A brake-through in sportscars
Moss notched up a number of significant ‘firsts’ in his career: first British driver to win his home grand prix in the world championship era, at Aintree in 1955; first British driver to win his home world championship grand prix in a British car, with Tony Brooks and Vanwall back at Aintree in ’57; first win for a rear-engined F1 car (Argentina, 1958); first grand prix win for Lotus, in Rob Walker’s privateer Type 18 at Monaco in 1960. But there’s another that is perhaps overlooked, but one that had wider-world greater significance for the development of the motor car.
Stirling’s win, shared with Tommy Wisdom, in a 50-lap sportscar race at Reims on June 29th 1952 marked the 54th of his career, but on the surface was fairly unremarkable. He and Wisdom were largely unchallenged other than by the sweltering conditions, as they took a pale green Jaguar C-type to victory. What was significant, however, were the ‘anchors’ fitted to XKC005 – for this marked the first win for a car fitted with what would come to be known as disc brakes. Moss had joined Jaguar tester Norman Dewis in the development of the Dunlop innovation, which like the monocoque chassis was an idea borrowed from aeroplanes.
Why did it matter? Traditional drum brakes had to be ‘managed’ through races to avoid excessive fade, but with discs – or plates as they were then known – Moss could see the advantages of racing harder for longer without the fear of losing significant stopping power. Fast, sweeping Reims had enough long, straight bits to allow the brakes to cool between usage, and Stirling recognised it was the ideal place to try them. On that hot day in France, Moss could have had no idea that this quiet revolution would be the start of one with such fundamentally significant consequences for us all.