Henry Taylor

16/12/1932 - 24/10/2013

Record updated 23-Jan-22

A farmer, Taylor entered club racing in 1954 with a Cooper-Vincent, taking the Autosport championship the following year. He added to his experience racing a Jaguar D-Type, taking third in the 1957 Belgian sports car GP, but it was 1958 before he began to make his mark in single-seaters, winning the GP de Paris in a Cooper. He continued to make good progress in Formula 2, taking a superb second place at the 1959 Auvergne Trophy, ahead of McLaren's works car, and second in class at the British GP at Aintree.

For 1960 Taylor signed to race Ken Tyrrell's Cooper-Austin in Formula Junior, winning the prestigious Monaco race, and made his debut in the Yeoman Credit Cooper, scoring a morale-boosting fourth place at Reims for a team still reeling from Bristow's fatal accident at Spa. He continued under the UDT Laystall banner in 1961, racing the team's Lotus 18/21 F1 car as well as a Lotus 19 in sports car events. Taylor gained a few minor placings outside Grands Prix, until a nasty crash in the British GP left him injured and trapped in his car. He recovered to compete again at the ill-fated Monza race when, perhaps with the tragic events of the day in mind, he decided to retire from circuit racing to concentrate on farming.

Taylor was soon back in action, rallying for Ford, and became the first man to compete in the Cortina. He later returned to the tracks occasionally in 1963 and 1964, when he finished second at both Zolder and Brands Hatch and third at the Nurburgring in Alan Mann's Lotus-Cortina. After finally retiring in 1966, he became competitions manager at Ford.

(c) 'Who is Who' by Steve Small, 2000