Special Feature

Stirling Speaks – Great Racecars

Sir Stirling Moss tries to unravel the elusive qualities that make a racecar great.

Sir Stirling Moss
In the case of front-engine sports cars, Moss considers the Maserati ÒBirdcageÓ and the Aston Martin DBR1/2 (Above) two of the very best, due to their incredible handling qualities. Photo: Larry Gallo

I always think I have to be cautious when I talk about “great cars” or “my best cars,” because the cars in which I did well were not always the best or the easiest to drive, and some of those which were difficult to drive produced some of the best results.

There are some pretty obvious choices for my list of cars that were important to me. The Grand Prix cars include the Maserati 250F, the BRM P25, the Lotus 18, the Vanwall and the Mercedes Benz 196. Many people think the Mercedes might have been one of my “greatest,” but it was not an easy car to drive at all. It felt large and cumbersome, and though the engine was powerful and had lots of torque, I found the gear-change extremely demanding due to its being “back to front,” and it was a real handful in the wet. Of course, it provided me with the chance to be in a very competitive team and race alongside the great Fangio.

Main Topic Hubs

Join The Community

Become A Member

 

Members only$29 / year

Keep going. This is where it gets good.

Supercars.net Membership is for people who'd rather know the spec sheet by heart than skim ten headlines. The rest of this story — and every other one like it — is a few seconds away.

  • Thousands of members-only stories

    Deep dives, driven reviews and the full archive back to 2005.

  • No ads. None.

    The whole site reads like a magazine, on every device.

  • Every car, every spec

    Twenty years of models, numbers and history in one place.

  • 30% off the shop

    Every Supercars.net shirt and piece of merch, all year.

Join Supercars.net — Keep Reading

$29 a year. Cancel anytime, no hoops.
Already a member? Sign in

BY CAR PEOPLE, NOT A NAMELESS MEDIA COMPANY. Your membership keeps a small independent team that celebrates the brands and cars that defined this industry doing this.

Join — Keep Reading $29/yr