Woolf 'Babe' Barnato, Gentleman Driver

On the face of it, Woolf 'Babe' Barnato was the perfect gentleman driver: hugely wealthy, entirely extrovert, brilliantly sporting and not a little arrogant - but, in ancestry at least, he wasn't quite so top drawer as he at first appeared.

Barnato's millions dated back barely one generation to his father, Barnett, the son of  a Jewish shopkeeper from London's East End. As soon as he was able, Barnett – or Barney, as he preferred to be called – changed his surname to Barnato, emigrated to South Africa and famously made a vast fortune out of the country's newly emerging diamond business. But, while sailing back to England from Cape Town in 1897, he vanished overboard with the result that the then-two-year-old Woolf inherited the majority of the family fortune.

A keen and able sportsman

Big and beefy, Barnato Jnr. grew up to be a keen and able sportsman with a drive to excel. His first venture into motor racing occurred in 1921, when he signed up to compete in the Brooklands Easter Meeting with an eight-litre Locomobile he had imported from America. He came third in the 100-mile Long Handicap, giving him a taste for racing that saw him drive a Calthorpe in the Whitsun meeting, followed the next season by Malcolm Campbell's old Talbot. For 1923, Barnato changed to a Wolseley Moth and, in 1924, established a class record at the wheel of his eight-litre Hispano-Suiza – the car that immediately preceded the start of his celebrated allegiance with Bentley, following the acquisition of a prototype, short chassis 3 Litre fitted with a boat-tail body by Jarvis of Wimbledon.

The Barnato-Bentley deal

 

He used the 3 Litre to win several major Brooklands races and, partnered by John Duff, set a new 3 Litre 24-hour record averaging 95.03mph in 1925. It was then that W.O. Bentley persuaded Barnato – who loved a gamble – to sink close to £100,000 in to his ailing car company on the condition that he could have the pick of the firm's products for his own use, plus a guaranteed place in the works team. But Barnato's place behind the wheel was entirely justified because, in W.O.'s opinion, he was one of the best drivers of the period, who rarely made mistakes and, importantly, always obeyed team orders.

It was this, combined with the famous Barnato grit, that helped him win Le Mans at his first attempt, together with co-driver Bernard Rubin, despite having to nurse their 4½ Litre across the finish line with a cracked chassis and no coolant. He repeated the victory the following year as part of Bentley's legendary one, two, three, four, adding a third win to his tally in 1930 after a protracted battle with Rudolph Caracciola's Mercedes. But by 1931, the Bentley business had become untenable and Barnato's advisers warned him off further investment in the company, which subsequently passed into Rolls-Royce hands – in which, fortuitously, Barnato had recently bought sufficient shares to merit a place on the board of Bentley Motors in 1931.

Bentley versus Blue Train

His subsequent racing career was largely limited to sponsoring and building competition cars, although he famously used his driving skills to beat the Blue Train from the Cote d'Azur back to Calais in his Mulliner-bodied Speed Six saloon. Having survived both World Wars – as an Artillery officer in the first and an RAF Wing Commander in the second – Barnato died at the young age of 53, following a thrombosis brought on by a cancer operation. He has since gone down in history as, perhaps, the most quintessential Bentley Boy of all.

 

Photos: Getty Images / Bonhams / Bentley

This article is part of the 'Gentleman Drivers' feature series that is presented and supported by EFG Bank.

Henry Segrave, Gentleman Driver

Anyone looking to create a template for the archetypal 'gentleman driver' could do worse than to copy Major Sir Henry Segrave's curriculum vitae...

Born in the U.S. to an American mother and an Irish father, he was raised in Ireland, educated at Eton, commissioned into the Army at the outbreak of World War One and, having been badly wounded in hand-to-hand combat, became a fighter pilot with the Royal Flying Corps. And all that before his 21st birthday.

The first Brit to win a Grand Prix in a home-grown car

Post-War, his gung-ho attitude to life gave him the edge as a racing driver and helped him to win the inaugural Brooklands 200-mile race in 1921. More significantly, however, it made him the first Brit to win a Grand Prix in a home-grown car when he took the chequered flag in the French GP of 1923 behind the wheel of a Sunbeam. Remaining loyal to the marque, he set his first land speed record in 1926 driving 'Ladybird', a four-litre Sunbeam Tiger in which he scorched along the Southport sands at more than 152mph. 

A short-lived glory

Segrave's glory was short-lived, however, as he lost the record just six weeks later, relinquishing it to Welshman J.G. Parry-Thomas who topped it by 17mph - but within the year, the indomitable Segrave had outdone both Parry-Thomas and Sir Malcolm Campbell by becoming the first person to break through the 200mph barrier in his 1,000 horsepower Sunbeam 'Mystery.'

