The planning for this issue was complete and work well under way, when, on August 28, we received the very sad news that Formula One and Le Mans champion Phil Hill had lost his long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Despite being nearly finished with this issue, it seemed only fitting that we should burn the midnight oil to pull together a proper tribute for this larger-than-life individual. One indication of the reverence that we hold for Hill is the fact that in our 10-plus-years history, this is the first time that we have not featured a racecar on the cover.
Since our knowledgeable readership will already be well versed with Hill’s racing achievements including his Formula One World Championship, three Le Mans victories, and five Sebring class wins, we felt we could provide a deeper insight into who Phil Hill was, as a man, if our team of writers and photographers were allowed to share their own experiences, perspectives, and relationships with Hill. As such, you’ll find this issue brimming with personal remembrances from legends like John Surtees and Mario Andretti, as well as those from our own Ed McDonough, Pete Lyons, Mike Lawrence, and Art Evans.
In reading the numerous tributes and memories of Phil collected in this issue, I hope you’ll come away with a much deeper appreciation for what an intelligent, complicated man Phil Hill was. There are so many interesting facets to his life, above and beyond his career as a racing champion, that it is near impossible to encapsulate them all, even in this special, larger edition. However, there is one very important aspect of Phil’s life that has been often overlooked that I’d like to touch upon—this being his tremendous contribution to the collector car hobby.
Hill raced competitively for only about 10 years, yet the last 40 years of his life had been devoted to the preservation and restoration of historic automobiles, both street and racing. After his retirement, Hill spent much of the early ’70s restoring various cars and, interestingly enough, working with his second passion, which was the restoration of complicated musical instruments, such as player pianos. Working from his home in Santa Monica, California, Hill showed a remarkable aptitude for restoring the mechanical side of nearly any car, from any vintage. This deep mechanical understanding and “sensitivity” may be one of the skills that enabled him to bring so many racecars home to victory, despite their mechanical failings.
Across town, another craftsman, by the name of Ken Vaughn, was also doing his own restorations out of his home, though his gift was for the cosmetic side of the restoration. Perhaps it was kismet—or their shared love for the restoration of musical instruments—but soon the two struck up a friendship and began exchanging time on each other’s projects.
Around 1975, the two went in together on the purchase of a 40-car collection—as retired hobbyists. The pair thought they’d died and gone to heaven! Needing a place to keep this mechanical menagerie, they rented an old warehouse in Santa Monica and began restoring the cars in their new communal collection. However, word soon spread that these Hill & Vaughn guys were doing incredible things with old cars. Other enthusiasts started showing up on their doorstep with equally interesting projects so, being passionate enthusiasts, they took them in, too! Thus, the famed restoration business of Hill & Vaughn was founded in 1976 and over the next 10 years produced an unrivaled, and virtually unbroken, chain of race and concours winners. According to Glenn Vaughn, son of Ken and a craftsman at the shop in those days, “I can remember a couple of major concours in the late ’70s, where we would have six cars entered and collectively they would receive 599 points out of a possible 600.” If one can trace the surge of interest in the restoration of historic cars to the late ’70s, one has to give credit to the work of Hill & Vaughn for being one of the driving restoration forces of that era. They really and truly were the “go to” guys if you wanted to restore a special car, in that era.
By 1984, Hill & Vaughn had dozens of employees and cases of trophies, but what started as a retirement hobby had turned into a major business and, feeling they had nothing more to prove, Vaughn elected to relocate to Idaho and Hill went back to fettling his own cars. But that, of course, is not the end of the Hill story. With the rapid growth of historic racing, by the early ’80s Hill was being asked to get behind the wheel of more and more historic racecars for events all around the world. Additionally, Hill had also started working with Road & Track magazine, on test drives and “Salon” articles centered on interesting old cars. For the next 20 years, he would become even more a central part of the collector car hobby, both as an ambassador and a participant. Not even a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease could curtail Hill’s enthusiasm and participation in classic car events.
True to his gear-head roots, Hill was at this year’s Quail Motorsport Gathering, touring the field in a golf cart with his wife Alma and son Derek, when his health took a sudden turn for the worse. Two weeks later, he passed away at Monterey Community Hospital.
Within this special issue, we honor and remember the many incredible driving achievements that made Phil Hill America’s champion, but by no means should we, as enthusiasts, lose sight of the tremendous contributions that he made to our hobby.
God speed, Phil.
