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Stirling Moss dies: Britain's great rival to Fangio completes his final lap

Motor racing great Stirling Moss

It was Easter Monday in 1962 when Stirling Moss almost joined the long list of motor racing stars who reached the end of life's road behind the wheel.

Into St Mary's Bank at Goodwood plunged his Lotus 18 Climax, a great British car of its day, one in which Moss had majestically fended off a Ferrari challenge to win the previous year's Monaco Grand Prix in one of the drives of his life.

A bloodied Moss was pictured moments after his high-speed crash, which came in the Glover Trophy race. The car lay twisted and crumpled; Moss fared little better. Removing him from the wreck was no easy task.

Moss suffered a broken leg, serious head injuries and temporary paralysis down his left side. For a month he was in a coma, every young British boy's hero clinging to life.

That he should have lived until 2020 is remarkable given such context, but Moss was not easily beaten.

Of the 375 races that he completed, Moss won 212 times, but the Goodwood crash took a heavy toll, and despite being well enough to conduct a test drive a year later, he was a fraction short of his peak pace and swiftly retired.

Moss, who died at the age of 90 in the early hours of this Easter Sunday, was one of life's great thrill seekers, described in recent years by Lewis Hamilton as "an absolute legend".

Born in London to parents who both raced as amateur drivers, Moss was a four-time runner-up in the championship that Hamilton has won six times, coming second to the supreme South American Juan Manuel Fangio each year from 1955 to 1957.

Just as Moss was hero-worshipped by his British fans, so he adored Fangio, whom he partnered for Mercedes-Benz in the 1955 season, later telling MotorSport magazine: "I would have done anything for Fangio. I had that much respect for the man. For me, it was the same sort of respect I had for my father, actually. I loved the man, in a different way from my father, but yes, I loved the man."

Moss was reconciled to being a de facto number two driver to the Argentinian, partly because he knew he had the beating of Fangio in sports cars, if not in Formula One.

If the Moss legacy had been confined to Formula One, it would be substantial enough. But there was more to his stellar career, which began with racing - and naturally winning with - Cooper cars in 1948. He drove many evocative marques and models of the day - Frazer Nash, Sunbeam Talbot, the Jaguar C-Type - before moving on to Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Aston Martin, Porsche, Lotus. The premier league.

His victory in the 1955 Mille Miglia - the 992-mile road race that began and finished in Brescia, visiting Rome along its route - is regarded as one of Moss' finest successes, he and navigator Denis Jenkinson finishing over half an hour clear of second-placed Fangio. Their average speed over 10 hours of foot-to-the-floor racing was a staggering 97.96mph.

That came in a Mercedes-Benz, and in the same year Moss beat Fangio at Aintree to take the British Grand Prix. Fangio denied he had gifted his team-mate that moment of home glory.

Instinctively a patriot, Moss was in his mid-70s when he told MotorSport: "I loved to drive English cars, because you felt like a green gladiator fighting the red lions."

Later in life, he would dart around London by scooter, rushing to undertake repair jobs at homes in his property portfolio, and in his twilight years Moss would switch from two wheels to three.

That led to a run-in in 2005 with Transport for London, Moss irate to be told to cough up the central London congestion charge for travelling on his three-wheeler scooter. He even took up his case with Ken Livingstone, the then Mayor of London.

Moss would return to motor sport after his Goodwood crash, taking part in the British Saloon Car Championship in the early 1980s and often featuring in historic racing events, retiring for the final time in 2011 at Le Mans. He was 81 when he hung up his famous white helmet.

Such passion for cars also led Moss to the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, often being seen at the wheel of other people's historic vehicles.

By the late 1980s, Moss decided to buy a Victorian car of his own, eligible for the event.

His purchase came at a Sotheby's sale at the Honourable Artillery Company - Moss acquiring a primitive non-running machine with chain link steering and brakes that were more imaginary than real.

He phoned his wife, Susie, who arrived in London rush-hour traffic with a Volkswagen Golf and a bungee rope to tow him across London in pouring rain to his Mayfair home.

Recalling the incident many years later, Moss described it as "one of the most terrifying drives of my life".

That Mayfair home was said to contain futuristic technology, with Moss typically ahead of the curve.

In his 1957 book, ‘In the Track of Speed’, Moss predicted how Formula One would come to outgrow its then elementary state.

He wrote: "The use of inter-com telephony and radar is no longer a matter of conjecture, but can already be practicably and practically applied to motor racing.

"It won't be long before we have constant contact with the pits. Maybe - horrible thought, we shall have driverless racing cars just as we have pilotless planes."

Moss was taken ill in December 2016, while in Singapore, and spent over four months in hospital. He soon retired from public life.

His wife, who became Lady Moss upon Stirling's knighthood in the 2000 New Year Honours, spoke of his death on Sunday, saying he had completed "one lap too many".

He is survived by Lady Moss, who was his third wife, and his children, son Elliot and daughter Allison.

The Moss reputation will live on though, his name forever associated with the lust for speed.

"Who do you think you are - Stirling Moss?"

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