The machines Nine makes of Grand Prix car, and many more besides

Stuttgart, 1 February 2025

On 1 February 2025 a Mercedes-⁠Benz W196 was sold at auction in Stuttgart for €51.155 million, more than any Grand Prix car had ever fetched. It was chassis 00009/54, a long-chassis streamliner with the previous year’s body. Juan Manuel Fangio had won the Buenos Aires Grand Prix in it in January 1955; that September Stirling Moss drove it in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, set the race’s fastest lap, 2:46.9, and retired after 27 laps when the engine failed. In 1965 the car went to the museum at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and there it stayed for 60 years.

No car he raced has sold for more, though others have sold for millions. By the count of his official website he raced 107 different types of car. In the World Championship, from 1951 to 1961, he started in cars of nine makes: HWM, ERA, Connaught, Cooper, Maserati, Mercedes-⁠Benz, Vanwall, BRM and Lotus. He drove a tenth, the Ferguson, when he took it over from Jack Fairman in the middle of a race. He won in five: once for Mercedes-⁠Benz, twice in a Maserati, six times in a Vanwall, one of the six shared, three times in a Cooper and four times in a Lotus. No other driver has won World Championship races in cars of five makes; Fangio won in four.¹

Makes in which he started a World Championship race

9

Makes in which he won one

5

This chapter takes them in the order he came to them: the British cars of his first years, the Maserati he bought, the Mercedes-⁠Benz team, the Vanwall, Rob Walker’s private Coopers and Lotuses, and the sports cars, saloons and record car he drove between Grands Prix. For each it says who built it, what he thought of it where he said so, and what became of it. The races themselves belong to the seasons and to the sports cars.

British cars, 1948–⁠1953

Cooper 500s

John and Charles Cooper built the cars that made his name: the 500cc Mk II his parents helped him buy, which reached him in 1948, the Mk III of 1949 with its 1,000cc JAP twin, and the Mk IV of 1950, which later took a Norton engine. Their story, and his, is told in The 500s. What became of the cars he owned is not known.

HWM

John Heath and George Abecassis ran Hersham and Walton Motors, and in 1950 they gave him his first paid drive. Heath designed the car around a 2-⁠litre twin-cam Alta four. In 1951 it gave about 130 bhp, Mark Hughes has reckoned, where the supercharged Alfa Romeos had more than 400. Moss started two World Championship races in an HWM, both at Bremgarten: the first of his career, in 1951, in which he finished 8th, and the Swiss race of 1952, when the team withdrew his car after 24 laps. Outside the championship the team was busy: Motor Sport counted 26 events for it in 1951, with Moss 3rd at both Marseille and Monza. Which of the cars he drove has not been identified.

ERA G-⁠type

The ERA of 1952 was David Hodkin’s design, from a layout begun by Robert Eberan von Eberhorst, for Leslie Johnson’s revived English Racing Automobiles, with a 2-⁠litre Bristol six. Moss started three Grands Prix in it, at Spa-⁠Francorchamps, Silverstone and Zandvoort, and each time its engine failed. At Spa the failure put him into a heavy crash. Whether the car survives is not established.

Connaught A-⁠type

The Connaught came from Send, in Surrey. Rodney Clarke and Mike Oliver designed it, Kenneth McAlpine backed it, and its 2-⁠litre four was developed from a Lea-⁠Francis engine. Moss started two championship races in A-⁠types: at Monza in 1952 he retired, and at Zandvoort in 1953 he was 9th.

Cooper-Alta

With no British Grand Prix car to buy, his own small team built one under his mechanic, Alf Francis: an Alta twin-cam four in a Cooper-based special that would not steer properly. By the German Grand Prix in August its engine had gone into a standard Cooper Formula Two chassis. How the two cars raced is told in 1953. He started three Grands Prix in them, and the best was 6th at the Nürburgring on 2 August. Ken Gregory, his manager, thought the failure of the Cooper-⁠Alta brought him close to giving up.

In the four British makes, from 1951 to 1953, he made 10 championship starts, scored no points and finished no higher than 6th. By his own account there was then no British car left for him to drive, and for 1954 he went to Maserati.

Maserati 250F

Gioachino Colombo began the 250F and Giulio Alfieri finished and developed it: a 2,494cc twin-cam straight-six, a de Dion rear axle and drum brakes, in a car of about 620 kg. It was said to give 240 bhp from the start; Andrew Frankel thought it nearer 220 at first, rising over the years to about 270.

The first he raced was his own, chassis 2508, a customer car ordered through Shell-BP and delivered in May 1954. What it cost, and how Alf Francis cut and rewelded its frame overnight so that Moss could drive with straight arms, are told in 1954. Its pedals were set out clutch, brake, throttle, which was unusual in a 250F: he hated the central throttle of the others, not least because he had once crashed a works car by pressing the wrong pedal. Nor was it quite the factory’s car. Early that year, as he told it in 1994, a works 250F came past him on a straight, and Maserati promised him the same parts once they had been proved; by Frankel’s account his own engine usually ran to a limit almost 1,000 rpm below the works cars’.

