The Straight story: cars, Cambridge and conflict

From motor racing on the continent to a 'good war' with the RAF, this is a story of speed and spectacle, says

- Damien Smith

Racing Driver, War Hero, Industrialist reads the subhead to this family blessed biography. Consequently, it is only a motor racing book in part - and a small part at that. As Paul Kenny writes, American-born but English-bred Whitney Straight “established a legitimate claim to being Europe’s finest independent driver, and second only to Enzo Ferrari as a privateer team entrant”. His full-time racing career lasted all of two seasons, 1933 and ’34, before he disbanded his eponymous team to focus on the other great mechanical passion of his life. Straight was a thrusting pioneer in Britain’s civil aviation industry before the outbreak of World War II. As the author writes, he then experienced a “good war”.