Book Review: A Life of Chance by Alan Mann & Tony Dron
Rather like the Beatles, Alan Mann Racing in its original form existed for just a few short years in the 1960s, but its accomplishments were great and its legacy lives on. This book was completed shortly before Mann’s death in 2012 and published soon after.
On reading it, you’re struck by how free-flowing the motor racing world was back then. Aged 18, Mann left the family home in Worthing, UK, to take up a job as a car salesman in Fleet. Next thing you know, he’s bought an HWM-Alta and entered the 1957 Monaco Grand Prix.
Later, he tells of how Roy Salvadori of Cooper Cars, which was based next door to Alan Mann Racing in Byfleet, Surrey, occasionally asked him to add one of its Cooper-Maserati F1 cars to a Goodwood-bound transporter and run a few shakedown laps. Imagine Red Bull asking a touring-car specialist like Team Dynamics to stick Verstappen’s RB19 on the truck and give it a quick run around Thruxton!
Mann was a great salesman, but committed and resourceful, and recognized the value of professionalism at a time when, even at the highest level, motorsport was still relatively amateur in its organization. No wonder he was able to quickly earn the trust of the Ford Motor Company to run works race and rally programs.
Shelby American, Holman & Moody and JW Automotive are often first to mind when one thinks of factory Ford teams in the 60s, but Alan Mann more than held his own in comparison with those famous names. It’s often forgotten, for example, that it was Mann’s team that ran the Daytona Coupes to the World Sportscar Championship GT title in 1965.
Throughout this fabulous book, which is illustrated with many previously unseen photos from the Mann archive, the late Tony Dron – himself a successful racing driver – worked quietly in the background to organize Mann’s reminisces and fact-check countless details. I was fortunate to drive with Tony on a couple of press events and he was a kind and generous person, in addition to an excellent writer.
It's great to see the beautiful, red-and-gold Fords of the revived Alan Mann Racing once more active in historic racing. Don’t miss this account of A Life of Chance, although truth be told, Alan Mann made his own luck.
A Life of Chance: The Story of the Fabulous Racing Fords
by Alan Mann in collaboration with Tony Dron
Motor Racing Publications, 2012. ISBN 978-1-899870-85-1
Find it on eBay
On reading it, you’re struck by how free-flowing the motor racing world was back then. Aged 18, Mann left the family home in Worthing, UK, to take up a job as a car salesman in Fleet. Next thing you know, he’s bought an HWM-Alta and entered the 1957 Monaco Grand Prix.
Later, he tells of how Roy Salvadori of Cooper Cars, which was based next door to Alan Mann Racing in Byfleet, Surrey, occasionally asked him to add one of its Cooper-Maserati F1 cars to a Goodwood-bound transporter and run a few shakedown laps. Imagine Red Bull asking a touring-car specialist like Team Dynamics to stick Verstappen’s RB19 on the truck and give it a quick run around Thruxton!
Mann was a great salesman, but committed and resourceful, and recognized the value of professionalism at a time when, even at the highest level, motorsport was still relatively amateur in its organization. No wonder he was able to quickly earn the trust of the Ford Motor Company to run works race and rally programs.
Shelby American, Holman & Moody and JW Automotive are often first to mind when one thinks of factory Ford teams in the 60s, but Alan Mann more than held his own in comparison with those famous names. It’s often forgotten, for example, that it was Mann’s team that ran the Daytona Coupes to the World Sportscar Championship GT title in 1965.
Throughout this fabulous book, which is illustrated with many previously unseen photos from the Mann archive, the late Tony Dron – himself a successful racing driver – worked quietly in the background to organize Mann’s reminisces and fact-check countless details. I was fortunate to drive with Tony on a couple of press events and he was a kind and generous person, in addition to an excellent writer.
It's great to see the beautiful, red-and-gold Fords of the revived Alan Mann Racing once more active in historic racing. Don’t miss this account of A Life of Chance, although truth be told, Alan Mann made his own luck.
A Life of Chance: The Story of the Fabulous Racing Fords
by Alan Mann in collaboration with Tony Dron
Motor Racing Publications, 2012. ISBN 978-1-899870-85-1
Find it on eBay