Driver Heroes: Vic Elford

One of the great all-rounders, ‘Quick Vic’ could race the wheels off anything, from sports cars to rally and grand prix machines

It seems somewhat bizarre that Vic Elford got started in motor sport never actually intending to be a driver. But, what started out from the navigator’s seat of a rally car soon blossomed into a successful career on the stages, with Elford really hitting his stride in 1967 when he lifted the European Rally Championship in a works Porsche 911.

A year later and he won the Monte Carlo Rally, just days before going on to win the Daytona 24 Hours in a works Stuttgart car, scoring Porsche’s first-ever outright 24-hour race victory. A few months later and he’d won the Targa Florio, and finished fourth on his Formula 1 debut in a drenched French Grand Prix. If there was ever a year that showed Elford’s incredible adaptability this was it. Two Le Mans class wins came his way, but the outright glory somehow eluded him. Not that it mattered too much. He’d won almost everything else…

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