2508 raced on after he had finished with it. In 1955 Lance Macklin, Peter Walker, Mike Hawthorn, who won at Crystal Palace in it, Bob Gerard and John Fitch all drove it. It was rebodied, then sold to Ross Jensen in New Zealand, where it was renumbered 2513 for reasons of paperwork, and later came back to Britain under its own number.

In 1956 he drove for the factory, and won at Monaco in chassis 2522 and at Monza in 2525, one of two new cars with the transmission offset and the driver seated lower. 2525 went to America; in 2026 it was on loan from the Auriana Collection to the Audrain Auto Museum in Newport, Rhode Island. The Monaco car is harder to follow. Late in 1956 the factory gave it a new number, 2523, and passed its old number to another car, and the muddle stood in the record for decades. A 250F offered at auction at Maranello in May 2009 as his Monaco winner did not sell.²

No car of his drew more praise from him. In 2009 he told Frankel that it was easy to drive fast and had no vices, that the faster it went the better it felt, and that its balance let him drive it on the limit with confidence. At a circuit like Monaco, he thought, he might have been quicker in a 250F than in the Mercedes-⁠Benz that replaced it, though the German car had the edge in speed in places. He started 14 championship races in 250Fs, and won two of them, with two poles and five fastest laps.

Mercedes-Benz, 1955

Mercedes-Benz W196

The W196 came from the engineering department of Daimler-Benz under Fritz Nallinger, with Rudolf Uhlenhaut running the racing department. It had a 2.5-⁠litre straight-eight with Bosch direct fuel injection and desmodromic valves, about 257 bhp at first and about 290 by 1955, and it was built with open and streamlined bodies and with long, medium and short wheelbases. Moss joined the team for 1955, behind Fangio. He won one championship race in a W196, his first, the British Grand Prix at Aintree, and took one pole and two fastest laps. The chassis in which he won at Aintree has not been identified.

In 1994 he put the team first for success: “If one is talking about success, obviously Mercedes has to be the team because every race we went into with the exception of one, we being the Mercedes team, a Mercedes won it.” The exception was Monaco, where his car and Fangio’s both broke. The car itself, he went on, was not easy to drive as the 250F was, with so much weight at the front, and its straight-eight was not the engine Alfred Neubauer would have chosen. Fifteen years later he set the W196 beside the Maserati again and reached the same verdict: a feat of engineering, but nothing like as pleasant to drive.

Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR

The 300 SLR, type W 196 S at the factory, was the Grand Prix car made into a two-seater, its straight-eight enlarged to 3 litres; Mercedes-⁠Benz gives 276 hp at 7,000 rpm. In 1955 Moss won three great races in it: the Mille Miglia with Denis Jenkinson, the Tourist Trophy with John Fitch and the Targa Florio with Peter Collins. The Mille Miglia car, No. 722, has belonged to Mercedes-⁠Benz throughout, and lives in the company’s museum in Stuttgart; what it came to stand for is told in Legacy. A Mercedes-⁠Benz text quotes him as saying “The 300 SLR was the finest car ever built” (attributed).

Vanwall

The Vanwall was Tony Vandervell’s, and it was the British car Moss had waited for. In it he won six World Championship races. In 1957 he won at Aintree, in the car Tony Brooks had started, then at Pescara and Monza; in 1958 at Zandvoort, at Boavista, in Oporto, and at Ain-Diab, where he lost the title by a point.

World Championship starts in a Vanwall

14

Wins, one of them shared

6

From 1956 its chassis was Colin Chapman’s design and its body Frank Costin’s, and its engine was a 2,490cc four with Bosch fuel injection: about 270 bhp in 1955, 285 in 1957 and 290 on alcohol, falling to about 278 on the aviation fuel the rules required from 1958.

He never pretended it was a pleasure to drive. Its pleasures, he said in 1994, were that it looked good, that it was green and that it won; for the rest it had a flat spot and a difficult gearbox, and he had raced, he reminded his interviewer, for fun.

Its chassis are known from Don Capps’s notes. VW4 won at Aintree in 1957 and, with Brooks, at the Nürburgring in 1958, and it was destroyed at Casablanca that October when Stuart Lewis-Evans crashed in it; he died of his burns six days later. VW5 won at Pescara and Monza in 1957. VW10 won at Zandvoort and Oporto in 1958, and accounts differ on whether VW5 or VW10 won at Ain-Diab. VW5 was later rebuilt with independent rear suspension and then broken up to make the low-line VW11, so a VW5 seen today has been rebuilt or re-created. VW10 survives. Brooks, the auctioneers, sold it at the Nürburgring in August 1998 for £800,817, the highest price paid at auction that year, and in 2025 Motor Sport placed it in Bernie Ecclestone’s collection.

