Jim Russell’s Downham Market workshops helped put Grand Prix on screen

Forget Oxfordshire’s Motorsport Valley. If you want real racing heartland take a look at Norfolk. Obviously there is Snetterton race track with its once distinctive ’scary tree’ and, of course, Hethel, the home of Lotus, just south of Norwich, where Ayrton Senna once lived with Ralph Firman while competing with Van Diemens in Formula Ford. Further west you have King’s Lynn, birthplace of George Russell and home to the Brundle clan. But fewer people perhaps know of the role of the small town of Downham Market in the making of arguably the greatest racing film of all time, John Frankenheimer’s 1966 classic Grand Prix, the diamond anniversary of which we celebrate in this month’s issue.

It was here that Jim Russell’s racing school had its workshops and, as Mark Cole reports, that technicians prepared the single-seaters for the production team, and grappled with the task of making the cockpit big enough for the 6ft 2in frame of Pete Aron, played by Hollywood titan James Garner. As a boy I spent many a grey Saturday afternoon in ‘Downham’ while my mum did the weekly shop at Gateway. If only I had known then of the excitement housed around the corner at the Jim Russell dealership and workshops…

“Few know of the role of Downham Market in the making of Grand Prix“

The story of the film is well known but Cole’s interview with Garner, some years later, sheds some fascinating new light on how the driving sequences came about. In addition we explore why the movie still resonates all these years later and report on a recent gathering at the Circuit de Charade, where the scenes of the French GP were filmed, and where a group of historic racing enthusiasts brought their 1960s grand prix machinery to pay homage to the film.

Elsewhere we have uncovered some truly wonderful and previously unpublished pictures from the golden age of American racing. The story of how they have come to light and the little-known photographer who took them is almost as fascinating as the pictures themselves.

Finally, one of my holiday ‘reads’ this year was the strangely addictive F1 quiz book Think You Know it All? by Motor Sport contributor Adam Cooper. It is packed full of questions, from the easy (After which bird did Dan Gurney name his F1 car?) to the tricky (In which series did Alex Albon’s father Nigel race in 1994?). It got me thinking: would readers like to see some regular brain teasers in future issues? Do let us know!

Joe Dunn, editor
Follow Joe on X @joedunn90