at the Royal Automobile Club Motoring Book of the Year 2015
Stirling Moss: My Racing Life received Special Commendation at the prestigious Royal Automobile Club Motoring Book of the Year Award. The event was held at the Pall Mall clubhouse on Wednesday 28 October 2015.
The book, written by Sir Stirling Moss with Simon Taylor, received huge praise from judges. One of them, Henry Hope-Frost of Autosport, summed it up: ‘British motorsport fans have been treated to glimpses through numerous windows into the extraordinary life of Britain’s greatest racing driver via myriad biographies. However, Sir Stirling Moss’s long-time friend Simon Taylor has made this one deeply personal, teasing out the most intimate recollections of the great man. Every word feels like it has been uttered to the reader via a one-to-one fireside chat.’
Stirling Moss: My Racing Life (Evro Publishing, £50) was launched at the Royal Automobile Club last May to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Sir Stirling winning the Mille Miglia.
In his very personal book, Sir Stirling guides the reader through his varied motor racing life with an insightful and often amusing commentary to an unrivalled collection of over 300 photographs, many of which will be unfamiliar to even his most ardent fans. The book is a journey from his childhood to the height of his fame as ‘Mr Motor Racing’ and then to the sudden end of his career with that crash at Goodwood in 1962. Along the way the book dwells on his finest moments as well as the setbacks, and the reader can delight in the great variety of machinery – almost 100 different cars – in which he competed during his rollercoaster racing life.
As Gordon Cruickshank of Motor Sport commented: ‘Although Moss’s story is so well known, his personal commentary on the photos, many of them unseen family images, plus the very high quality of presentation, sets this apart.’
The Royal Automobile Club asked six experts, who review books regularly and in detail, to act as independent judges. They were Mick Walsh, Editor-in-Chief of Classic & Sports Car; Gordon Cruickshank, Deputy Editor of Motor Sport; Keith Adams, Editor of Classic Car Weekly; Henry Willis, former consumer writer at Auto Express; Henry Hope-Frost, long-time contributor to Autosport; and Richard Heseltine, book reviewer for Octane.
There were 40 titles nominated by the judges and all were published between July 2014 and June 2015. The overall winner was Simon Moore’s The Magnificent Monopostos: Alfa Romeo Grand Prix Cars 1923-1951.
Publisher Eric Verdon-Roe said: ‘In 2014 Evro Publishing won the accolade for John Surtees: My Incredible Life on Two and Four Wheels. We are delighted to receive Special Commendation for our new book with Sir Stirling Moss, and to have such wonderful praise from the judges again. It was stiff opposition. Simon Moore’s The Magnificent Monopostos is a wonderful masterpiece dedicated to pre-war racing. He thoroughly deserved to win and the team at Evro would like to congratulate him wholeheartedly.’
