Former grand prix driver and Aurora F1 champion Rupert Keegan has died aged 69. The Essex native was the rich kid in the team with a playboy image – well, Penthouse actually. But being called the 'next James Hunt' worked against a driver with ability, as today's Great Read explains
When kitsch was cool, John Travolta was new and the only skirts in Formula 1 were mini, soft porn strutted and pouted its way onto the grand prix grid. On the arm of the 'Penthouse Pets' was a rich, handsome young Englishman, one of the latest junior racing sensations with the world seemingly at his feet.
Fittingly enough, for both sides of that good-time alliance, they joined what has become affectionately remembered as F1's last 'partying' team, the effervescent Hesketh squad. With the Penthouse name, allied to that of Rizla cigarette papers, the team contrived to come up with one of the most brazen and distinctive colour schemes the sport has known, complete with a Memphis Belle-type French maid draped alluringly along the car's bright blue flanks.
To the outside world, it appeared a combination tailor-made for Hesketh's new charge, Rupert Keegan...
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario