Tiff Needell Racing driver and TV presenter

From Morris Travellers to Mclarens, via Le Mans and F1, television’s original Mr Sideways talks about his behind-the-wheel highlights

‘MY FIRST MEMORY OF CARS IS BEING ON the rear shelf of my dad’s Ford V8 coming back from Goodwood,’ says Tiff Needell, the lilting, nasal tones as instantly recognisable now as they’ve always been. ‘I only went in it two or three times before the car died in the mid-’50s. I’ve no idea why he had it. In the garage at home we had this amazing Lancia, which got hit by a dump truck in Feltham gravel pits when Dad was there with his boat. We used to sit behind the wheel as kids, dreaming. Dad did the first two Members’ Meetings [at Goodwood], a couple of sprints. I think he had an Alvis. I have a results sheet somewhere – 1948, ’49. It’s all Dad’s fault: he was lured to Brooklands, then I was dragged off to Goodwood. It wasn’t a chore…

‘I don’t think Dad ever owned another car after the Ford, because Mum became the car owner – we had three Austin Rubys on the trot, which she bought for £10 a time, and then inherited my grandad’s Morris 1000, which I learnt to drive in. Then I bought my own Morris 1000 Traveller when I was 18, which then towed my racing car when I won it…’

We’re getting slightly ahead of ourselves, though. Talking with Tiff is as entertaining and as engrossing as you’d imagine, but what familiarity with the public persona might mask is just how normal a background he came from – which makes it all the more amazing that he once attempted to qualify for the Monaco Grand Prix. ‘I am the kid on the terraces, clinging to the dream, but with no money it was never going to happen – until I won that car in the magazine. I was going to be a civil engineer…’

Tiff had already done everything he could to get on track. ‘As soon as I left school, and before I started uni in the summer of ’69, I emptied my Post Office account from cutting grass and washing cars, and went down to Brands Hatch to do an initial trial at the racing school. I was euphoric – it just made it [the racing bug] worse. Four laps in a Ford Cortina 1600E, then five laps in a Lotus 51 single-seater. To me the Cortina was like a racing car after the Morris 1000…

‘I selected a five-year sandwich uni course so I could still go down to Brands. It was £30 a race, when my take-home pay as a civil engineer was £45 a month. I rented a room in Chelmsford for £10 a month, so I lived on £5 a month. I used to hitchhike home on Friday night, and then head to Brands in Mum’s car for my one race.

‘I paid £75 for my Morris Traveller, and it was full of rust. I bought it on a wet night, in the dark. It used to take about two miles to stop. They handled so well though: I’d drift round wet roundabouts, balanced on the throttle. They’re wonderful cars. When it snowed I’d be off, playing in it.’

Tiff’s life, however, was about to change once and for all. He entered a competition in Autosport magazine to win a Lotus 69F Formula Ford 1600 car. ‘The night I won, Olivia Newton-john was singing “If Not For You” on Top of the Pops ;itwas 1971. The phone rang in the middle of it and I was hoping my Mum would answer it, but I had to pick it up, and a voice said, “Hello, this is Simon Taylor from Autosport. You’re a very lucky man.”

‘The car came with a trailer and a course at the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School. I had to start buying spanners and a friend lent me a lock-up garage. The brilliant thing about Formula Ford was you could run it yourself, and go out and win. My first race was Snetterton, 2nd May, 1971. I have the poster on the wall at home, and my entrance ticket on a string. It was the British Legion Golden Jubilee Trophy.

‘After the Morris 1000 collapsed, I had a black Ford Anglia van, with a bungee cord to keep it in

top gear – and one to keep the passenger door shut. It was followed by two old, battered Mk1 Transit vans. By now I was spending more time keeping my towing vehicle going than I was the Formula Ford…’

Tiff competed in Formula Ford for five years, becoming Brands Hatch FF1600 champion in 1975. He had sold the Lotus in 1973, finally ending up with a Crossle 25F. ‘I worked for Wimpey Construction, and they lent me a brand-new Transit diesel van. I never had all the ambition they have nowadays; I just felt like I was surfing along and enjoying it, trying to find sponsorship for F3.’

Having competed in some F2000 races later on in 1975, Tiff raced a Hawke in ’76 and should have won the championship with eight wins, but didn’t register enough finishes. ‘Towards the end of the year I did about five F3 races, and because of that I won the Grovewood Award, presented by James Hunt [just back from winning the F1 title in Japan], and I then got the Unipart F3 drive, which came with my first free [road] car – a Triumph TR7! It was white with blue and red stripes down the side.’

Tiff finished joint ninth alongside would-be Ferrari F1 driver Didier Pironi, and in 1978 came fourth overall in the championship. ‘At the end of the year I resigned, and Nigel Mansell took the drive – and the TR7 – as in 1979 I got the Durex Scholarship to do a season of British F1 [a national series for F1 cars], finishing tenth overall. I bought an orange Ford Capri 1600 with a vinyl roof, an

N reg – that was a good car, I enjoyed that – and in 1980 I was loaned a Rover SD1 3.5 V8 via Unipart for the Ensign F1 races.

‘The peak of the peak for me was F1 in 1980.