Rob Walker’s cars, 1958–⁠1961

Walker was a private entrant, and he had to buy his cars. Cooper and Lotus, Moss said, would sell him nothing newer than a year-old chassis, and Cooper would not sell him its gearbox; Jenkinson, though, called the Lotus he won with at Monaco in 1960 brand new. Walker’s mechanic was Alf Francis again. Between them they won with two makes that had never won a championship race before.

World Championship wins for Rob Walker

7

Cooper T43

Owen Maddock’s T43 was a rear-engined Formula Two Cooper with transverse-leaf suspension. For the Argentine Grand Prix of 1958, at the Buenos Aires Autodrome, Walker’s car had a 1.96-litre Climax FPF of about 175 bhp, against the Ferraris’ 280, and Moss won with it. No rear-engined car had won a World Championship race before, though Auto Union had won Grands Prix before the war with the engine in the same place, and nor had any privately entered car. It was his only championship start in a T43, and he never started one in its successor, the T45.

Cooper T51

The T51 was Maddock’s too, with a curved-tube frame and a 2.5-⁠litre Climax FPF of about 245 bhp, by Doug Nye’s figure, behind the driver. Walker’s cars used gearboxes by Valerio Colotti in place of Cooper’s own, which was derived from a Citroën’s, and in Nye’s judgement they gave as much trouble, of a different kind; 1959 tells how much. He started seven championship races in T51s and took five poles. He won two, at Monsanto and Monza, and three times in 1959 the transmission failed while he was leading. Of the rear-engined cars it was the Cooper he enjoyed; in 2009 he wrote of how well balanced it could be kept in a slide.

BRM P25

In the summer of 1959 he drove a front-engined Grand Prix car again for two races. The British Racing Partnership, which his father, Alfred Moss, and Gregory had founded, entered a BRM P25 for him, a 2.5-⁠litre four, in the team’s pale green. At Reims-Gueux, his clutch gone, he spun, stalled and accepted a push to restart, knowing it meant disqualification; at Aintree he was 2nd, and shared the fastest lap with Bruce McLaren. For all its unreliability, he thought in 2009, the P25 was the last word in the front-engined 2.5-⁠litre Formula One car, and it was well balanced, too.

Lotus 18, 18/21 and 21

The Lotus 18 of 1960 was Chapman’s first car with the engine behind the driver: a spaceframe with a glass-fibre body, no more than 450 kg even as a Formula One car. Walker bought one that spring for two reasons. Walker and Moss were BP men, and the Esso contract of Cooper’s works team was an obstacle to them; and the 18 had already beaten them at Goodwood and Silverstone. With it Moss gave Lotus its first championship win, at Monaco in May 1960; three weeks later a rear stub axle broke in practice at Spa, and he was badly hurt. That car was a different chassis from his car of 1961, and its number has not been established.

For 1961 the engines were cut to 1.5 litres, and Walker’s Lotus had the four-cylinder Climax FPF Mk II, about 151 hp by one count against the 190 of Ferrari’s V6. The car was chassis 912, with a Colotti gearbox in place of Lotus’s own; one history calls it a new car for 1961, its owner an old development car. In it he won at Monaco in May and, after it had been rebuilt with Lotus 21 parts as an 18/21, at the Nürburgring in August, as 1961 tells. For Monza Innes Ireland lent him his works Lotus 21, and he retired. In all he started six championship races in a Lotus 18, winning three, with four poles, and five in the 18/21, winning one.

He was clear about the difference between the two makes. The Lotus was the quicker car if the driver was good enough, and the less fun; it was delicate and unforgiving, and he never felt comfortable in it. 912 survives. It spent about 45 years in the Donington Collection, was sold through DK Engineering, and by 2021 belonged to Teifion Salisbury, who raced it in historic events.

Ferguson P99

The P99 was Harry Ferguson Research’s car. Claude Hill designed the chassis and Tony Rolt was the technical chief. It had a Coventry Climax four in front of the driver, of 1.5 litres, or 2.5 for Inter-Continental races, and four-wheel drive through three differentials and a viscous coupling, with a five-speed Colotti gearbox and Dunlop Maxaret anti-lock brakes, which were switched off for racing. At Aintree in July 1961 he took it over from Fairman after it had already been disqualified for a push start, and it was called in after protests from other teams; Moss himself was not disqualified. In September the P99 won him the Gold Cup at Oulton Park. No other car with four-wheel drive has won a Formula One race.

