The Wrong Trousers" or "A Close Shave", right? )

 

When the torch was passed.

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If Stirling was the best driver never to win the WDC, a lot of people think that Tazio was the best driver of all time, period!

 

When it come to rating all time drivers, Murray Walker Said it best:

"Who was the greatest driver of all time? There is in fact no common yardstick you can apply to drivers from 1950 when F1 began to now, because there are different drivers, different cars, different circuits, different regulations, and different circumstances. You can say who the greatest driver of a generation was. Jim Clark maybe, Jackie Stewart maybe, Ayrton Senna certainly, Michael Schumacher maybe. You can only give a subjective answer."

 

Some people see their prefered driver through rose tinted glasses and call him the best or the GOAT.

Murray Walker was right: it's a subjective notion.

 

I may be able to shred a little light on the Stirling Moss and Tazio Nuvolari photograph, recently reading Stirling Moss, my cars, my career. He quotes ;

"I had met Nuvolari at Garda, by then he was quite old, but I knew perfectly well who and what he was, the Fangio of his era, and I certainly held him in total awe"

He only went to Garda twice in his early career, his first Continental road race, aged 19, on 10th July 1949, driving a Cooper-JAP 1000, and then on 15th October 1950, driving a HWM.

Below is a photograph from his book taken on the 10th July 1949, his overall pockets are different, and he has a black collar, so may have been the 1950 event.



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Reading some of the wonderful tributes written on this forum, and elsewhere he was a true great as a driver and man. An extraordinary talent and asset to motor racing, Great Britain, and the world. Never to be repeated.
R.I.P.

 

I almost agree 100%. The discrepancy, in my opinion is, it was repeated. By Jim, who we lost too early; and Jackie.

 

Ahhh...missed that.

 

Lady Susie, R.I.P.

 

Yesterday right?

 

Susie Moss, gone too soon at only 69.

R.I.P.

 

Yes.