Past Imperfect: Tony VandervellIn a classic Grand Prix season when the cars of the British McLaren team are locked in a no-holds barred struggle with the Italian Ferrari, it's hard to imagine that Continental racing cars once reigned supreme to the virtual exclusion of British cars. In those days, when racing cars raced in their country of origin's national colours, one man set out to build a car "to beat those bloody red cars". The man was Tony Vandervell, and the cars were Vanwalls.
In July 1957 it seemed that one of his cars was about to score the first victory for a car clothed in green since Henry Segrave's Sunbeam had won the 1923 French Grand Prix 34 years earlier. Stirling Moss had put the Vanwall on pole position for the British Grand Prix at Aintree. His team-mate Tony Brooks also sat on the grid but had been sick, and was not expected to play a major part in the race. Moss led from the start, but on lap 22 the ignition on his Vanwall failed. Vandervell decided to hand over Brooks's ninth-placed car to Moss - such changes were allowed in those days.
By lap 50, Moss had moved up to third place and was putting leader Behra's Maserati and second-placed Mike Hawthorn's Ferrari under huge pressure. Just how much pressure showed when the Maserati's clutch disintegrated while the Ferrari picked up a puncture. Moss was through, and the dream of Tony Vandervell finally came about.
Vandervell's father, Charles, built up a vast empire supplying electrical components to the motor industry before selling it to Lucas. Young Tony Vandervell took over a small company, O&S Oilless Bearings, or "Odds and Sods" as he called it. In 1933 it developed a new interchangeable bearing system and Vandervell Products was formed, with Tony as chairman and managing director.
As Austin, Morris and Rootes adopted the new bearings, the company prospered. Vandervell decided to pursue his own project to build a Grand Prix car to challenge the Italians.
The first step was the purchase in 1949 of a Ferrari, which he called the "Thinwall Special", and this car went through several years of development before Vandervell turned to a young Colin Chapman and Frank Costin to design an all-new long-nosed, high-tailed car in 1956.
For 1958, Moss and Brooks were the team's drivers and Vanwall won six of the 10 Grand Prix to take the first manufacturer's championship, although Moss was beaten by one point to the driver's championship by Mike Hawthorn, whose Ferrari won only one race. Tragedy struck, however, at the end of the season, when Stuart Lewis-Evans was killed at Casablanca when the engine of his Vanwall seized. This tragedy prompted Tony Vandervell to withdraw from Grand Prix racing in January 1959.
Vandervell's health had suffered over the years, as he pushed his team to win, and he died in 1967 at the age of 68. This feisty and often abrupt little man, who always appeared at races in a white alpaca jacket and panama hat, showed the way for British racing car manufacturers to take on their Continental opponents, something that today McLaren is doing successfully in a fascinating Grand Prix season.