Riding the Golden Arrow

The car he's most associated with, however, is the remarkable Golden Arrow. I still remember encountering it for the first time, at Beaulieu's National Motor Museum in 1969. The true meaning of Segrave driving it to 231.45mph at Daytona 40 years before was somewhat lost on me, but I knew I was looking at something special. It was the hero's last attempt at being the fastest man on land. He was put off by witnessing the death of Lee Bible who rolled the Triplex Special at almost 200mph on Ormond Beach, Florida, just two days after the Golden Arrow record was established.

From land to water

As a result, Segrave directed his need for speed towards the water, swiftly becoming the first person in nine years to beat U.S. water speed king Garfield Wood in a powerboat race. But it was, ironically, a boat that caused Segrave's demise. Just three months after giving up on land speed attempts he was killed when his 3,600 horsepower, aero-engined powerboat Miss England II capsized on Lake Windermere after making two runs at a record average speed of 98.76mph.

The date was Friday, 13 June. Segrave was just 33 years of age.

Photos: Getty Images / Rex

This article is part of the 'Gentleman Drivers' feature series that is presented and supported by EFG Bank.

Paul Newman, Gentleman Driver

It was Steve McQueen who famously said, "Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" - but it was his Hollywood contemporary Paul Newman who found the lure of high-octane motorsport so irresistible that he went as far as to turn it into a second career.

Getting hooked at Watkins Glen

Newman had been a lifelong fan of auto racing prior to signing the contract to play fictional driver Frank Capua in the 1969 movie 'Winning', but had virtually no track experience at all. That changed, however, when he was sent to the race school at Watkins Glen to develop a suitably plausible technique for the new role - and instantly became hooked.

A very special wristwatch

Within a couple of years, Newman had acquired several race cars, entering his first professional event in 1972 at the Thompson International Speedway. To mark the occasion his wife, Joanne Woodward, gifted him a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona wristwatch which he is said to have worn regularly for the rest of his life. The version she chose was a Reference 6241 with an 'exotic dial' - it was produced for only two years (1969 and 1970) and came to be known as the now highly collectible 'Paul Newman' model.

From Le Mans to Daytona

The star continued racing for the next 30 years, often in major international events such as the Le Mans 24 Hours, in which he and team mates Rolf Stommelen and Dick Barbour achieved second place behind the wheel of a factory-specification Porsche 935 in 1979. From the mid-1970s until the early 1990s, however, Newman mainly raced Datsuns for the Bob Sharp team in the Trans-Am Series - even becoming the oldest driver to be part of a winning team in a major race when, at 70, he took a class victory at the 1995 24 Hours of Daytona.

A history of frequent victories

Newman's love of the sport also extended to forming his own professional race team, which he set up with Can-Am and Indy Car specialist  Bill Freeman. 'Newman Freeman Racing' became a force to be reckoned with in the North American Can-Am series, fielding Budweiser-sponsored Spyder NF-10s and winning the team championship trophy in 1979. With drivers such as Keke Rosberg, Patrick Depailler and Bobby Rahal in the team, victories were frequent, inspiring Newman to co-found the celebrated Newman/Haas ChampCar team in 1983 (along with Carl Haas), which went on to secure eight drivers' championships.

 

Newman's last race outings took place in 2004, when he contested the Baja 1000, and the following year when he competed for a final time in the 24 Hours of Daytona, just three years before his death at the age of 83. The end marked a sad goodbye to a hero of the movie screen and the race track - and a man who could certainly never be accused of 'just waiting'.

Photos: Rexfeatures

This article is part of the 'Gentleman Drivers' feature series that is presented and supported by EFG Bank.

Jo Bonnier, Gentleman Driver

What is a ‘gentleman driver’? Someone, perhaps, with the wealth to pay for his own drives but the talent to mix it with professionals at the highest levels of the sport? In which case, the heroic Swede, Joakim ‘Jo’ Bonnier, undoubtedly fulfils the criteria.

As Patrick McNally wrote in Autosport magazine, Bonnier ‘enjoyed the gentle art of living gracefully without extravagance’. Tragically, these words were written in 1972, following Bonnier’s death in the Le Mans 24 Hours. He was killed by a slower driver’s error, in a race the Swede had led early on. What made it even harder to take was that Bonnier had been close to retirement after 24 successful years of racing.

The son of a professor of genetics at Stockholm University, Jo was born in 1930. Well-heeled, well-educated and cosmopolitan, he spoke six languages like a local. The world was at his feet when his passion for motor sport blossomed in 1948. Beginning as an amateur rally driver and ice racer, his ability to mix it with the world’s best racing drivers soon emerged. By 1956, in a rapidly changing world, Bonnier turned professional – that being the best way to get good drives.

