With great regret we have to inform Members of the death of Life Member Colin Crabbe last Friday 7 March at the age of 82 after a period of declining health. First elected as a Full Member in 1967 on the back of his achievements racing a Ford GT40 in South African, British and European sports car events, Colin also ventured into the world of Formula 1 for a couple of years as a team owner. He became well known in historic racing for his exploits in a Maserati 250F, Mercedes-Benz W125 and an Auto Union D-type to mention just three of the many important racing cars which passed through his hands.
Colin’s first race came at Mallory Park in a rally-prepared Volvo 122S in 1957 but, on a visit to Australia, a Maserati 250F caught his eye and he bought it for the princely sum of £1300 from its financially struggling owner Stan Jones, father of future Formula 1 World Champion Alan. The Vintage Sports-Car Club having just admitted to its events Grand Prix cars of the 250F’s era, Colin was able to use his Maserati with some success. At the same time, he was building a reputation as one of the leading dealers in historic racing machinery. Two very different but important cars which passed through Colin’s hands at this time, and which he also raced with success, were an ex-Tazio Nuvolari Maserati 8CM and the sole surviving Aston Martin DB4GT DP214.
The Aston led the way into contemporary sports car racing, Colin buying a half share in Edward Nelson’s Ford GT40 P/1021 for the princely sum of £1750 for the South African Springbok Series. Fourth at Killarney and fifth at Lourenco Marques were the best results for Colin and Ed and, at the end of the Springbok season Colin bought Ed’s share in the car to enable him to race it the 1967 RAC British Sports Car Championship with a best result of fifth in the race supporting the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The season ended a little prematurely when Colin crashed heavily at Hawthorn’s on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit when the nearside rear wheel fell off. Colin was unscathed but the GT40 took a long time to repair.
The GT40 episode was not the end of Colin’s involvement with contemporary machinery since his next acquisitions were a couple of BRM P83 H16 tubs which, fitted with one of the GT40’s engines, seemed to hold promise for the newly-introduced Formula 5000. After an unsatisfactory outing at Dublin’s Phoenix Park, Colin sold the BRM project but was tempted by one of the last Formula 1 Coopers, a T86B now fitted with a Maserati V12 in place of the BRM V12 for which it was originally intended in succession to a Cosworth DFV. Colin himself was unable to fit in the car so invited his good friend Neil Corner to drive it in a non-championship F1 and F5000 race at the opening of the Jarama circuit. Fourth place and with it some good prize money were the immediate reward followed a couple of weeks later by an invitation to compete in the Monaco Grand Prix. Vic Elford, one of the outstanding and most versatile British drivers of the day agreed to drive the Cooper-Maserati and finished seventh, just outside the points in those days. The McLaren M7B with Cosworth DFV engine replaced the Cooper and provided Colin, Vic and the small Antique Automobiles team with points finishes, taking fifth in the French Grand Prix at Clermont-Ferrand and sixth in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Sadly, the season ended prematurely at the German Grand Prix when Vic had no chance of avoiding Mario Andretti’s accident directly in front of him. Vic sustained a shoulder injury which precluded him from racing a single-seater ever again.
Max Mosley offered Colin a deal to run a new March 701 for their young superstar Ronnie Peterson in 1970 after Jo Siffert had been signed up to join Chris Amon as the two main March F1 drivers. Ronnie’s best result brought the Antique Automobiles Racing Team its second successive seventh place at Monaco but, apart from a couple of ninth places, that was as good as emerged from a season beset by reliability problems. That said, it had done no harm to Ronnie’s reputation for he became March’s lead driver in 1971 and finished second in the Drivers’ World Championship to Jackie Stewart.
After the challenges of Formula 1, Colin devoted much of his time to the discovery, restoration and racing of historic cars. Thanks to the contacts he built up, he had a particular talent for finding rare cars in the most unlikely places be they D-type Jaguars in Cuba, Alfa Romeos in Argentina, Ferraris in Brazil and Uruguay, and most significantly of all two of the pre war ‘Silver Arrows’, a 1937 Mercedes-Benz W125 in the German Democratic Republic aka East Germany and a 1938 D-type Auto Union in Czechoslovakia as these latter two Eastern bloc countries were then known. With the Mercedes in particular Colin enjoyed substantial success, revelling in its 500+ bhp and twice winning the VSCC Richard Seaman Trophy at Oulton Park.
It was also at Oulton Park’s Old Hall corner that Colin suffered serious injuries when involved in a multiple accident in no way of his making when an ERA driver lost control directly ahead of Colin’s Talbot-Lago T25C. It took some 40 minutes to extricate Colin from his mangled car, his injuries including multiple rib fractures and loss of the sciatic nerve to his right foot. After six weeks in an induced coma and several months of physiotherapy, Colin made a good recovery but never raced again.
In 2016 Dalton Watson published Colin’s sumptuous 448-page autobiography entitled Thrill of the Chase in which he quotes with approval the following words by Ted Simon in his seminal book The Chequered Year about the 1970 Formula 1 season:
‘March was determined to find [Ronnie Peterson] a sponsor, and at last an angel was forthcoming in the unlikely shape of Colin Crabbe. Crabbe resembles rather more an overgrown cupid than an angel, a huge man with a jolly face and twinkling eyes whose apparent innocence is belied by the very successful business he has established dealing in veteran (sic) cars in the North of England.’
Colin’s knowledge of historic cars was legendary and enabled him to uncover, for himself, his friends, clients and posterity some of the most important cars ever made which otherwise might have been allowed to rot away in a far flung corner of a South American jungle. Invariably good company, Colin was very much a ‘one off’ whose presence in the paddock has been much missed recently. He was very proud of his BRDC Membership, invariably wearing the BRDC badge prominently.
To his son Alastair and daughter Lucinda and their families the BRDC tenders its most sincere condolences. F unreal details will be notified when available.
