RAC crowns its best of the year

The Royal Automobile Club revealed the winners of the Historic Awards 2021 at its Pall Mall Clubhouse on 25 November. Classic Motor Cars’ rebuild of Phillip Sarofim’s unique Aston Martin Bulldog was victorious in the Restoration category, while the Collection award went to Silverstone Interactive Museum.

The Hagerty Festival of the Unexceptional (top) proved anything but as it won Motoring Spectacle, while the judges decided that the year’s best Competitive Event was the VSCC’S Longstone Tyres Light Car Race (C&SC, October).

Among the individual awards, Reverend Adam Gompertz took the Personality category, while Young Achiever was presented to rising star Billy Earwicker. David Tremayne won in Outstanding Journalism for Donald Campbell, the man in the shadow, and British Racing Drivers’ Club chairman John Grant landed the Lifetime Achievement award.

On 3 November, the Club presented its Motoring Book of the Year Awards (left). The overall winner for 2021 was The Lamborghini Miura,

by Simon Kidston and Jon Pressnell, with Tipping Point by Andy Plumb and Joseph Figoni

by Peter M Larsen and Ben Erickson sharing the Motoring category spoils. The winners in the Motorsport group were Mr Le Mans by Tom Kristensen with Dan Philipsen, and Delage Records and Grand Prix

by Daniel Cabart and Sébastien Faurès Fustel de Coulanges.

The Lifetime Achievement Award went to former C&SC editor Mark Hughes, while Tom Fryars landed the new Graham Robson Trophy for Best Debut Author, for The Rise of the Sidevalves.