Sir Stirling Moss On His Passion For Cars And The Crash That Ended His Career | Burnout

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•Aug 10, 2019

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BURNOUT
25.7K subscribersCheck out this throwback interview with former British Formula One driver Sir Stirling moss.

 

Sir Stirling Moss on F1 and his racing career

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•Mar 14, 2014

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Pole Position Motorsport
124K subscribersPole Position's Rosanna Tennant meets Sir Stirling Moss at his home in London to talk through his career in motorsport and his thoughts on the current Formula One World Championship.

 

Sir Stirling Moss Talk Show in association with Motor Sport

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•May 23, 2016

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The Royal Automobile Club
1.78K subscribersHalf an hour spent with one of the greatest racing drivers of all time. We talk about his career in Monaco and on the Mille Miglia.

 

Moss & The Coke Bottle Incident

by VM Staff
A huge thank you to Vintage Motorsport contributor Louis Galanos for sharing this story and sourcing the photos.
Galanos has written a book, many one of a kind photos.....Louis was a corner worker......with a camera.
Stirling Moss in his Maserati 300 S that he and Harry Schell drove to a second-place finish and first in class at Sebring in 1957. Bussian/Galanos photo.While not unexpected, he had been ill for months, the passing of 90-year-old Sir Stirling Moss on Easter Sunday was a profound shock for many in the motorsports community.

Often described as, “The greatest driver never to win the World Championship” Moss’s long racing career included at least 20 appearances at Sebring and those number of appearances were second only to his appearances at Goodwood in England.

In his first appearance at Sebring in 1954 he and co-driver Bill Lloyd pulled out a remarkable upset victory driving their OSCA MT4 and that victory made Moss the first non-American to win what would eventually become America’s finest sports car race.

As his career progressed Moss gained a lot of notoriety with numerous podium finishes and in 1957 the Maserati factory hired him to join the factory team to drive a Maserati 300 S at Sebring with co-driver Harry Schell. The Maserati team was led by World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio who would drive a Maserati 450 S with co-driver Jean Behra.
Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss discuss the performances of their respective cars as well as the changes to the 5.2-mile Sebring circuit during practice for the race. Bussian/Galanos photo.It was at the 1957 Sebring race that one of those “almost too unbelievable to be true” moments occurred about five hours into the race. Today many knowledgeable Sebring race fans refer to this moment in time as the “Coke bottle incident.”

The weather that weekend in Sebring was quite warm which was not unusual for March in Florida. Moss had been at the wheel of his Maserati 300 S for some time and was coming into the infamous hairpin turn when he noticed several photographers, standing in a group, drinking bottles of Coca-Cola.

On his next pass through the turn he caught the eye of several photographers and gave them the classic “I am thirsty gesture” by using a free hand to mimic bringing up an invisible bottle up to his lips.

One of the photographers at the turn was legendary French photo-journalist Bernard Cahier and he immediately knew what Moss was asking for.

Knowing that he had only a couple of minutes before Moss came around again Cahier was able to get a bottle of Coke for Moss. He then hurried over to the edge of the racing surface and looked up the track to try and spot the red Maserati 300 S.

Once he spotted the car coming though Big Bend Cahier raised the bottle of soda so Moss could plainly see it which Moss did, and he began to downshift and brake while getting closer to the 55-gallon drums outlining the turn. The hand-off and transfer were perfect, almost as if they had practiced it several times.
Bernard Cahier hands Stirling Moss a bottle of Coke during the race. Smith Peter Kent photo courtesy of stirlingmoss.com.Moss would drink the soda during the next lap and no doubt race fans all along the circuit were flabbergasted when they saw him driving with one hand while taking a drink from a bottle with the other hand.

After completing that lap Moss again approached the Hairpin Turn where he threw the empty Coke bottle on the grass making sure to avoid hitting anyone or anything. After he tossed the bottle, he gave a wave of thanks to all assembled at the turn.

Stirling Moss and co-driver Harry Schell would finish second overall and first in class at Sebring in 1957 while Juan Manuel Fangio and co-driver Jean Behra would come in first.

Moss was a remarkable man who survived one of the most dangerous eras in motorsports. He survived numerous racing accidents plus a near fatal one in 1962 at Goodwood that forced him to retire from racing. At the age of 81 he even survived a fall of three floors down an elevator shaft at his home in 2010 that broke both ankles, bones in his feet and hurt his back.

In a fitting tribute to Moss, F1 champion Sir Jackie Stewart said: “He was a one of a kind. There was no one else like him. The whole world is celebrating his life, and he would have loved that.”

