Michael Satterfield
Sir Stirling Moss is one of the greatest sportsmen of all time. He was successful in all forms of motor sport but most particularly in Grand Prix racing. The ‘Beckham of his era’, Moss not only dominated the back pages of the newspapers but regularly made the front pages with his glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle in the ’50s. He raced hard; he played hard. He was the James Bond of motorsport.
Here, at last, is a serious biography worthy of the great man, a sporting icon who was a hero to many a schoolboy. One such was author, Philip Porter. Debunking myths, correcting many mistakes and adding much new information, including previously unrecorded races, this is probably the most deeply researched motoring biography ever written.
Porter is the author of around 30 books, including several on motor racing and four written with Moss, but this is the book he always wanted to write. Two years’ research has gone into this first volume of two, and it digs far deeper than any book previously published. Indeed, it must be the most in-depth book ever published on a racing driver, and probably any motoring personality and very possibly any sportsman or woman.
This book, though, is no dry account. It is spiced with humour, tragedy and period flavour with liberal doses of quotes from Moss himself and his contemporaries, many of whom Porter has interviewed over the years.
The story is an extraordinary one. Starting out as a youth with precocious ability, young Stirling quickly caught the eye when racing the little 500cc racing cars invented just after the war. He soon ventured abroad where they laughed at his little racing car – until he beat them. He became the British Champion at 21 when most drivers were in their 30s, 40s or even 50s. He patriotically insisted on driving British cars and the gallant crusader took on, often matched and sometimes beat the foreign cars with their more powerful engines. Admirable patriotism nearly ruined his promising career until he was forced to compromise such principles and quickly revived his career and showed he could beat the very best at the highest levels. In the final year covered by Vol 1, he won his first Grand Prix and such sports car classics as the Tourist Trophy, the Targa Florio and the Mille Miglia, all amazing achievements but that in the Mille Miglia has gone down as one of the greatest feats in all sport.
Here, in fascinating, authoritative detail is the ultimate work on arguably the greatest all-round driver the world has yet known, a book worthy of a great man.
Author: Philip Porter
Foreword by Murray Walker
Published by: Porter Press International
Publication date: September 2016
Price: £35 ($48 USD)
ISBN: 978-1-907085-33-8
