During the late 1940s, patriotic racing driver Raymond Mays hatched an ambitious plan to harness the power of the British automotive industry and create a new Formula 1 car with which to break the domination of teams from continental Europe. Having founded ERA before the Second World War, Mays introduced for this latest project another set of initials that would pass into motor racing folklore: BRM – British Racing Motors.
The first BRM was the spectacular V16-engined P15, which was full of technical innovation but had a troubled birth and was rendered obsolete at the very highest level due to a change in World Championship regulations for 1952. The dream that Raymond Mays had was in danger of being lost, until Alfred Owen – head of the Rubery Owen business empire – stepped in to save the team.
Slowly but surely, BRM’s fortunes started to turn around, and in 1959 Jo Bonnier scored its first World Championship Grand Prix victory at Zandvoort. The team’s crowning glory came in 1962, when Graham Hill became the first British driver to win the World Championship in a British car. That famous success helped to lay the foundations for the UK’s multi-billion-pound motorsport industry.
Written in partnership with the Owen family by respected author Ian Wagstaff and renowned BRM authority Doug Nye, this new book from Porter Press International tells the full story of the team, from the difficult early days with the V16 to the glory years of the 1960s, its Le Mans adventure with the gas turbine Rover-BRM, and its V12 finale in the 1970s.
Along the way, BRM won 17 World Championship Grands Prix, ran great drivers such as Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio, Tony Brooks, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda, and built some of the most memorable racing cars of all time at its base in the quiet Lincolnshire town of Bourne.
Featuring more than 400 images – including a wealth of previously unseen material from the official BRM archive – it’s a celebration of a group of remarkable people and a team that competed at the top level of motorsport for a quarter of a century, a name that continues to resonate with motor racing enthusiasts all over the world – British Racing Motors.
BRM: Racing for Britain – Edition details
Limited Edition ISBN 978-1-913089-23-8 £120
First 300 copies (of 1500) signed by Ian Wagstaff
Collector’s Edition ISBN 978-1-913089-46-7 £700
Signed by Nick Owen, Simon Owen and Paul Owen. Limited to 100 copies. Presented in a slipcase with the BRM badge inlaid on a leather cover.
Jackie Stewart Edition ISBN 978-1-913089-55-9 £945
Signed by Sir Jackie Stewart. Limited to 100 copies. Presented in a slipcase with the BRM badge inlaid on a leather cover, plus a tartan strip.
Graham Hill Edition ISBN 978-1-913089-56-6 £850
Signed by Damon Hill. Limited to 50 copies. Presented in a slipcase with the BRM badge inlaid on a leather cover, plus a Graham Hill helmet motif.
Unique Edition ISBN 978-1-913089-57-3 £2,500
Signed by Paul Owen, Nick Owen, Simon Owen, David Owen and John Owen. Limited to 17 copies – one for each of BRM’s World Championship Grand Prix victories. Presented in a leather slipcase that will also house an engine conrod and a technical drawing relating to a specific BRM victory.
BRM: Racing for Britain – The Authors
Ian Wagstaff began compiling racing reports in the 1970s. He went on to become press officer at Silverstone and then a trade press editor. He has been a freelance journalist since 1986, writing for automotive industry publications as well as the motor racing media. Ian won the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Pierre Dreyfus Trophy in 1986, and since then he has also received the Guild’s Montagu of Beaulieu Trophy for his books The British at Le Mans and Tony Robinson: The biography of a race mechanic. He won the 2010 AARWBA Book of the Year, a 2019 Motorworld Book Prize, and the 2017 Sydney Allard Written Media Award.
Doug Nye joined Motor Racing from school in 1963, before moving to Motoring News and Motor Sport. Freelance since August 1968, he has written more than 70 books, is historical consultant to Goodwood Motorsport, and co-curates the GP Library collection of racing photography with Sir Paul Vestey. Renowned as a leading motor racing historian, Doug is also the world’s foremost authority on BRM and has written a celebrated three-volume history of the team. He has been a member of the Advisory Council of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, and is a consultant to the Collier Collection and Revs Institute.
Note: Press release courtesy of Porter Press Publishing.
