Henry Taylor (16 December 1932 – 24 October 2013) was a British racing driver from England. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Born into a farming family in Shefford, Bedfordshire, Henry Taylor began racing with an Austin 7 Special (built by him and Bob Anderson) and won in it in a Guy Fawkes Trial in 1954. He then began racing an F3 Cooper Mark IV-Vincent, then switched to a Cooper Mark VIII-JAP and Mark X-JAP and went on to win both the JAP and Clubmans F3 championships in 1955. He won both Championships again in 1956, taking 15 victories in total, and in that year also took a class win in a Prescott hillclimb and scored some podiums and wins in national sports car races with a Jaguar D-Type.
Continuing in F3 in 1957 there was a win at Mallory Park and with the D-Type he took a number of podium finishes, including two wins, plus was third in a support race at the Belgian Grand Prix (behind Aston Martin drivers Tony Brooks and Roy Salvadori. He later raced in the 1000km of Nurburgring (with Archie Scott Brown) though retired due to an accident.
During this time, he also became involved in bobsleigh racing and in 1956 won the Fairchilds Morgan Cup on the Cresta Run at St. Moritz. In the following year he finished second in the European Four Man Junior Championships at St.Moritz then in 1958 he and Robin Dixon (later Lord Glentoran) became part of Great Britain’s team at the World Bobsleigh Championships.
In 1958, he raced a Lotus Sport in sports cars but mainly raced in F2 with a Cooper T43, winning the Grand Prix de Paris and a Libre race at Mallory Park, plus was second in the Vanwall Trophy and Libre at Snetterton.
1959 saw his Grand Prix debut and he brought Reg Parnell’s Cooper T51 home in eleventh place at Aintree (classed second in F2). He also won a race at Whitchurch and finished in the Auvergne Trophy at Clermont Ferrand and in national races raced an older Cooper T45, taking podium places at Mallory Park, Snetterton and Aintree.
He then joined British Racing Partnership (renamed Yeoman Credit Racing Team for 1960), which had been set up in 1957 by Stirling Moss’s father Alfred and his manager, Ken Gregory. Driving a Cooper T51-Climax, he competed in the Dutch, French, British and American GPs (but did not start in Portugal due to an accident in practice) and achieved his best World Championship result with a fourth place finish at Reims. He also drove for Ken Tyrrell’s Formula Junior team, winning twice.
In sports cars, he and Graham Whitehead drove an Aston Martin DBR1 to fifth place in the Paris 1000km then made his debut at Le Mans (with Graham Whitehead) with a Ferrari 250GT SWB but after 258 laps and 21 hours of racing, the engine blew up while Henry was driving and they had to retire. He also won the British Empire Trophy in Formula Junior Lotus 18 and, driving for Ken Tyrrell’s Formula Junior team, took prestigious victories at Albi and Monaco plus second place finishes at Oulton Park and Aintree.
For 1961 he raced with the UDT Laystall team but he did not qualify his Lotus 18 for Monaco and was unable to practice at Belgium after Cliff Allison crashed the shared car. He finished tenth in France but sustained internal injuries when he crashed his Lotus 18/21 at Aintree’s British GP and though he returned for Monza it would be a tragic race, with Wolfgang von Trips being killed, along with fifteen spectators. He finished second twice in national Formula One races, in the London and Lombank Trophies and there was success in sports cars, racing the UDT Lotus 19 to victories and podium placings at Oulton Park, Goodwood, Aintree and Snetterton.
Henry moved away from single-seaters and became a Ford driver in rallies and races and competed in 1961’s Monte Carlo Rally, where he finished 26th. After rallying an Anglia in 1962 he gave the Cortina its Monte Carlo Rally debut in 1963 and went on to finish third overall in the Alpine and fourth in the Acropolis and the Marathon de la Route. He also took second place in a Cortina in the Marlboro 12 Hours in Maryland, America, and tenth in a Brands Hatch 6 Hours (each time with Jimmy Blumer).
In 1964 he won the team prize with Lotus Cortinas in the RAC Rally and finished fifth in the Tulip Rally plus won at an event at Prescott. There were occasional races in an Alan Mann Racing Lotus Cortina in the European Touring Car Championship and in a stunt drive he was one of nineteen drivers who raced a Cortina down the Cortina d’Ampezzo bobsleigh run. This was in recognition of Ford’s drivers 200 Cortina victories and along with Henry, drivers such as Jim Clark, Jack Sears, Colin Chapman, Vic Elford and Sir John Whitmore raced down the ice-covered run at over 50mph.
After taking second with a class win in the Shell 4000 Rally and third in class on the Alpine in 1965 he then became Ford Competitions manager for Europe and retired from racing.
In later years he moved to the South of France, where he established a boat business, and passed away in 2013 in Vallauris, France.
