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Sir Stirling Moss 17th September 1929 – 12th April 2020

By Ellie Priestley |

15th April, 2020

Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss passed away on the 12^thApril at the age of 90. His racing career commenced in 1948 as an 18-year-old racer in a Cooper 5000 and ended 14 years later with his crash at the International 100 race at Goodwood. During that time, as Giles Richards wrote in The Guardian, he went on:

to win 16 of the 66 F1 races in which he competed impressively across all categories of his 375 finishes, he won 212. In 1955 he was signed by Mercedes Benz to race in F1 alongside the great Juan Manuel Fangio, who beat him to the title. However that year he also delivered one of the most exceptional drives of his generation during the Mille Miglia, a punishing road race in Italy. Driving a Mercedes-Benz 300SLR he set a new record and beat Fangio by 32 minutes.
Between 1955 and 1961 overall Moss was second in the F1 championship four times, including twice more to Fangio, and was third on three further occasions. Able to turn his hand from short spring racing to the demands of endurance competition, he also scored two second-place finishes at the Le Mans 24 Hours in a Jaguar and an Aston Martin, including a class win in 1956, and won both the Sebring 12 Hours and the 12 hours of Reims.

Lord Montagu paid one of the countless tributes:

Sir Stirling was a friend of Beaulieu since the early days, when he attended the opening of the new Montagu Motor Museum buildings – the forerunner to the National Motor Museum – in 1959. In a wonderful demonstration of continuity, we were delighted when he returned in 2015 to open our new motor sport display, A Chequered History. He will be remembered as one of the greats of British motor sport.

And so many motoring enthusiasts across the world will recall the gentleman described as ‘a byword for sporting chivalry, as well as for speed and courage’. Here is some footage of a career that is unlikely to be paralleled:

1. The Moss-Jenkinson Mercedes-Benz in the 1955 Mille Miglia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmV0Y50a1UI

2. In 1957 Moss became the first British driver to win a British Grand Prix in a British car (a Vanwall) in 34 years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhg6cpXvA0c

3. The land speed record-breaking MG EX181 in 1957:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxtth9ObN_Q

4. Winning the 1960 Monaco Grand Prix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nekmINOubIQ

5. And in 1956 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxpzt1cMztA

6. The Nürburgring in 1960:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g3z1lsDQ1g