Ian Burgess

Bio by Stephen Latham

Ian Burgess initially worked in the Cooper factory but he soon took on the role of driving instructor at the Brands Hatch circuit though later went on to found Laminates Ltd in Weybridge, which specialised in glass fibre construction for cars and boats. After only a season of racing, he took a surprise win at the Nurburgring in 1951, beating the vastly more experienced Ken Wharton, and came second at Avus with his F3 Cooper. He raced a variety of cars until Cooper gave him an F2 drive in 1957, with his F1 debut the following year, and his best result was sixth in 1959’s German GP in a Scuderia Centro Sud Maserati. He retired in 1963 then nothing was heard of him for 18 years until he was arrested with nearly $2m worth of heroin, which he claimed had been given to him by MI5, as payment for intelligence work he had allegedly carried out throughout the Middle East.

Born David William Allan in London, on the 6th July 1930, he was adopted as a baby and went to live in Bletchingley, near Reigate, with a Scottish couple called Burgess. After studying engineering, he started racing 500cc cars in 1950 and showed enough promise to be considered as a possible team mate for Ken Carter in the Cooper works team. With only a single season of British 500cc racing behind him, in 1951 he took victory in a shock result at the Nurburgring in June, winning in the pouring rain ahead of more seasoned racers Wharton and Whitehead. He followed it a few weeks later by finishing second in a heat in a 500cc race at Avus plus set the fastest lap.

Outings with a Kieft Sport in 1953 saw third at the Crystal Palace International but he and Austen Nurse retired at the International Tourist Trophy at Dundrod. He was entered with a Kieft AJB in the following year’s British GP meeting at Silverstone but did not start and racing an OSCA MT4 at the International Tourist Trophy, despite water pump failure he and co-driver Palmer-Morewood finished sixteenth and third place in class.

In 1955 he did not qualify an Ecurie Yankee OSCA MT4 at Oulton Park’s British Empire Trophy and he and John Coombs retired a Lotus 8 at the International Tourist Trophy at Dundrod. In the following season, four outings with a Beart-Rodger OSCA brought fourteenth at the British GP F2 race while in September he was fifth in a BRSCC F2 race at Brands Hatch and eleventh at Oulton Park’s International Gold Cup though did not start in the Shell Cup at Imola.

Racing a works Cooper T43 in 1957, he retired in the Daily Express International Trophy at Silverstone though was fourth in the International Gold Cup at Oulton Park while an outing with C.T.Atkin’s T43 saw a sixth place finish in the Woodcote Cup at Goodwood. C.T. ‘Tommy’ Atkins had more than made a name for himself racing motorcycles before the Second World War and returned to the sport after the War. At the start of the war, he turned his garage into a factory making machine tools and Harry Pearce started working for him in 1940 and eventually started racing bikes himself. After giving up racing, they started their own car racing team, titled High Efficiency Motors, with Tommy taking care of the day-to-day operations and Pearce was involved in building the cars.

He mostly raced a T43 in 1958 but his first drive came with Cooper in April and he was eighth at the Glover Trophy at Goodwood with a T45. There was a victory with it the following month at the Crystal Palace Trophy (from pole) but his World Championship debut in July’s British GP at Silverstone ended after forty laps due to clutch issues. T43 outings saw third at Brands Hatch plus fourth in the Prix de Paris at Monthlery and the Coupe International de Vitesse at Reims. At the Vanwall Trophy at Snetterton in July, although Jim Russell started on pole, Ian took the win (plus recorded the fastest lap of the race), coming home ahead of Bruce McLaren. There were outings in C.T.Atkin’s High Efficiency Motor’s T43, finishing eleventh at the BARC 200 at Aintree and eleventh (and fourth in F2) at the Daily Express International Trophy at Silverstone. Although he had contested the British GP for Cooper, his next GP at the Nurburgring in August was with High Efficiency Motors. He was the second fastest qualifier amongst the F2 machines, behind Phil Hill, and started alongside him on the third row in eleventh place. He lost ground at the start and by the end of lap ten was outside the top ten, but eventually finished seventh, and third in F2, close to Bruce McLaren and Edgar Barth. Sadly the race was marred by the death of Peter Collins. There was a quick return to England as he was racing in the following day’s Kent Trophy at Brands Hatch, where he finished fifth and he was back at Brands Hatch at the end of the month for the Kentish 100 and, in the two forty lap heats, he was fourth but gearbox issues ended his second heat. There was one outing in an Elva Mk3 in September, finishing twentieth alongside Robin MacKenzie-Low at the Tourist Trophy at Goodwood but later in the month while he was back in Germany for the Grand Prix of Berlin at Avus he was involved in an accident in the first heat and suffered a broken leg.

