Amazon.co.uk Review
At the time of his shock retirement after a near-fatal crash in 1962, motor-racing legend Stirling Moss was the most famous British sportsman of his era, and is still rated by some as the most successful driver of all time. Now, nearly 40 years later, motor sport writer Robert Edwards draws on unprecedented access to the man himself, and his private library of images and memorabilia, as they reflect together on an extraordinary life on the edge.
Moss rose to the top in an era when death on the track was a commonplace hazard; when drivers squeezed astonishing speeds out of cars, that in safety and handling terms would compare unfavourably with a modern-day family runabout.
Stirling took the lead on lap 35 and started to watch his tyres very carefully indeed ... on lap 65 the tell-tale breaker strip started to appear as the tread was simply smeared off the tyre. The odds on having a puncture were now very short. The gearbox was holding up (the clutch had failed 40-odd laps ago) ... and Stirling began to drive very carefully, directing the smoothed and fragile tyres across every piece of grass he could find to ease the friction...
What made it possible, far more than in today's digitally engineered and monitored sport, was the character of the man behind the grime-encrusted goggles. In Moss's case, as Edwards reveals, the popular image of the steely-eyed, ramrod-backed Knight of the British Empire is far from the complete story.
An exquisitely designed coffee table book--and it would have to be a pretty robust piece of furniture, because this is a notably hefty tome--Stirling Moss--The Authorised Biography displays production values, and a daring but sympathetic use of abundant visual material, that would not be out of place in a work of art history. And a similarly scholarly philosophy underpins the comprehensive and revealing text--Edwards is clearly a fan, but is happy to let Moss the man, and his achievements, stand in their historical and social context. This book is all the more entertaining and awe-inspiring for that. --AlexHankin
Product Description
Stirling Crauford Moss raced professionally 497 times until his near fatal crash in 1962. At the end of his racing career, he was the most famous Briton - no celebrity has approached the national adulation that Moss received. In this book, Robert Edwards wonderfully recounts the life of this extraordinarily gifted and competitive man. His tally of wins was proportionally higher than any other driver's, ever, by a wide margin. From his first race in 1948 to his last heady days of the early sixties and beyond, his life and career are recalled in great detail, revealing many amazing stories never told before.