 

Remembering Sir Stirling Moss 1929-2020

by Cyndi Paceley Share
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EmailLondon, ENGLAND — Vintage Motorsport joins the global motorsport community in mourning the loss of Sir Stirling Moss, who died today (April 12) at the age of 90.
Stirling Moss signs an autograph in the Vintage Motorsport tent at Lime Rock Park in 2012.

Sir Stirling had graced the pages of Vintage Motorsport magazine many, many times over the years. Along with all of his other fans, we were sorry to be notified of his January 2018 official retirement from public life.

As his son, Elliott, told us at that time, “Following his severe infections at the end of 2016 and his subsequent slow and arduous recovery, the decision has been made that, at the age of 88, the indefatigable man will finally retire, so that he and my mother can have some much deserved rest and spend more time with each other and the rest of the family.

The entire and extended Moss clan thank everyone for all their love and support over the years.”

Godspeed, Sir Stirling.

 

Sir Stirling Moss, 1929-2020

Jeff Bloxham/Motorsport Images
8.0k sharesBy Chris Medland | April 12, 2020 5:55 AM

Motor racing legend Sir Stirling Moss has passed away at the age of 90, following a long illness.

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GALLERY: Stirling Moss retrospective

Remembrances of Sir Stirling Moss

Moss is widely viewed as the greatest driver never to win the Formula 1 world championship, finishing as runner-up on four consecutive occasions from 1955-58 and then third for the next three seasons.

Born in London in 1929, racing and sport was part of the Moss family, but he was originally working towards a career as a dentist before working in the hotel business. At the age of 16 he turned his attention to racing, by 17 he had a sports car to compete in and was soon finding his way into a Cooper 500 to begin his professional racing career as a teenager.
With his Jaguar XK120, passes T. Flack (MG TD) en route to his first win in Dundrod, Northern Ireland in 1950. Motorsport Images

His first major win came in the 1950 RAC Tourist Trophy at Dundrod when he was still just 20, and he was making his debut in Formula 1 the following year. But before he was mounting championship challenges in F1 he was showing his incredible all-round ability with a second place in the 1952 Monte Carlo Rally and a similar finish in the 24 Hours of Le Mans a year later.

With his first grand prix podium under his belt in 1954 — behind Juan Manuel Fangio and Maurice Trintignant at Spa-Francorchamps when driving a Maserati 250F — Moss enjoyed a standout 1955. Joining Mercedes, he took a stunning victory in the Mille Miglia in a 300 SLR and finished as runner-up to team leader Fangio in the F1 world championship, also picking up his first victory at Aintree.
Despite some in-race “modifications,” Moss and teammate John Fitch stormed to another victory at Dundrod in 1955 with this Mercedes 300 SLR. Motorsport Images

Although Mercedes pulled out of motorsport following the Le Mans disaster in 1955, Moss replicated his runner-up finish to Fangio on for each of the next two seasons, winning the Monaco Grand Prix in 1956 and three races in 1957, while 1958 saw a remarkable event that cost Moss the title.

With three rounds to go, Moss, by now racing for Vanwall — showing his preference for British manufacturers — won in Portugal while championship leader Mike Hawthorn was disqualified following a spin. However, Moss sportingly went to the stewards in Hawthorn’s defense, believing the Ferrari driver had done nothing wrong, and duly saw his fellow Brit reinstated.

In the season finale in Morocco, Moss needed to win and set the fastest lap, with championship leader Hawthorn no higher than third. While he duly took a dominant victory, Moss ultimately missed out on the the title by just a single point as Hawthorn finished second.
A sporting gesture by Moss (right) led to his being edged by rival Mike Hawthorn (left) for the F1 crown in 1958. Motorsport Images

Vanwall won the constructors’ championship but the death of Moss’s teammate Stuart Lewis-Evans following a crash in that final race played a part in team owner Tony Vandervell ending his involvement. Moss returned to race for the Rob Walker Racing Team, having won the first race of the 1958 season in Argentina in a Cooper T43.

A gearbox failure ended his title hopes in the 1959 finale as Jack Brabham came out on top in a three-way battle with Moss and Tony Brooks, and then Moss broke both his legs in a serious crash at Spa in 1960. He still managed to finish third in the drivers’ championship despite missing three rounds and being disqualified in Portugal, with wins in Monaco and the USA coming either side of a dominant run of success for Brabham.

 

1961 yielded another third place in the championship but also one of Moss’s best grand prix wins as he beat the far more powerful Ferraris of Richie Ginther, Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips in his underdog Lotus-Climax.
An epic win for Moss in his Lotus 18 Climax over the likes of Richie Ginther (trailing in his Ferrari 156) at Monaco in 1961. Motorsport Images

A heavy crash in the Glover Trophy — run to F1 rules — at Goodwood in 1962 left Moss in a coma and with serious injuries, and despite recovering he subsequently retired from front-line racing.

