Chris Lawrence

Legendary Morgan racer Chris Lawrence died in August, aged 78.

The link with Malvern began in 1952 when his mother bought him a three-wheeler. He began hillclimbing this but found greater fame on purchasing a second-hand Morgan Plus 4.

“I bought TOK258 for £650 and then together with Leslie Fagg and Len Bridge set about preparing it for the Freddie Dixon Trophy,” he said in 2007. “My first race with it was on my birthday, July 27 1958. I inished last.” He won the title the following season. His status as the leading Morgan racer of his day was bolstered after he and team-mate Richard Sheppard-Baron claimed 2-litre class honours in the 1962 Le Mans 24 Hours aboard ‘TOK’. Lawrence joined the GP circus in 1966 with John Pearce’s Cooper-Ferrari squad, scoring a high point of ifth in the Oulton Park Gold Cup. However, he is best remembered for engineering the ill-starred Monica super-saloon and the Marcos LM600 Le Mans car (he had driven a Mini Marcos in the ’67 24 Hours) before devising the Morgan Aero 8’s award-winning platform.