Kings of Cool: Graham Hill

(NIGE) Now there are some who believe the quest to find the coolest driver ever begins, and ends with one James Hunt. This simply isn’t true!

Yes so Hunt the Shunt was a legend and rightfully so. The man who boasted that sex was the breakfast of champions is everybody’s idea of the playboy racing driver.

So why is he not the automatic winner I hear you cry?

The answer is simply that James Hunt was a budgie fancier, which surely is right up there with train spotting in the list of things that arn't cool!

No, there is no way James Bond would have retired home to attend to his feathered friends. Bond is the epitome of cool and in my eyes at least, there has only ever been one Grand Prix driver who could have played the part of Britain’s greatest secret agent.

Firstly Graham Hill was a racer when racing itself was cool. There is no era in History more magical than the sixties, when technology was advancing so quickly that soon man would walk on the moon. And right up there with Concorde at the forefront of engineering development were the Grand Prix Teams.

In that decade we went from front engined cars recognisable to the pre-war racers, to rear engined, slick tyre, aerodynamically tuned cars recognisable today.

With his smooth persona and easy charm Graham Hill was almost a symbol of the decade, the decade were Europe went to Indy and beat the Americans at there own game. Right there at the moment Monte-Carlo was at the height of it’s glitz and it’s glamour, Graham Hill won it 5-times!

He would go on in the seventies to partner Henri Pescarolo to victory at the 24 Heures du Mans, becoming the only person in history to achieve Motorsports “Grand Slam”, and he did it all whilst sporting the finest moustache the world has ever known.

Ok so he stayed on beyond his best, but he did so because he loved what he did. He had a passion for the sport which in today’s financially driven world doesn’t seem to exist. You couldn’t imagine Michael Schumacher paying to drive for Midland just so he could stay behind the wheel!

He is an Icon, an image of an age where racing was as glamorous as it was dangerous. He is from an age where teams raced for the honour of their nations, and Sponsorship was shown by the small Dunlop badge on your pocket.

In 1966 the world was cool, racing was cool, and the coolest of them all was Graham Hill.