"A Turn at the Wheel"

by Stirling Moss. 239 pp. 8-3/4 in. x 5-5/8 in. (William Kimber & Co. Ltd., 46, Wilton Place, London, S.W.1. 25s.)

In “A Turn at the Wheel” Stirling Moss carries his personal account of motor racing on over the years 1957-60, those eventful years when he won the British Grand Prix for Vanwall, lost the 1958 World Championship to Hawthorn by a mere point, when he parted from his wife and lost his driving licence.

Naturally it is intensely interesting to have “Mr. Motor Racing’s” own account of these eventful seasons and the only possible criticism is that Moss has not told us nearly enough!

He has had to pack into a normal size book a great many races so that it reads rather like a condensed reprint of four years of the motor journals’ race reports with Stirling’s comments added – very interesting comment, sometimes revealing a few technical “plums” for readers avid for the fruits of inner knowledge, but in general brief, compact, to the point, without being very revealing, Moss writing as he speaks.

The pictures are adequate without being particularly complementary to the text. I like this book, but would have liked it even better had it been twice the length, with lots more about the cars and the whys and wherefores technically of why Moss finished where he did in this four-season race-by-race chronology.

I am amused that he remernbers and includes my criticism of the excess publicity he obtains, particularly the overplay of Moss after his accident at Spa. I am relieved that apparently we shall remain good friends, for Stirling’s only comment is that he would himself prefer less publicity.

What, no index! – W. B.