He raced Coopers for a number of teams in 1959 though his year started with one outing with High Efficiency Motor’s T43 at the International Trophy at Silverstone. The race would include F1 and F2 cars and while he was in the F2 car, Jack Fairman raced the team’s F1 Cooper-Maserati. He qualified fifteenth but, lacking the power, was unable to make much headway and after qualifying eighth Fairman struggled for power and ran back in the field and was pressured by a couple of the F2 runners. A number of competitors would run into trouble and as a result of the attrition, heading into the final laps Fairman was looking at a sixth place finish. However, fourth place Shelby’s engine failed in the Aston Martin and he finished fifth and Ian came home ninth. His next drive came with a T51 entered by Nixon’s Garage, finishing eighth at the Grand Prix de Rouen, while two further drives at Brands Hatch brought fifth in the John Davy Trophy and ninth in the Kentish 100. He contested four World Championship races with Scuderia Centro Sud’s Maserati powered T51 and was sixth (a career best) at Avus and fourteenth at Monza though retired at Reims (engine) and Aintree (gearbox). In late December he retired a T52-BMC from a John Davy Trophy FJunior race at Brands Hatch.

1960 started in New Zealand and in the first race at the beginning of January, a non-championship New Zealand GP at Ardmore, he was to race a Maserati-engined Cooper but eventually drove his own Cooper-Climax, though retired after forty-four laps (differential). In two races later that month he was third, to Jack Brabham and David Piper, in the Lady Wigram Trophy with High Efficiency Motor’s Cooper T51 though retired at Dundedin after five laps (transmission) while his next race in early February saw victory at the Teretonga Trophy in Atkins’ T51. Back in Europe, he drove Scuderia Centro Sud’s T51 and was ninth with the Maserati powered car in the Daily Express International Trophy at Silverstone and tenth at Brands Hatch’s Silver City Trophy. In World Championship races his only finish was tenth at Reims as he failed to qualify at Monaco and retired at Silverstone (lap fifty six, overheating) and the US GP at Riverside (lap twenty nine, ignition). The team also ran a Maserati powered Lotus 18 and he was thirteenth in the Kentish 100 at Brands Hatch but was disqualified from Oulton Park’s International Gold Cup (black flag) and retired at the Gran Prix di Modena on lap twenty nine (engine).

