Chris Craft 1939-2021
Cornish-born Chris Craft, who died last Saturday aged 81 following a long illness, was one of racing’s great all-rounders.
Craft started one Formula 1 World Championship race – the 1971 US GP in Alain de Cadenet’s Ecurie Evergreen Brabham – and showed pace in 1000cc F3 in the 1960s and F5000 in the early 1970s.
Transplanted to Essex with his bank manager father’s job, Craft found employment as a Ford post boy. He started racing a self-built Anglia 105E in 1961 and excelled in Superspeed and Broadspeed versions, Escorts, briefly a Mustang fastback, and eventually 3.0-litre Capris, winning BSCC rounds in 1977 and 1978.
Sportscar racing anchored his successes. Craft won the 1970 Swedish GP in a Dfvpowered Mclaren M8C. He also piloted Lolas, Chevrons, Mclaren-chevrolet M8E and Porsche 908 to 917 with aplomb, and claimed the 1973 European 2-litre championship driving Irish entrepreneur Martin Birrane’s Crowne Racing Lola T292.
Craft’s partnership with de Cadenet extended to seven successive Le Mans starts, 12th in 1972 a fine result in the first of three successive participations for the Duckhams Special, designed by Gordon Murray around the F1 Brabham’s corners.
After two retirements they returned with a Lola, with a brilliant third in 1976 and fifth in 1977. Subsequent starts with Dome and a Porsche 962 were fruitless.
An aesthete’s eye underpinned Craft’s pioneering property development work, repurposing London’s Thameside wharf buildings to beautiful apartments, and designing fine furniture. He also formed the Light Car Company with Murray to market the latter’s Rocket brainchild, of which 55 were made. ‘Captain Chris’ also bought a naval coastal patrol boat on impulse and cruised the Mediterranean.
Working together on Ford team chief Alan Mann’s 1964 Monte Carlo Rally Falcon Sprint programme cemented a friendship with Grahame White, of BARC, Chevron and HSCC fame. “Chris was fabulous company, a great racer and a genuinely lovely guy,” he reflected.