KEEPING THE SPIRIT ALIVE SINCE 1999
Philip Fotheringham-Parker
22/9/1907 - 15/10/1981
Fotheringham-Parker was a wealthy amateur driver who participated in the 1951 British Grand Prix driving a privately-run Maserati 4CL. He once survived going over the top of the banking at Brooklands in an Alvis Silver Eagle.
Philip Fotheringham-Parker died 39 years ago, he was 74
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Fotheringham-Parker was a wealthy amateur driver, typical of the British privateers at that time. He started racing an Alvis Silver Eagle at Brookland in 1932 however, in the August Senior Mountain Handicap race, he slid wide on the banking in the wet, over-corrected and went over the top. He went down the embankment and came to a halt against the railings which separated the entrance road from the banking. Shaken but uninjured, the car was sold in the following year.Fotheringham-Parker graduated to an ERA and then on to a Maserati 4CL Grand Prix car, however his racing was interupted by the outbreak of World War II.
At the end of the war Fotheringham-Parker, now 38, took the old Maserati out of storage and went racing again, enjoying some success in the immediate post-war era.
In 1949 he finished second in the Wakefield Trophy at The Curragh and in 1951 made his one and only World Championship Grand Prix appearance at the British Grand Prix. He did not figure strongly and retired after a problem with an oil pipe. Later that year, he won a minor Formula One race at Winfield.
Fotheringham-Parker continued in sportscars in the 1950s, sharing an Aston Martin with Tony Gaze in the Goodwood Nine Hours and the Spa 24 Hours in 1953. He also competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race that year, sharing an Allard-Cadillac with Sidney Allard himself, but they retired after completing just four laps. The following year, 1954, he did the Monte Carlo Rally in a Willment Jupiter. It had been built for him to drive in the 1953 Monte Carlo Rally, but it was not finished in time. By then he was 47 and faded from the racing scene.
He retired to Rye in Sussex where he died in 1981 at the age of 74.
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Henry Segrave 1896 - 1930 -
Ian Raby 1921 - 1967 -
Richard Robarts 1944 -
Dino Crescentini 1947 - 2008 -
Randy Lanier 1954
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George Abecassis 1913 - 1991
Abecassis began racing in 1935 and enjoyed some success before WWII driving an Alta. After the war he joined up with John Heath at Hersham and Walton Motors in Surrey. He raced one of their HMW cars in the Swiss Grand Prix at Bremgarten in 1951 and 1952. He won his class at Le Mans with Lance Macklin in 1950. -
Peter Whitehead 1914 - 1958
Peter Whitehead was a wealthy amateur who participated in 11 grands prix. He won Le Mans with Peter Walker in 1951. Peter was killed in 1959 on the Tour de France, when, with his brother Graham driving, their Jaguar crashed off a bridge into a ravine at Lasalle. Graham survived. -
Whitney Straight 1912 - 1979
Air Commodore Whitney Willard Straight CBE, MC, DFC was a Grand Prix motor racing driver, aviator, businessman, and a member of the prominent Whitney family of the United States. -
Paul Emery 1916 - 1992
An innovative and visionary designer and engineer, many of Paul's ideas where decades ahead of their time but lack of resouces meant that they were never properly realised. Drove in the 1956 British Grand Prix. -
Peter Walker 1912 - 1984
A Herefordshire-based gentleman farmer, Walker drove in 3 Grand Prix, notable taking the BRM V16 to 7th in the British Grand Prix in 1951 despite being half roasted in the cockpit. Sadly ended his days an alcoholic derelict on the streets of London.