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  • John Surtees RIP

    Just been announced on the BBC News that John Surtees has died. He did not get his knighthood after all. He was 83

  • #2
    Lovely man, he was as respected in the 4 wheel world as he was in the 2. Anyone who has met him will tell you that he was as down to earth and chatty as anyone could be. He leaves an enormous legacy within the Sports as well as in his own life, RIP John.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by John Wakefield View Post
      Just been announced on the BBC News that John Surtees has died. He did not get his knighthood after all. He was 83
      Very sad.I listened to him give an interview at Stafford not long ago and he had a pin sharp recollection of his racing days.He had started a charity in memory of his son who was killed racing.

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      • #4
        A true Gentleman, always had time for the fans. Both he and Geoff Duke were respected ambassadors of the sport and I never saw either scruffily dressed or use bad language in public unlike some modern riders. RIP John.
        Dogsbody

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        • #5
          My neighbor who has helped me out quite a lot in the past, was both Geoff Dukes and John Surtees mechanic , in the Factory in Bracbridge Street , before moving on to Lotus cars, he had lost contact as he is a shy character, but i managed to get hold of John and reunited them at Goodwood some 10 years ago , and after that Ted Jeffs spent a lot of time at Johns House in Sussex helping with rebuilding some of his collection, he always said what a Gentleman he was ,and after being around the G P paddocks knew only to well who were the genuine nice guys.
          Sad days , but never forgotten

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          • #6
            Whilst never recognised by his country, he was by all who knew him, which hopefully was more important to him. A modest man who nonetheless had what it took to beat everyone in the world on 2 & 4 wheels. He will be missed. R.I.P.

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            • #7
              John Surtees a sad loss to motor sport I know it happens to us all but he was definitely a unique man & a true gentleman who will be sorely missed. What a shame he wasn't recognised because if anyone deserved it he did. RIP

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              • #8
                John Surtees; a great but unassuming man and a hero to us all. RIP.

                Here's a couple of John Surtees pictures with a Greeves connection. The first is John with Bill Brooker on the day in 1965 that he collected the 24TFS which the factory lent to him.

                The second shows John with Dick Faggetter and Mike Eady in 2014 on the GRA stand at the Stafford Show where he was guest of honour. I took the second picture and it was a great pleasure to meet him.
                Attached Files
                Last edited by Colin Sparrow; 14/03/2017, 09:23 AM.
                Colin Sparrow

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                • #9
                  I had the privilege of crossing paths with John Surtees once. It was in the mid 80s during a Classic Club meeting at Brands and he turned up to join the fun with a Manx. We had the good fortune to be parked next to him in the paddock. It was one of those typical Brands days, peeing with rain throughout the morning and practice and clearing up at lunchtime. My abiding memory is of him riding round the filthy mess of the paddock in the pouring rain for ten minutes and arriving back at his transporter without a spot of dirt on his immaculate cream slacks and light jacket. We weren’t quite so smartly turned out. But it didn’t matter to him that we were are couple of oiks with a less than sparkling Norton on a trailer behind a beat up Cavalier, when he saw us struggling to fix some problem with the bike he kindly offered the use of his awning so that we could work in the dry. If I remember rightly, his life insurance woudn’t allow him to race so he was limited to doing demonstration laps and later in the afternoon when I watched him circulating, he looked to be taking things very easy. I had the clock on him and he was doing sub 55 second laps, lap after lap after lap. Most blokes in those days would be riding at their hairiest to match his times.

                  I read his autobiography a few years ago, you have to read between the lines a bit, he was a guy who never really complained, but had far more than his fair share of bad luck. It’s a mark of the man that by all accounts he remained such a gent.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Colin Sparrow View Post
                    John Surtees; a great but unassuming man and a hero to us all. RIP.

                    Here's a couple of John Surtees pictures with a Greeves connection. The first is John with Bill Brooker on the day in 1965 that he collected the 24TFS which the factory lent to him. The bike still exists.