Moving to the Camoradi International team the following year, he contested several Grands Prix, though started with five non championship races in April and May with the Lotus 18. Lloyd P ‘Lucky’ Casner’s Camoradi team had contested 1960’s Sports Car World Championship with its Maserati Tipo 61 ‘Birdcage’ cars, driven by Dan Gurney, Casner, Masten Gregory and Stirling Moss. The acronym ‘Camoradi’ derived from ‘Casner Motors Inc Racing Division’ and the operation was originally heavily backed by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Masten Gregory persuaded Casner into mounting a serious assault upon F1 for 1961, with Camoradi International being formed, with a base in Europe and a new Cooper T53 ‘Lowline’ car was acquired for him. Ian was the team’s second driver and it was said he told them he could acquire ‘a very cheap Lotus 18’, and had contested some F2 races under the Scuderia Centro-Sud banner at the wheel of just such a 1.5 litre Maserati-powered car in 1960. That car was brought to England and he reached an agreement with Colin Chapman for the car to be taken to the Lotus factory for refurbishment. It was also to be put back to standard Coventry Climax-engined specification and he purchased a Climax FPF 4-cylinder to be installed in place of the Maserati engine. However, later research suggested that Lotus sold the aforementioned 18-Maserati to Italian Prince Gaetano Starrabba, and the Climax-powered car that Burgess later acquired for Camoradi was in fact a brand new one. The car was prepared by chief mechanic Bob Wallace but there was so little time to get it to Pau for the first race in April that Wallace was still working on it in the back of the transporter as it travelled through France. Unfortunately the car didn’t finish and he retired on lap twenty six due to gearbox issues. Following this, Wallace returned to Modena to look after the team’s sportscars and preparation of the Lotus 18 was done by a ‘London based Italian called Giovann’ and Irishman Aiden Jones, whom Camoradi manager Tony Mawe had recruited from Weir Lodge Garage in Chertsey, Surrey. This arrangement gave them access to Weir Lodge’s workshop facility and a corner was also made available there to leading car body-builder Maurice Gomm. In the week after Pau he contested a non championship Grand Prix de Bruxelles at Heysel, where he finished sixth, though in late April’s Aintree 200 he was disqualified for taking on oil during the race (which was prohibited under new regulations). There were three Camoradi cars entered (with one for Casner) for the International Trophy at Silverstone in early May, two Lotus 18s and a Lowline Cooper Type 53, but the team never attended the race though he was fourth later in the month in the Naples GP, after surviving a lurid spin during the race. The following five events were World Championship races but he did not race at Zandvoort and Spa. However, despite not competing in the race, Zandvoort saw him have a lucky escape. Ahead of the final session, it was agreed by Camoradi that their cars would be reserve entries, despite them competing in every part of the weekend. Certain teams were guaranteed starts irrespective of their qualifying times, while Camoradi was not one of them but, though he had qualified just outside the top ten, he was faster than three cars that were guaranteed starts, but the organisers refused to permit him take to the grid. On his last practice lap in the Lotus 18 he had been flat out past the pits at perhaps 150mph and was diving down into the Tarzan Hairpin when his car’s throttle stuck open. He recalled “I hit the ignition ‘kill’ switch but this was one of the things the mechanics hadn’t got around to wiring up yet and I went off and into the fence.” That accident ‘took everything off the top’ of his Lotus but he emerged miraculously unharmed and the car was speedily rebodied by Maurice Gomm in time for Spa. At Spa, an initial entry list of twenty five cars was submitted to the race organisers ahead of the weekend, which presented a problem for the awarding of starting money. They only had the budget to support nineteen start prizes, sixteen of which were guaranteed to the manufacturer backed entries or former winners. This meant only three of the remaining nine drivers would be awarded start money, which was a vital lifeline for the numerous privateers that made up the field. Many would take part in practice but would decide whether to race or not only after the qualifying results had been announced and eventually he, Tony Marsh and Wolfgang Seidel (both in Lotus 18s) chose not to start the race due to not being paid starting money. Two weeks later he was at Reims for the French GP, where the practice and qualifying sessions began as early as Wednesday evening, with persistent high temperatures causing problems with the track surface. The surface began to break up more and more as the race day approached and the continuing damage meant that Saturday was left as a free day without any on-track action to allow the track surface to recover, with the results for qualifying being declared a day early. He qualified twenty fifth. Temperatures on race day morning were cooler than they had been all week but remained incredibly hot, with FJunior taking to the track for two races before the start of the GP to test whether the tarmac would survive sustained running without deteriorating. When the F1 cars took to the track, numerous modifications had been made to them, ranging from extra vents, to the removal of side panels as Team Lotus had opted to do. The drivers too were forced to take action, with many wearing soaked overalls to try to keep cool during the two hour race. As the race progressed, the battle in the heat took its toll on the cars and Ian came home fourteenth but the race saw an exciting finish, which would go down as an epic due to the manner of Baghetti’s victory. With just 300 yards till the line, he pulled out of the wake of Gurney’s Porsche to draw alongside and overtake though Gurney was just beginning to get back on him as they flashed across the line. The timing meters revealed that just a tenth of a second had decided the race. After a two week break, the next round was at Aintree in mid-July, where torrential rain affected both qualifying and the race start and he qualified twenty fifth, with Gregory sixteenth. The race saw Ferrari take all three podium positions and he finished fourteenth, to Gregory’s eleventh place. Casner himself failed to qualify the car for the non-Championship Solitude GP in Germany at the end of July, after which the Camoradi Lotus 18 did not reappear for the remainder of that year. At this point, Gregory had left the team and Ian took over the team’s ‘Lowline’ Cooper and in his first outing with the T53 in August’s German GP at the Nurburgring he qualified twenty fourth and finished twelfth. His final races with the T53 came at non championship events at Zeltweg and the International Gold Cup at Oulton Park where he was fifth and sixth.

