Tall, handsome, and charming, Roy Salvadori was everything Hollywood ever wanted a racing driver to be. He was a ’50s–’60s swashbuckler and would not have looked out of place swinging down from the rigging of a man o’ war, sword in hand, instead of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Fantasy perhaps, but no less dashing than the profession he chose: motor racing, and he was good at it. Roy won 98 races and took 126 podium places during his 25+ year career. Because Salvadori was one of the Old School, it seemed perfectly natural to him to compete in up to five races a day. That’s what he did with such panache, for instance, at Goodwood on Easter Monday, 1955. He won the F1 Glover Trophy in a Maserati 250F, then the Chichester Cup for F2 cars in a Connaught, and after that the sports car race in an Aston Martin. And he came 2nd in the other two races that day!