I was at the Nürburgring in the Capri, hanging around, trying to get an F2 drive, with my helmet in the boot.’ He got a call from Mo Nunn’s tiny Ensign team, inviting him to a test and then to race at Zolder in the Belgian Grand Prix. ‘It was all a dream. When I was on the grid I had Emerson Fittipaldi beside me, and when the mechanics left me I hummed “The Chain” before the start…’

Having qualified 23rd, Tiff retired on lap 12 with engine issues (the race was won by Didier Pironi). It wasn’t an easy situation, as he was effectively a stand-in until another driver was contractually free to take over. Next, Monaco beckoned. Only 20 cars were allowed to progress from qualifying to the race, and 29 turned up. ‘I actually qualified 19th in the wet, a few thousandths behind some bloke called Alain Prost. The next day, though, I had to use the spare car, it was dry, and I couldn’t get a clear lap, so I joined Keke Rosberg and John Watson amongst others as non-qualifiers. Driving an F1 car around Monaco was epic, especially in the wet. The best experience I’ve had driving.’

And that was that. Apparently Ken Tyrrell was interested, and Tiff rang people such as

Frank Williams (although you sense he felt uncomfortable doing it), but he had no manager guiding his career, and he had no money. Instead, he turned the next 40 years and counting into a career driving an incredibly varied and almost endless list of single-seaters, sports cars, rally cars, rallycross cars and almost anything else on four wheels – enough to fill the rest of this issue, not just this feature.

Take sports car racing, where he competed at Le Mans 14 times, with a best finish of third overall in a Porsche 962C in the 1990 race. Long before then he’d survived a scare when the Nimrod Aston Martin he was driving in fifth place lost its rear bodywork on the Mulsanne: ‘So I pogoed between the barriers at 200mph… I never get phased about it – fate is there.

‘I’d done Le Mans in ’84 in a 956, and then in ’85 I got up to third in the Aston Martin EMKA, and then led for six glorious laps. It was a lovely car.’ Later on he’d enjoy much success driving the formidable Lister Storm GT1, amongst so many other outings.

In the meantime, opportunities of a different kind came calling. ‘My media career wasn’t planned. I was always hanging around F3 and F2 races trying to get a drive, and my first commentary was for ITV Midlands at Mallory Park. Then the BBC got me alongside Murray Walker, and I thought I’d be a shoo-in when Murray retired, but then F1 went off to ITV. I was still trying to be a racing driver, so I didn’t push too much.’

But his biggest TV break – if you’ll excuse the pun – occurred when Top Gear presenter Chris Goffey broke his leg and the producers got Tiff in to do a track test on a Formula First car in 1987. ‘I deliberately set out to slide the car around the corners, but it looked like I was crashing and the BBC couldn’t believe I was talking at the same time.’ It kick-started his TV career, but it wasn’t all positive: ‘It backfired, because the team managers watched the way I drove and it put them off, as it wasn’t the quick way when you’re racing.’

By the ’90s Tiff was a household name, with the programme generating huge viewing figures. ‘When I go into pubs people say, “I thought it was you as soon as you spoke.” I never got mobbed like Jeremy, and I never sought publicity – I’d rather stay at home and do the garden…’

If there was one race series that had Tiff’s name written all over it, it was the BTCC in its Super Touring heyday. However, the championship never seemed to click with him, despite numerous entries over the years. Early on he raced for Nissan, but the car lacked power despite having a good chassis. Tiff, being Tiff, yearned for the rear-drive BMWS.

‘Very frustrating, my Super Touring days. I got the Cavalier for the Mansell race [Donington Park 1993] and was loving it – now I had the power on the straights. I was right behind David Leslie in the same team, and I felt so good for that half of the race. And then came the charging Nige…’ Having barged his way past, the world champion promptly lost it at Old Hall and cannoned across the path of Tiff, who had no way to avoid the Mondeo. Mansell ended up clouting the bridge and was knocked unconscious, while Tiff faced the wrath of the crowd.

Alongside the racing and TV work came more road cars. ‘Steve Soper was my second-hand car dealer and he sold me a Vauxhall Chevette. Following that was a BMW 323i [with Alpina interior and alloy wheels] and then I started getting free cars from people, like a Saab for a couple of years when I did the Saab Challenge. So the 323i was the last car I owned. I had Citroëns for years – I had an XM – as I ran their trackdays, and then Nissans when I raced for them in touring cars. More recently I’ve been a BMW ambassador, so ran them for years.

‘We had a family X5, that my wife drove for 15 years, and replaced it with an X3 two years ago. I’m now running a Maserati Ghibli, but 5-series Tourers are my thing. I don’t like SUVS, the sitting up high, all roly-poly…’

He’s in no doubt about his ultimate car, though: ‘The Mclaren F1 will always be the day of days; 100 per cent it’ll never be beaten. Manual gearbox, sitting in the middle, that BMW V12 singing. It was softly sprung compared to these modern, low-riding, stiffly sprung, computer-controlled devices of today. It was involving to drive: I want to do all the driving, I don’t want bongs going off to say I’m too near the white line. The trouble is you have to have traction control now because they keep on putting up the power and torque for the advertising, but you don’t want all that power on the road with little road tyres, so they have to put computers on to take the power away from you. Drives me mad…’ The words are pure Tiff: the ultimate driving enthusiast.

Clockwise from right: watching his dad sprinting at Goodwood (here in a Ford Model B) was an inevitable influence on the young Needell; ‘wonderful’ Morris 1000s provided early road-car fun; Ford Anglia van was a well-worn tow vehicle; Unipart-sponsored TR7 and its Capri replacement; competition-prize Lotus 69F still gets raced by Tiff in historic events

‘THE BBC COULDN’T BELIEVE I WAS TALKING WHILE SLIDING THE CAR AROUND’