There was a switch to Louise Dryden-Browne’s Anglo American Equipe team in 1962 and, in a run of non-championship events, after starting with seventh in the Grand Prix de Bruxelles with a Cooper T53, he raced a Cooper T56 Spl-Climax for the rest of the season. He was eighth at Pau but retired at the Aintree 200 and the International Trophy at Silverstone. The team travelled to Italy for the Naples GP at Posillipo, where ten cars started, as seven failed to qualify, and he came home fifth, two laps down, behind the Mairesse and Bandini Ferraris, Keith Greene’s Gilby-Climax and Carlo Abate’s Porsche. He qualified eighth for the International 2000 Guineas at Mallory Park and finished tenth (and the last of the runners) then followed this with his best result at Solitude, finishing fourth behind Dan Gurney, Jo Bonnier and Trevor Taylor. In August he finished fifth at Kanonloppet then two weeks later was fifth again in the Danish GP at Roskilde. The T56’s last appearance came at Oulton Park’s Gold Cup, where the car’s bodywork and side-mounted radiators had been converted to a more conventional lay-out, with a radiator sitting at the front, though a broken oil pipe on lap fifty three ended his race. He raced a T59 in the three Grands Prix contested that year, and at Aintree in July, after qualifying sixteenth he finished twelfth, almost a minute in arrears of Settember. In the following month at Nurburgring, heavy rain hit the circuit overnight on Saturday and on race day the heavens opened once again which caused the start to be delayed. It was 3 oclock before it stopped and the race started at 3.15, with a light drizzle adding to the damp conditions. The rain returned later in the race and was slightly heavier once again, with the lead battle involving Hill, Surtees and Gurney. Phil Hill was being chased by Maggs, Ian and de Beaufort and the lower powered cars were enjoying an advantage in the wet, with the conditions meaning they could use the throttle more effectively than the more powerful cars ahead. At the finish, Hill, Surtees and Gurney took the podium positions and Ian was eleventh. Unfortunately he failed to qualify in his final outing at Monza in September.

For 1963, which would be his his last in racing, he joined the Scirocco team (which was bankrolled by wealthy American Hugh Powell), but he struggled with the underdeveloped car and it proved to be a frustrating time for all concerned. Ahead of the 1962 season, Hugh Powell had bought a controlling stake in Emeryson Cars but it proved a disappointing season and the British part of the team, including Emery and driver John Campbell-Jones, left the team. Powell and Tony Settember decided to go it alone for 1963, changing the team’s name to Scirocco-Powell and moved into a shed at the back of the Seven Stars pub in Goldhawk Road, London. With the help of Hugh Aiden-Jones and John Tojeiro, the new for 1963 car was designed by Settember, who was also a trained engineer. They modified the new design to fit BRM V8 engines and two cars were built, with the first one specifically for Settember while the second, which had a slimmer frame, was readied for Ian. The first car did not appear until the Belgian GP in June, with Settember at the wheel and Ian missed four World Championship rounds at Monaco, Spa, Zandvoort and Reims as a car was unavailable. It was not until the British GP in July that a second car appeared for him, which was narrower than the chassis built for the larger Settember, and lighter. He qualified twentieth but ignition problems ended his race on lap thirty six and it was a similar story the following month at the Nurburgring, when he retired after five laps due to an accident. He retired in non championship races at Solitude (ignition) and after one lap (con rod) at Zeltweg, though Settember finished second behind Jack Brabham, then was eighth in his final race at Oulton Park’s International Gold Cup. Team mate Settember competed in five rounds, finishing eighth on his debut in the Belgian GP but it would be his only finish of the season. By the end of the year Powell sold the cars and the team closed down and he and Settember returned to America.

Following this, nothing much was heard of him until 1981, when he was arrested by UK customs for smuggling nearly $2,000,000 worth of heroin in his car. He claimed that the drugs were given to him by MI5, as payment for intelligence work he had allegedly conducted throughout the Middle East. The courts sentenced him to ten years in prison for drug smuggling but he apparently didn’t stay behind bars very long. According to racing historian Joe Saward, he escaped from Ford Open Prison as his girlfriend had been reportedly waiting outside the prison and took him to Czechoslovakia. He was later seen in Spain and would occasionally make unannounced, low-profile appearances, in Great Britain. In the late 1990s, Gordon Cruickshank of Motor Sport magazine, managed to track him down while researching the Scirocco-BRM F1 cars. They had met within the UK though Burgess insisted on not leaving any form of telephone number, instead using only handwritten notes to communicate. After managing to make contact with him, he was told “No phone numbers, my dear chap just drop a note to my pied a terre and I’ll see it next time I’m in the country.” His visits to the UK had to be brief and unannounced, due to his awkward relations with authority. Recalling his time racing for Tommy Atkins in 1958 and 1959, he stated “Very short fuse, Tommy, and very, very jealous of his young wife.” One day Atkins went back to his home mid-afternoon to find that his wife was out. When she returned he grilled her about where she’d been. “Just at the swimming baths, Tommy.” Burgess said that “and the very next morning the poor woman was woken by digger engines in the garden. Tommy had him own pool built for her by the weekend!” Though he formerly lived in a number of different European locations, Ian later lived a quiet life in Middlesex. He was in poor health but despite illness and increased fragility he tried to keep links with motor racing and his old racing friends and died in Harrow on the 19th May 2012, at the age of 81.