SIR STIRLING MOSS

Shortly after our last issue went to press, the world of motorsport lost one of its biggest legends on Easter Sunday when Sir Stirling Moss died following a long illness.

Widely regarded as the greatest racing driver never to win the Formula One world championship, Stirling Moss was born into a family imbued with the competitive gene. His father Alfred raced at Brooklands and Indianapolis, while younger sister Pat would make her own mark as an accomplished rally driver.

Stirling’s breakthrough would come aged just 21, when he won the 1950 Ards Tourist Trophy in a privately entered Jaguar XK120. Momentum built swiftly, and by 1954 he was tipped for a place at Mercedes- Benz on its return to grand prix racing, only to be judged too inexperienced. To set that right his father bought a Maserati 250F, and Stirling’s impressive performances in that secured him the coveted Mercedes seat for 1955 as a teammate of Juan Manuel Fangio. That year Moss would become the first home driver to win the British Grand Prix in the world championship era, preceded by a landmark victory on the Mille Miglia.

Moss was back in a Maserati for 1956, this time as a Works driver, but his strong sense of patriotism drew him to Vanwall for the next two years. During this spell he also broke the class F land speed record at Bonneville in the streamlined MG EX181. Such was Stirling’s sportsmanship, he effectively handed the F1 title to fellow Brit Mike Hawthorn in 1958. Hawthorn was threatened with a penalty for reversing during the Portuguese Grand Prix, only for Moss to lead the defence and lose out to his rival by a single point.

Between 1958 and a crash into the banking at Goodwood in 1962 that ended his top-level career, Moss added further landmark victories in sportscars and GTs, at the Nürburgring, Sebring, the Targa Florio and Goodwood. In F1, his time with privateer entrant Rob Walker was perhaps the happiest of his career, even if it meant missing out on the latest machinery.

After the Goodwood accident, Moss still had so much to give to the motorsport world. A true professional, he always understood his own self-worth and carried that through the decades as the first person on the invites list at any historic motor racing event around the world. His quick wit and charm combined to make him a sporting hero; such was his enduring fame that ' Who do you think you are – Stirling Moss?' was supposedly the standard question all British policemen asked speeding motorists for decades afterwards! Moss was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1990 and knighted in 2000. In his later years he was a familiar face at classic events such as the Goodwood Revival and NEC Classic Motor Show, before retiring from public life in January 2018.

To his wife Lady Susie, his family and his many friends, we extend our condolences.

Times move on, even in the classic car movement, and so too must repair methods. Despite the burgeoning values of 1980s and '90s cars proving a growing interest, this new generation of classics poses fresh ownership challenges to keep them on the road. The more mature Volvo models are no different, and increasingly complex electrical systems pose obvious difficulties to enthusiast owners and garages. Like their contemporaries, many 1980s and 1990s Volvos pre-date the On- Board Diagnostic (OBD) socket, which standardised engine management fault codes across all European manufacturers. With an inability to access fault codes and with no data from which to reference multimeter readings, repairers and restorers can often get stuck.

With this in mind, the Volvo Enthusiasts Club has just completed a two year cataloguing exercise of a unique and comprehensive archive of technical information, gifted to it by Volvo Car UK after the company relocated its technical training centre in Daventry. 'The technical repair and data manuals cover all Volvo and DAF models sold in the UK between 1957 and 2010, with a specific focus on the 200/300/400/ 700/800/900 ranges,' explained club founder and Honorary President Kevin Price. 'The manuals alone weighed over half a tonne, which include detailed parts books, repair methods and dealer-level technical bulletins.'

Kevin elaborates that, during the 1980s and '90s, Volvo developed new engines and transmissions which complicated the picture. For example, 480 and 440 models utilised two engine management temperature sensors which look identical, yet should the wrong one be fitted, the car will not run correctly and could even fail its MoT test on emissions, so this treasure trove of data is needed to keep them on the road.

The VEC can be contacted via its website at www.volvoenthusiastsclub.co.uk, by emailing vec.volvo@gmail.com or calling 07519 954151.