AssonPublishing UK  -   My status

HISTORIC RACING CAR BOOKS-CYRIL KIEFT-WOLVERHAMPTON AND BRIDGEND

FOREWORD BY CYRIL KIEFT

The Definitive History of Cyril Kieft
and his Racing Cars 1949-1955
(The Authorised Biography)
by
Des Hammill & Brian V. M. Jenkins
Foreword
My first recollection of an interest in racing cars was at quite a young age when I found a booklet about Brooklands, which my father had in his study. He had gone to the very first race meeting at Brooklands in 1907 and had bought the booklet detailing the construction of the circuit, the speed of its completion and what was going to be achieved there. I frequently went to his desk to get this booklet and look at it. I ended up giving this book to the Brooklands Society in the early 1990s for their museum. They had a copy, which was in poor condition while my father’s copy was in near perfect condition. It is now on display in the museum for all to see.
    I followed the Bentley Boys in the 1920s and was very interested in their exploits. Before the Second World War I followed Le Mans and international racing and went to Donington Park from 1935 to 1939 to watch the Auto Union and Mercedes racing cars. The English Racing Automobiles (ERAs) of Raymond Mays, Earl Howe and Peter Walker were the only British contenders in those days that showed any promise and they were always tail-enders. This was very disappointing, as I would like to have seen a British car and driver winning the race.
    By starting motoring racing in 1949 at the age of 38 I was simply satisfying a youthful ambition. There was no racing during the war and immediately afterwards I was extremely busy expanding my business interests in post-war Britain. I probably would have gone motor racing and driven cars myself about ten years earlier if it had not been for the war but by 1949 I was financially secure and prepared to set aside some time to go racing.
    My intention was to buy racing cars, drive them myself and employ full time mechanics. I would turn up at the race meetings, drive the racing car and at the end of the day get in my road car and drive home. I only had a limited amount of time available as my business interests were very wide ranging and took up most of my time. I have always been a racing enthusiast, the opportunity to be involved was now and I took that chance. If I gained some enjoyment out of it all I would be very happy.  Formula III was the cheapest form of motor sport at the time and I thought it the best place for me to start. Everything that happened led on from there. My career as a racing driver was very short lived because my wife, Megan, objected so I turned my attention to designing and building racing cars for a hobby. For the most part my involvement in motor racing between 1949 and 1954 was most enjoyable although I did start to lose interest with the shock loss of the two central-seater sports cars and the transporter in a road accident, in Spain. With the non-delivery of the Coventry Climax Formula One Godiva V8 engines in 1954, I was fed up. Motor racing was my hobby and I could not see much point in continuing it if I wasn’t enjoying it all so I stopped. I had no further interest in racing cars for about fifteen years and any racing information I gathered was from general news items on the radio or television.
 During that period, I turned my attention to boating and in 1961 bought my second large boat, a fifty-four foot Dutch-built motor yacht. In summer each weekend, my wife and I and our family travelled down from Wolverhampton to Poole in Dorset to sail on her. I passed all the necessary exams to sail more or less anywhere I wanted to go and thoroughly enjoyed it all. In the late 1960s we went to France on holiday, we berthed at Rouen on the Seine and it was there that my interest in Formula One motor racing was rekindled. Richard Attwood who I knew very well, as he used to live over the road from me in Ash Hill, Wolverhampton when he was a boy, came to see me on board the yacht. He was accompanied by Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme. We had a few drinks and they invited me to go to the French Grand Prix, held at Les Essarts circuit, near Rouen the next day. Richard Attwood was a BRM Team Driver at the time. I went along and had great fun although not enough to consider getting involved again. It was the first time that I had thought about racing cars in a very long time and I started to follow Formula One again. With the advent of live television coverage, I have seldom missed a race.
     Over the past fifty years about thirty people have contacted me regarding my cars. However, it was Giovani Villa Allegri who rekindled my interest in the cars I made, in 1989, when he sent me a magnificent book on the 1989 Mille Miglia. He has sent many of them since then and I treasure them all. We keep in touch. He has one of my central-seaters powered by an MG engine and from the photographs he has sent me it looks to be in excellent condition. My most outstanding memory of a race involving my cars was of Don Parker winning the 20-lap Daily Telegraph International Trophy race on 8 August 1952. Stirling Moss had the fastest lap and then he got a signal from his pit crew telling him that Don had just done the fastest lap. Stirling Moss then attempted to go faster and blew his engine. He lost the £100 for the fastest lap and the race. Don won the final race receiving the prize money for the fastest lap and the win. What brilliant racing it was?
 When Brian Jenkins came to see me in Wolverhampton, in 2002, he very kindly gave me a framed print of a painting he’d had done from an original photograph. This photo showed Don Parker and Stirling Moss coming over the hill at Brands Hatch during the 10-lap sprint race of the day with Don narrowly in front of Stirling Moss. Don went on to win. Brian could not have known that this photograph was of my favourite racing moment captured on film and I was touched by his gesture.
    One of the nicest days of my life was at The Boulogne and Hawthorn Trophies Meeting on 21 September 2002 at Silverstone, England. The races were organised by the VSCC (Vintage Sports Car Club). I saw the Kieft Formula One run for the first time on a track with the two and a half litre Coventry Climax FPE engine fitted to it. On this day the car looked magnificent just as I imagined it would all those years ago. Bill Morris and Greg Snape made me their guest of honour and I even sat in the Formula One car. Their kindness was something I really appreciated and I was very glad that I had delayed my return to Spain so that I could attend this meeting.
    Retracing the events of those years, while being interviewed by Des Hammill, has allowed me to relive them and reflect on what transpired. I have had to think long and hard about what happened during those years but what follows is as true an account as can be pieced together after all this time.

Cyril Kieft
September 2003

website © Alison Orchard 
August 2003 - updated November 2008