It went on racing without him. Graham Hill and Innes Ireland drove it in the Tasman races of 1963, it was tried at Indianapolis that year, and Peter Westbury won the British Hill Climb Championship in it in 1964. It spent many years in the Donington Collection, was restored by Barry Snow in 2004, and in 2022 the Ferguson family’s museum said it was with the Rolt family.

The sports cars

His sports-car races are told in The sports cars. Here are the cars, make by make.

Jaguar XK120

Tommy Wisdom’s competition XK120, JWK 988, was alloy-bodied, one of six built, with Jaguar’s 3.4-⁠litre twin-cam six. Wisdom lent it to him for the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod in September 1950, and he won the day before his 21st birthday. In 1952 an XK120 coupé that he shared with three other drivers ran for a week at Montlhéry, averaging over 100 mph (161 km/⁠h), as Rallies and records tells.

Jaguar C-⁠type

The C-⁠type, or XK120-⁠C, had a tubular frame by William Heynes and a body by Malcolm Sayer, with Bob Knight; 53 were built. Moss won the Tourist Trophy in one in 1951, the sports-car race at Reims in 1952 in Wisdom’s XKC 005, on Dunlop disc brakes, and, sharing with Peter Whitehead, the 12 Hours at Reims in 1953, and he was 2nd at Le Mans that year with Peter Walker. XKC 005, which gave a little more than 200 bhp on 80-octane fuel, survives in standard form, never seriously damaged, and he drove it again at Silverstone in 2008.

Jaguar D-⁠type

In 1954 he and Peter Walker drove OKV 2, the third of six works D-⁠types, at Le Mans, and retired. He preferred the C-⁠type. The D was the less accurate car, he said, and its disc brakes gave a great deal of trouble.

Aston Martin DB3S

Willie Watson designed the DB3S and Frank Feeley its body, and its 3-⁠litre twin-cam six began as W.O. Bentley’s design for Lagonda; 31 were built, 11 of them works cars. He and Collins were 2nd in one at Le Mans in 1956. Moss used to complain, Frankel reported, that it lifted an inside wheel and lost its power.

Aston Martin DBR1

The DBR1 was Ted Cutting’s: a spaceframe of small tubes and the RB6 straight-six of 2,992cc, 268 bhp in works form. Five were built. In DBR1s Moss won the Nürburgring 1000 km twice, in 1958 with Jack Brabham and in 1959 with Fairman, in DBR1/1, which he had persuaded Aston Martin to enter on its own; he won the Tourist Trophy in 1958 with Brooks, and again in 1959, in DBR1/2, after his own car caught fire at its pit stop, a win that settled the World Sports Car Championship for Aston Martin. DBR1/1 was sold at auction at Monterey in August 2017 for US$22.55 million, then a record for a British car.

Maserati 300S

The 300S was Maserati’s 3-⁠litre straight-six sports car, about 270 hp, with bodywork by Fantuzzi, and Motor Sport counted it another of his favourites. The Buenos Aires 1000 km of 1956 fell to him and Carlos Menditeguy in one, and the Nürburgring 1000 km that year in a car he shared, and later in 1956 he won races in Venezuela, in Australia and at Nassau.

Maserati 450S

The 450S had a 4.5-⁠litre V8 with four overhead camshafts. In the Mille Miglia of 1957 its brake pedal snapped after about 12 km. Later that year he shared Behra’s car to win the Swedish Grand Prix for sports cars, and the Venezuelan Grand Prix in November ended with the works cars destroyed.

Maserati Tipo 60 and 61

Alfieri’s Tipo 60 and 61, the “Birdcage”, were built on a spaceframe that was a trellis of small tubes; the Tipo 61 had a 2,890cc four of about 250 bhp. Moss tested the first car in May 1959, when its welds cracked and the steel was changed, and won its first race, at Rouen on 12 July; in 2009 he remembered it as responsive and agile, and fantastic. In 1960, with Dan Gurney, he won the Nürburgring 1000 km in the Camoradi team’s chassis 2461, after losing time with a broken oil line, and in 2013 that car was sold at Monterey for US$2,090,000.

For rallies and records

Sunbeam-Talbot 90 and Sunbeam Alpine

For the Rootes Group he drove the Sunbeam-⁠Talbot 90 saloon, 2nd in the Monte Carlo Rally of 1952, his first rally, and then the Sunbeam Alpine. In the two cars he won a Coupe des Alpes in each of three Alpine Rallies, 1952 to 1954, and with them the Coupe d’Or. Rallies and records tells those years.

MG EX181

EX181, conceived by Syd Enever and drawn by Terry Mitchell, put the driver ahead of a supercharged 1,489cc MG twin-cam four, and in it, at Bonneville in August 1957, Moss set Class F records for the flying kilometre and the mile, at more than 245 mph (394 km/⁠h). It was not his kind of driving, as Rallies and records tells.