Henry Clifford “Cliff” Allison (8 February 1932 – 7 April 2005) was a British racing driver from England.
He articipated in Formula One during seasons 1958 to 1961 for the Lotus, Scuderia Centro Sud, Ferrari and UDT Laystall teams. He was born and died in Brough, Westmorland (now Cumbria). Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Cliff Allison lived in Brough, Cumbria, where he ran the family garage business and his father and uncle had both raced motorbikes. In 1952, he bought a 500cc Cooper Norton Formula Three car, entering his first race with it at Charterhall. As a trained engineer, he modified his car and his performances impressed people, leading to Reg Tanner, Esso’s Competition Manager, to sign him on a retainer. He persuaded Colin Chapman to give him a test drive, which took place in a Lotus Eleven at Snetterton, leading to him becoming a Lotus works driver.
In 1956 alongside his F2 races he won sports car races in the Lotus X1 at Aintree and Brands Hatch plus took second place at Crystal Palace’s August Trophy. In the following season he raced it to victory at Roskilde, twice at Brands Hatch, and a class win at Spa plus he and Keith Hall finished fourteenth, and won the Index of Performance, at Le Mans.
1958 saw a year of Grand Prix racing with Lotus, alongside Graham Hill, and in his debut at Monaco he finished sixth and achieved the team’s first World Championship point. There was a sixth place at Zandvoort plus fourth in Belgium, but if it had run a single lap longer it could be argued his Lotus would have won. Tony Brooks won in the Vanwall, though it crossed the line with its gearbox tightening up, second place M.Hawthorn’s engine failed as it accelerated towards the line and Stuart Lewis-Evans’ Vanwall’s suspension collapsed on the way into La Source, and he crawled to the line in third. However, Cliff’s Lotus was running strongly when it crossed the line in fourth place. There was a strong performance at the Nürburgring though he enjoyed racing there, as he said many of the little roads around the Lake District, near his home, were very similar to it. He crashed during practice at Portugal but hired a Maserati 250F from Scuderia Centro Sud for the race but retired and, reverting back to the Lotus he finished seventh in Italy and tenth in Morocco. He won the F2 section of the International Trophy while in sports cars he (and G.Hill) retired a Lotus 15 at Le Mans though finished sixth at Sebring with Colin Chapman.
His performances had attracted Ferrari’s attention and he joined the team for 1959 after successful tests at Modena. At Monaco he retired after a collision with Wolfgang von Trips and Bruce Halford, and retired in Germany and America, but finished ninth at Zandvoort and took a fine fifth at Monza. He considered the US GP at Sebring as his biggest disappointment, as he had been running third behind J.Brabham and B.McLaren’s Coopers and felt he could have had a good dice with them in the closing stages but then his clutch failed. During the year he had posted fastest time in practice at Avus but as he was only a reserve entry he had to line up at the back rather than taking pole position.
Racing with Ferrari’s sports car squad, he was second at Sebring (with J.Behra), third in the TT (with G.Hill and O.Gendebien) plus took fifth place in the Nurburgring 1000kms (with Dan Gurney).
His time with Ferrari would see him regularly undertake an arduous travel schedule on his journeys there from Brough. He would drive to Darlington, catch an express train to Kings Cross, then a taxi to Cromwell Road air terminal, a bus to Heathrow, a plane to Milan, then a taxi to the station and the train to Modena. He made this journey every couple of weeks though happily undertook this journey and also, regarding his relationship with Enzo Ferrari himself, only had pleasant, uncomplicated memories.
1960 saw him win the Argentine 1000Km race (with Phil Hill) plus finish third in the Nurburgring 1000km with P.Hill and W.Mairesse. In F1 he raced his Ferrari Dino to second place in Argentina and finished eighth in the International Trophy but a crash during qualifying at Monaco left him hospitalised and in a serious condition. He was thrown from his car and hurled out onto the road but when he woke 16 days later in hospital he was speaking French; however he didn’t know any French before this! It seemed as though this may have been the end of his career as it took the best part of the year for him to recover fully.
For 1961 he raced with the UDT-Laystall team, and started with an eighth place in Monaco. Unfortunately, a heavy crash in practice for the Belgian Grand Prix (he described it as ”trying to do too much with a car that didn’t want to do it”) ended his career as he sustained serious leg injuries. Prior to this he had finished second in the Lombank Trophy at Snetterton and fifth in the Brussels Grand Prix in a Lotus 18. Driving the Lotus 18, there were third places at the International Trophy at Silverstone, and Aintree, and at Le Mans he shared a Lotus Elite with Mike McKee, though retired from it.
Cliff would return to Brough and worked in the family’s garage business but admitted he was very resentful and angry when he left racing. However, when he made return visits to grands prix many years later he was surprised, and overcome, to realise that people still remembered him with respect and he had not been forgotten. On one occasion, he co-drove a Lotus with Malcolm Ricketts on a Mille Miglia re-run but at one checkpoint he was personally sought out by Luca de Montezemolo.
While in Brough he later often drove the school bus and there surely can’t be many school buses which were driven a former Ferrari Grand Prix driver.
