Vic Elford

2018 marked the 50th anniversary of Vic Elford’s 1968 Monte Carlo Rally victory in a 911. A sensational moment in the Neunelfer’s history, Tony Mcguiness begins a series of sit-down interviews with the legendary Porsche Driver nicknamed “Quick Vic”

Iwas born in London on 10 June 1935. My mum had actually been born in Hamburg, Germany. Her dad had brought the family to Britain when she was four. Her mother had died when my mum was only 12 so she took the role of looking after the family at a very young age.

My mother was an incredible woman. She worked all the way through the war in our family café and insisted on working at my brother’s hotel until right up until she was 90. She loved to keep herself busy. She had a fantastic life and passed away peacefully at 94.

My dad was a racing fan all his life. He had been a bicycle racer before World War ll. He was very good and held several records. My mum and dad were Speedway racing fans before the war and I became a big Speedway fan too. In fact, my parents loved Speedway racing so much I was named after Vic Huxley, a famous Speedway rider.

Once motor racing came back after the war that ultimately had a big impact on my life because my dad bought tickets for us to go watch the very first ever British Grand Prix in 1949 at Silverstone. It wasn’t a world championship event as that happened the following year, but it was the first ever Formula One Grand Prix after the war.

I remember seeing and hearing those fabulous machines coming through Abbey Curve, on to the Hanger Straight and down toward Stowe corner. I said then to my dad, “That’s what I’m going to do!” It stayed not just as a dream for me but an intention as I ultimately got there and became a race driver.

I have some particularly vivid memories of growing up as a little boy during World War ll. As the German air raids over London became heavier, my brother and I were evacuated to the countryside in Cambridgeshire with a nurse and a nanny who were like family.

My dad was in the British Army right from the start of the war in 1939. He fought in North Africa and then Italy. Dad wrote to us as often as possible, so we always looked forward to hearing from him. I can’t remember which birthday, but we received a package from him when he was in Italy which contained oranges. It might not seem a big deal now but during the war it was fantastic because food was rationed, and oranges were difficult to get.

As I reached further down into the package, I felt something right at the bottom. It was a lovely Swiss Zodiac watch, a birthday present from my dad! It was absolutely beautiful and meant so much to me and is something I will never forget.

During the war my mum ran our family café in London, and about once a month she would get enough petrol coupons that allowed her to drive down to see us in her 1934 two-seater Morris Eight. On one occasion during one of her visits my brother and I were playing out in the grass when I cut my knee on a broken bottle. It was sliced wide open and very deep. I was bleeding all over the place. The neighbour had to drive to get a doctor as there wasn’t a phone.

Without any anaesthetic, the doctor had a few people literally hold me down while he sewed it up. They sent my mum and my brother out of the house and I remember screaming as he worked on my knee. I still have a huge scar to this day.

In 1945 when I was 11 years old, I was helping dad as he put in a new kitchen stove when I accidentally dropped some rubble from the old one on my foot. It smashed my big toe. I got osteomyelitis which is when a bone gets crushed and that poisons the marrow inside the bone.

I became very ill and came close to dying on Christmas Eve. Thankfully, this was during the early days of penicillin, so the doctors gave me monster injections of the antibiotic. It stopped the progress of poison and I was fortunate to survive.

It did cause some complications because the big toe was bent upward, and I couldn’t bend my toe to wear shoes properly. About five years later I had the toe amputated, but it has never been a problem for me.

My first driving experience was with one of the many lorry drivers who frequented my mum and dad’s café. One driver named George would come in for breakfast at the café and if I happened to be around, he would ask if I wanted to go on the trip to the dump sites.

Once we got through the gates of the site, he would let me stand on the floor or sit on the edge of the seat and let me steer his three tonne Bedford truck. I was absolutely in my element.

As a teenager my love for motorsport grew. I read the book Car Driving As An Art. I wanted to learn all the car control techniques including the heel-and-toe method of gear shifting.

After I passed my driving test my dad would, on occasion, let me take his 1939 Hillman Minx to work. The road leading to my workplace was full of cobblestones which were very slippery when wet and terrific fun! It offered me the perfect opportunity to learn car control. However, those cars were not built to take the sort of stress I put on the car and there was an incident.

Next month I will share what happened and how it actually helped me in my racing career. My life was about to radically change, and I would enter the highly competitive world of motorsport.