                    The second shows John with Dick Faggetter and Mike Eady in 2014 on the GRA stand at the Stafford Show where he was guest of honour. I took the second picture and it was a great pleasure to meet him.
                    Another pic of John on the TFS, same pic is in the C&W Greeves book. Reg of TFS is HPU124B but that bike is not shown to survive on DVLA So was there another Colin?
                    Following history on John from the Ebay auction of the pic where it was being sold for $9.75 by a Dutchman

                    A superb and rare photo of the magnificent John Surtees on an equally magnificent 246cc Greeves 24 TFS trial machine. The negative dates from the 1965. Surtees’ Greeves 24TFS carries the English license plate number HPU 124 B, the photo shows great detail of this wonderful trial machine.

                    Born in Tatsfield, Surrey, John Surtees was the son of a south London motorcycle dealer. He had his first professional outing in the sidecar of his father's Vincent, which they won. However, when race officials discovered Surtees' age, they were disqualified. He entered his first race at 15 in a grass track competition. In 1950, when he was 16, he joined Vincent as an apprentice; whilst with them he bought his first car, a Jowett Jupiter. He made his first headlines in 1951 when he gave Norton star Geoff Duke a strong challenge in an ACU race at the Thruxton Circuit. In 1955, Norton race chief Joe Craig gave Surtees his first factory sponsored ride aboard the Nortons. He finished the year by beating reigning world champion Duke at Silverstone and then at Brands Hatch. With Norton in financial trouble and uncertain about their racing plans, Surtees accepted an offer to race MV Agustas. In 1956 Surtees would win the 500cc world championship. In this he was assisted by the FIM's decision to ban Geoff Duke for 6 months because of his support for a rider's strike over more start money. In the 1957 season, the MV Agustas were no match for the Gileras and Surtees battled to a third place finish. When Gilera and Moto Guzzi pulled out of Grand Prix racing at the end of 1957, Surtees and MV Agusta went on to dominate the competition in the two big classes. In 1958, 1959 and 1960, he would win 32 out of 39 races and became the first man to win the Senior Isle of Man TT three years in succession. At age 26, Surtees switched from motorcycles to cars, full time in 1960 making his Formula 1 debut racing for Lotus in the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo. He made an immediate impact with a second place finish in only his second Formula One race at the 1960 British Grand Prix and a pole position at his third race in the 1960 Portuguese Grand Prix. After spending the 1961 season with the Cooper racing team and the 1962 season with the Lola team, he moved to Ferrari in 1963 and won the world championship for the Italian team in 1964. Surtees parted company with Ferrari during the 1966 season after winning the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix, citing excessive pressure as a factor, leaving Jack Brabham to take the Drivers' Championship. In 1967, he joined Honda's Formula 1 team. He stayed with the Japanese team for 1968 before switching to BRM. In 1970, he formed his own race team, Surtees Racing Organisation and spent nine seasons competing in Formula 5000, Formula 2 and Formula 1 as a constructor. He retired from competition in 1972, the same year the team had their greatest success when Mike Hailwood won the European Formula 2 championship. The team was finally disbanded at the end of 1978
                    Attached Files
                    Last edited by John Wakefield; 11/03/2017, 06:57 PM.

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                    • #11
                      Could anyone explain to me why this magnificent gentleman was never given a knighthood

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                      • #12
                        John Surtees, Rest in Peace!

                        One of the greatest.................starider

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                        • #13
                          John Surtees was an honoured guest at the 1994 Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix held at Eastern Creek, NSW.
                          He brought an 500 MV Augusta with him to "demonstrate".

                          I was the Clerk of Course of this event, and had a number of opportunities to chat with John over the weekend.

                          His "demonstrations" were quite quick, and his best time could have put him on the fourth row of the grid for the 1994 GP.

                          He was a true gentleman, and a passionate motorcyclist, and will sadly be missed.

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                          • #14
                            John Surtees 24TFS182 HPU124B has surfaced, its been owned by Russell Burns of Buckhurst Hill, London since 1989 when Russell bought it from a Bethnall Green scrap dealer for ?197. It has not been run for some years and now needs recommissioning. Russell has no V5c or paperwork but as HPU is an Essex mark the Essex Records Office at Chelmsford will almost certainly have a record which should include the frame number. I have directed him there and also to Colin to get reg recovered. Pic shows the bike as it is now, a few mods over the years but Russell hopes to get it back to how it looked when John Surtees had it.
                            Attached Files
                            Last edited by John Wakefield; 26/09/2022, 09:49 PM.

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