Dan Gurney, who has died aged 86, was one of the most significant postwar motor racing figures – both as a driver and as a racing car constructor.
Tall, handsome and gentlemanly, Gurney typified the “can-do” but quiet American. As an international racing driver from 1958 to 1970 he was one of the world’s top three or four, and arguably – with Jim Clark, or later Jackie Stewart – one of the top two.
He drove Formula 1 cars for the Ferrari, BRM, Porsche and Brabham teams before establishing his own Anglo-American Racers company at Rye, East Sussex, to campaign his own Eagle Grand Prix cars from 1966 to 1969.
He won both the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix and the Brands Hatch Race of Champions in them,...