Moss went on to become a motorsport commentator — including as a pundit for ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” for F1 and NASCAR — while still making sporadic racing appearances, including two seasons in the British Saloon Car Championship in the 1980s. He made further historic appearances before retiring for good in 2011 at the age of 81.

In 2010, Moss fell down an elevator shaft at his home in London and broke both ankles, a number of bones in his foot and damaged vertebrae, while in 2016 he was admitted to hospital in Singapore with a serious chest infection.

Moss retired from public life in January 2018, and passed away at home in the early hours of April 12. His death was confirmed by his third wife Lady Susie, and he is also survived by his daughter Allison Bradley and son Elliot Moss.

 

Stirling Moss’ prized possessions sell for Ł260,000

Fifty items connected to the late Sir Stirling Moss OBE – ranging from his watch to his passport – sold at the weekend for a quarter of a million pounds.

As we predicted, the most sought-after lot was Stirling’s iconic watch band – a simple looking gold band engraved SM which sold for Ł67,850 including the premium. Stirling had worn it for 38 years in more than 200 races – including the race at Goodwood in 1961 when a crash ended his Formula 1 career and nearly killed him.

Just as iconic, a Patey helmet from 1958 which Stirling had worn for 49 years – the last time at the Goodwood Revival in 2007 – sold for the second highest price of the day, Ł37,950.

With so few Stirling Moss race trophies in the public domain – the great champion sold most of them in the 1970s – the cup for winning the 1951 Daily Express Tourist Trophy at Silverstone was always going to be sought after, and it sold for Ł12,075.

Among the very personal items in the sale was the stopwatch used by Stirling’s mother Eileen to record his lap times when he started racing. The watch was a present from Eileen to Stirling’s father Alfred to mark their 25th wedding anniversary. It made Ł9,775, making the same price was the gold lucky No. 7 cufflinks he designed.

Other personal items that found ready buyers included the race suit that Sir Stirling wore during a race at Le Mans in 2011 when he announced his retirement (Ł7,820), and his gold penknife (Ł2,530).

And what would you pay for Stirling’s 1985-issued British passport? Someone out there paid out Ł5,000 for that.

Stirling loved his watches and there was quite a selection in the sale, limited edition signed timepieces marking highlights such as the famous Mille Miglia victory of 1955, his final victory in the Monaco GP in 1961, and his 80th birthday celebrated at the Goodwood Revival in 2009. The biggest price of Ł12,075 went to a watch commemorating Stirling’s win in the Aston Martin DBR1 in the 1958 Goodwood Tourist Trophy.

The sale, held by Silverstone Auctions in the NEC Classic online auction on Saturday 14th November, raised in total around Ł260,000, with everything selling at no reserve.

Images courtesy of Silverstone Auctions.

 

Stirling Moss - NEW & UNSEEN: The Racers that Stopped the World (DOCUMENTARY)

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•Dec 21, 2020

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OUTRUN
29.1K subscribersHow many lives do you think the disc brake has saved since its introduction to the car in 1952? Arguably more than the seat belt itself, or even Penicillin. Join an extraordinary lineup of motorsport legends including Sir Stirling Moss, Murray Walker, Sir Jackie Stewart, Martin Brundle, Derek Bell, Norman Dewis, and Andrew Frankel as they drive us down memory lane telling an

incredible story that really stopped the world with unseen footage and interviews. Stirling - already on his way to becoming one of the greatest racing drivers of all time - took a new brake concept that Norman Dewis, legendary Jaguar test driver and engineer, had been working on alongside Jaguar and Dunlops engineering team to revolutionise the braking ability of cars - which at the time were falling

behind dramatically compared to how fast cars of the '50s were starting to go. This documentary was filmed 8 years ago but never released. When Sir Stirling sadly passed away at Easter 2020, I took the original footage I'd shot and started again to produce this film, and with the significant aid of friends, this brand new reworking of the project is released so that the story can be told once and for all. We will follow up this film with a simple behind the scenes chat in the next few days with the film making team so subscribe and enjoy!

 

Stirling Moss - How About a Lift, Old Boy? BBC2 24/12/1992

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•Apr 17, 2020

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Andrew Smith
38 subscribersIn 1955, Stirling Moss won the Mille Miglia, a 1,000-mile dash through Italy. This summer, 300 vintage cars took part in a rally over the original route, and Moss drove the race-winning Mercedes. His navigator, sports-writer Ian Wooldridge.