Recommended motorsports book "The Grand Prix Saboteurs"

[FourWheelDrift]

About the book said:

The Grand Prix Saboteurs is the remarkable true story of how three motor racing stars of the 1920s and 1930s worked together as British secret agents during World War II in Occupied France. It is a story that has never been told before. Based on 18 years of research by Formula 1 reporter Joe Saward, the story dazzles with swashbuckling – yet true - escapes, shocking betrayals and a story that you will never forget.

The story begins with “W Williams", a mysterious figure - even when he was one of the top Grand Prix drivers of the day, driving for the Bugatti factory team.

"Some said he was a wealthy sportsman because he drove a magnificent town car - an Hispano Suiza," remembered Rene Dreyfus, one of his celebrated rivals. "Others thought that he was one of the livery men who operated from the Place de l'Opera in Paris and hired out his car and his services as a chauffeur to wealthy clients. No-one knew for sure."

What they did know was that he was an Englishman, who spoke perfect French, and that he was the most successful British racing driver of the 1920s - more successful in Grand Prix racing than even the celebrated Henry Segrave. He was the winner of the first Monaco Grand Prix in 1929 and two French GP victories and a win in Belgium.

"W Williams" was really Willy Grover, the son an English horse breeder who moved to Paris in the 1890s to help a Russian prince fulfill his dream of breeding the perfect horse. His mother was French and he grew up in France and Monaco. After the war Willy acquired an old US Army motorcycle and began racing, adopting his pseudonym because he did not want his mother to know about the risks he was taking. Bikes led to cars - but the pseudonym remained. At the start of his career he was a chauffeur in Paris but later when success brought fame and fortune, he married a beautiful Frenchwoman and retired to the country to live the life of a landed gentleman, splitting his time between a house in Paris and a villa on the French Riviera.

When war broke out in 1939 he enlisted in the British Army as a humble private soldier with the Royal Army Service Corps, driving Generals from meeting to meeting. After the German invasion of France, Willy Grover found himself in England, separated from his beloved wife, and keen to return home. When the War Office spotted his unusual linguistic talents and steely nerves, he was taken on by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and trained to be a secret agent. Willy parachuted to France in the summer of 1942, at a time all the other British networks had been infiltrated and destroyed by German intelligence. His mission was to create sabotage teams to prepare for the D-Day landings - whenever they might come. Looking for brave and resourceful Frenchmen, willing to stand up and fight, he enlisted the help of an old racing rivals and France's top racing stars in the 1920s and 30s, Robert Benoist (winner of a string of Grands Prix and of the Le Mans 24 Hours) and Jean-Pierre Wimille (2 Le Mans 24hr wins and 10 Grand Prix)

Together they formed the most extraordinary resistance network of the war.

www.amazon.co.uk/Grand-Prix-Saboteurs-Drivers-British/dp/0955486807

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Tuesday 16th January 16:32