Of Maseratis and broken bones

His pro career began with Maserati in 1956, but at Imola he tangled with a backmarker in a race that very nearly cost him his life. After a poor start, he was gaining on the race leader at two seconds per lap when the slower driver pulled in front of him. Unable to avoid a high-speed collision, Bonnier was upside down in the air when his crash helmet struck the helmet of the other driver. As his Maserati hurtled towards destruction Bonnier was thrown out. Several bones, including vertebrae, were broken but he was alive and, as ever, keen. In 1957 GPs, he drove a Maserati 250F for the private Scuderia Centro Sud.

The greatest moment of his F1 racing career came in 1959, when Bonnier’s BRM P25 took a convincing victory over Jack Brabham’s Cooper-Climax in the Dutch GP at Zandvoort. After 10 years, it was the BRM team’s first World Championship win and the first by a Swedish driver. Jo Bonnier’s F1 career seemed on the brink of stardom but it was not to be – his remaining two years with BRM were marked by retirements.

The impeccable manners of a true gentleman

Stuck on the fringe of F1, Jo sometimes appeared as a reliable substitute driver for the works teams but he usually drove privately entered cars. From 1966 to 1971 he was a genuine F1 private entrant in his own right, occasionally getting good results with uncompetitive cars including an unwieldy Cooper-Maserati. Bonnier deserved better and he found it in sportscar racing, where he scored countless major victories, including the Targa Florio twice, in 1960 and 1963, with the Porsche works team. With Phil Hill, sharing a Chaparral, he won the 1966 Nürburgring 1000Km. There were many more.

Jo Bonnier had the impeccable manners of a true gentleman, formal yet with an almost alarming tendency to speak directly. That was countered by an extraordinary charm. Such qualities made him an extremely effective Chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association from 1963 to 1971. He campaigned tirelessly for improved track safety – right up to his shocking death in that 180mph accident in 1972. It was a terrible loss.

Photos: Getty Images / Rex Features

Jo Bonnier's autobiography, 'Fast. Faster! The Fastest?' was republished in 2012, coinciding with Le Mans Classic. It was published, as a tribute to his memory, by Albert Bonniers Förlag in collaboration with Keith Gapp, EFG International, and Stéphane Gutzwiller.

This article is part of the 'Gentleman Drivers' feature series that is presented and supported by EFG Bank.

Count Louis Zborowski, Gentleman Driver

Cast your mind back to when you were a teenager and ask yourself what you would have done had you inherited a large - make that huge - amount of money and had already developed the first longings to spend some time in the company of fast cars...

The probable answer is that you would have devoted your attentions to becoming a racing driver, and thoroughly immersed yourself in an activity that most of us can only either dream about, or keep as a hobby.

By the time he entered his teens, Count Louis Zborowski was well and truly obsessed with what was then the exciting, new-fangled world of the motor car, despite his father, William, having died while racing at La Turbie in 1903 after a cufflink became tangled in the hand throttle of his Mercedes.

The heir of Higham Park

But young Zborowski was not to inherit his wealth from his father, but from his mother. She was an American heiress by the name of Margaret Laura Astor Carey, the granddaughter of the American tycoon William Backhouse Astor and a close relative of John Jacob Astor IV (famously the Titanic's richest passenger).

With the help of a 'Bentley Boys' engineer, Zborowski put together a series of cars called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Following William Zborowski's death, Margaret bought the rambling Higham Park near the English city of Canterbury, complete with 225 acres and 12 houses. It cost her £17,500, and she spent another £50,000 fixing it up - only to die in 1911 when Louis was just 16.

The result was that he inherited the property, together with a further £11m-worth of real estate around the world, including a useful seven acres of Manhattan and a large portion of New York's Fifth Avenue.

Sensibly, Zborowski decided to become a gentleman racing driver and, by his mid-20s, had begun to design and build his own aero-engined cars in the stables at Higham Park. With the help of Clive Gallop (the famous Bentley Boys engineer) he put together a series of cars which he called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the first of which was powered by a 23-litre Maybach engine - and won two Brooklands races on its first competitive outing.

The curse of the cufflinks

Being the dashing aristocrat that he was, Zborowski attracted plenty of attention - including that of James Bond author Ian Fleming, who was inspired by the young count's exploits to write the children's book named after Zborowski's cars.

His enthusiasm went beyond the bounds of marque loyalty and, as well as being a highly important patron of Aston Martin (it was he who insisted on the cars being fitted with Jaeger instruments), Zborowski also drove a Bugatti in the 1923 Indy 500 and a Miller 122 in that year's Monza Grand Prix.

By then known as much for his driving talent as for his money, Zborowski was recruited for the Mercedes works team in 1924 - with which he died back at Monza after hitting a tree. By morbid coincidence, he was wearing the very same cufflinks that had been attributed to the death of his father 21 years earlier.

But at least he went out in style.

Photos: Getty Images

This article is part of the 'Gentleman Drivers' feature series that is presented and supported byEFG Bank.