Formula 1 team patron, automotive archaeologist, and bon viveur Colin Crabbe died on March 07. He was 82. The former Scots Guards officer lived a life many of us can only dream of, and was a born story-teller (some of his yarns were even true). One minute he would be regaling you with tales of the time he taught Prince Michael of Kent how to double de-clutch properly while driving a 1920 Vauxhall 30/98 across Russia, the next he would be explaining how he gave an unknown Swede his big break in Grand Prix racing (that would be Ronnie Peterson).
Crabbe was indoctrinated at an early age by his father Archie who had raced at Brooklands. Defiantly self-directed, young Colin inevitably found himself butting heads with authority, but he found an unlikely ally while at Ampleforth College. He recalled in 2015: “I had cars and a motorcycle while I was there, which was against the rules. The school was run by Benedictine Monks and the day I left, I remember my housemaster, Father Walter, saying: “Goodbye Colin. Don’t forget to take your Austin.” He had twigged years before but hadn’t let on. He didn’t know about my Talbot, though…”
His spell in the forces was undone due to his choice of daily transport – a highly-tuned Volvo which was pillar-box red, just like the Amazon that belonged to the colonel of his regiment. As such, Crabbe was forever being saluted which tickled him no end. Inevitably, he came a cropper and was told to change the colour of his car. He refused, and instead joined Civvy Street in 1964. A year later, the 23-year-old was racing the ex-Stan Jones Maserati 250F. He acquired the Aston Martin DP214 shortly thereafter. He then made the leap to international motor sport via a Ford GT40 on which he went halves with Brian Nelson.
The duo campaigned the car extensively, but matters rather came to a head after Crabbe demolished the car at Brands Hatch during practice for the 1967 BOAC 500 race. He decided that he would stick to historics in future, only to purchase a contemporary Formula 1 car 1969. “I spotted an advertisement in Autosport for a two-year-old Cooper T81B, complete with three Maserati V12 engines. “It was £3000 all in,” he said. “The Maserati connection swung it for me as it’s a marque I have always adored: aside from the 250F, I also had an 8CM, a 300S; all sorts.”
There was, however, an ‘issue’ that forestalled his bid for Grand Prix immortality. Squeezing his 6ft 5in frame into the GT40 had been a chore, but his generous girth ensured that he only ever sat in the Cooper once. Neil Corner drove the car to sixth place in the non-points Spanish Grand Prix but Vic Elford replaced him in rounds of the World Championship in 1969, the Cooper being replaced by the unique McLaren M7B before the season was over. Elford scored points at Clemont-Ferrand and at Silverstone, only to be punted out of the German Grand Prix by Mario Andretti which destroyed the car and seriously injured its driver. Crabbe returned to F1 a year later running Peterson in a March 701 before calling it quits.
Crabbe concentrated on his day job for the rest of the 1970s and the ’80s, ferreting extraordinary cars out of improbable locations. He said: “It all started after my accountant, of all people, showed me a photo of a 250F with palm trees in the background. That got me to thinking: a lot of cars had gone out to Australia or New Zealand to race during the winter, but they were known quantities. An awful lot more went to Brazil, Argentina or wherever once their careers ended in Europe but they never came out again. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me that I should have a nose about and Brazil became my main hunting ground.
Crabbe’s life almost came to an end at Oulton Park in July 1988 when his ex-Duncan Hamilton Talbot-Lago was sideswiped by an errant ERA. It took the marshals 45 minutes just to remove the stricken pilot, but he was want to say of his injuries: ‘It made for one hell of a write up in The Lancet”. Crabbe was a character from a time when the word wasn’t a euphemism, and a born wheeler-dealer. He had been unwell for some time, but not one to dwell on the bad times. We will miss his tales that were delivered with a rich mahogany inflection. That, a hearty laugh.
