Mike Pendleton 1931-2022

Former Royal Marine Mike

Pendleton, who has died aged

90, raced sportscars and saloons, and enjoyed a career in which motorsport played a big part.

In the late 1950s, Pendleton joined Ted Whiteaway in The Grosvenor Garage at Worplesdon, near Guildford, from whence sprang a short run of Formula Junior

Condor cars in 1960 and 1961, which have proved more successful in historic events than when new.

Pendleton made his race debut at Silverstone in a Lotus MKVI. He remained loyal to Colin Chapman’s marque for much of a decade, saddling a Seven and a Type 17 before acquiring the ex-mike Anthony

Lister Costin BHL130, by then with a Jaguar XK engine rather than its original Chevrolet Corvette V8.

Pendleton scored fourths at Snetterton and Castle Combe in 1962, then returned to Lotus in

1963, with an EX-UDT Laystall/ Stirling Moss Type 19 powered by a rear-mounted 2.5-litre Coventry-climax FPF engine.

In the meantime, he had run a Jaguar Mk2 in the 1963 British Saloon Car championship. Second time out at Oulton Park he was reclassified third in a Jag clean-sweep after Roy Salvadori was excluded for a wheel size infringement. Pendleton also finished sixth at Goodwood and fourth at Silverstone.

Back at Goodwood, Pendleton won a clubbie in the Jaguar, at the 57th Members’ Meeting. He and

John Sparrow also won their class in the 1964 Nurburgring 6 Hours.