Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

MATTERS OF MOMENT
■ TELEVISION AND THE MOTOR CAR
“The living need charity more than the dead” —
George Arnold, 1834—1865.
The motor car preceded television by some forty years,
although it might be said that whereas the former was
practical transport by about 1905 (earlier if you possessed
a Sixty Mercedes or similar), it wasn’t until the 1950s
or thereabouts, that everyman’s TV arrived. Of this we
were able to remind an irate cottage-dweller on the way
home from Silverstone some years ago, when we had left
the engine of a vintage Riley running at a petrol station
opposite his premises and he emerged, irate, yelling at us
to switch-off, as we were ruining reception on his screen
of the Cup Final. . . .
Since then BBC and ITV television have become
a vast force in the land, as other TV services are
throughout most of the world. Perhaps the horseless
carriage and Baird’s incredible invention should never
have intertwined. But they have, with some interesting,
and also some unfortunate, results. For instance, not
long ago we got very sparse coverage of motor racing
on “the box,” compared to the time devoted to kick-ball,
Rugby-football (a game in which hands play as great a
part as the feet in transporting the oval “ball”), tennis
and horse-racing. The BBC used the excuse that such
a Nasty Word appeared on certain F1 cars they could
not permit it to be seen by viewers, thus making John
Surtees the scapegoat, — quite ironical, when you think
of how much porn is shown in so many TV plays. Now
the situation has swung quite the other way, with the
dates of Championship Grands Prix adjusted to suit TV
producers — which we in Britain can only hope implies
that this year viewers are going to get as much, or more,
motor-racing coverage as they have had from the BBC
in recent times. Such “live” reporting of the Fl racing
season provides us with entertainment and just enough
information for avid followers of the Sport who have
been unable to attend a race to satisfy them until the full
facts are available from D.S.J, or A.H. in the next issue of
MOTOR SPORT. So for such small crumbs of TV motorrace
reporting as we may receive, let us be grateful.
The younger generation of enthusiasts may not
realise that coverage of motoring events with a sporting
flavour goes back to pre-Television times. For instance,
there were those pioneering broadcasts on 2LO from
“Vox Villa” at Shelsley Walsh, which started at one of the
1932 hill-climbs, BBC’s very first “outside” motor-racing
programme. It was Eric Findon, Editor of The Light Car,
who was “on the air” on that and subsequent occasions,
aided by his wife and daughter, with Major Vernon
Brooke at the “Esses” — the writer can well remember
the excitement of listening-in to these “live” broadcasts
from the famous Worcestershire hill when he was unable
to get there in his Austin Seven from South London, and
of hoping fervently that the wonderful sounds would not
be cut off, be “returned to the studio in London”, before
the crackle of GN-based, vee-twin Shelsley Specials had
been heard and Raymond Mays had had his second run
in the Vauxhall Villiers Supercharge. . . .
Even before that, motor racing had been reported
on the radio, for does not the inimitable S. G. H.
(“Sammy”) Davis tell, in his book “Motor Racing”, of
switching-on his set one Sunday evening in 1924 and of
its loudspeaker confirming his worst fears, namely that
his friend Lou Zborowski had crashed fatally at Monza,
in the GP Mercedes? I have often wondered whether
this was a 2LO news item or whether Sammy had one
of those then-covetable radios (or “wireless sets”) of the
multi-valve, super-heterodyne variety that could receive
foreign stations at loudspeaker strength, and whether
the report gave the winner of the Italian Grand Prix
(Antonio Ascari in a P2 Alfa Romeo) or only mentioned
the fatality? These early motor-racing broadcasts led
on to wider coverage in this media, including support
from the BBC for the ten-lap “Broadcast Trophy” Race at
Brooklands in 1937, won by John Cobb’s Napier-Railton
at over 136 m.p.h., the commentary given by Alan Hess,
today a Vice-President of the Brooklands Society.
In those pre-war days of less leisure, fewer cars
and slower journeys, such broadcasts helped to publicise
motor racing among those who could not normally
attend the different venues, and probably encouraged
the large attendances at Donington Park in 1937 and 1938
when the German Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union GP
teams raced there, with victory twice going to the latter.
* * *
Since the war years Television has escalated into a fulltime,
nearly non-stop, Show-Biz entertainment Industry.
It has encompassed motoring in other than racing and
rallying forms. The number of vintage and other prewar
vehicles which now earn lolly for their fortunate
owners by appearing before the cameras is legion. We
have also had plays about motor racing and have seen
racing drivers taking on the role of actors. There was,
for instance, that fearful farce featuring Stirling Moss
and Denis Jenkinson on the eve of the 1955 Mille Miglia,
which in real life they won for Mercedes-Benz at a record
average-speed of 97.96 m.p.h. The playwright made a
fiasco of it by concentrating on making the two heroes
dwell morbidly in their bedroom with thoughts of death
and destruction on the morrow, which in reality would
have been totally out of character from either of them,
a scene made worse because the actors formed a poor
parody of Moss and a quite impossible Jenkinson. It has.
we believe, mercifully never been repeated. Then there
was Graham Hill dressed as Daddy Christmas at those
Boxing-Day Brands Hatch Race Meetings, to draw the TV
cameras away from some fairly serious racing, and more
recently we have had James Hunt playing his trumpet to
Variety Show audiences.
This reminds us that when, some nights ago,
drugged as TV tends to make one, we inadvertently sat
on into a “Friday Night-Saturday Morning” frolic, it was
to find Jackie Stewart acting as the compere, interviewing
James Hunt and Henry Cooper. All we wish to say is
that Henry Cooper did his best and generously said he
wouldn’t get into a racing car at any price, although
according to a Sunday Times survey professional boxing
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