The artists' artist

Michael Turner, the recently passed doyen of motoring artists, was a car fanatic and an equally keen flyer.

- Words Christopher Mann

MICHAEL TURNER, WHO died last year on 1 December, aged 91, was a towering figure in motorsport and aviation art.

He spent his early years in Harrow and was obsessed with all things aeronautical, extending that fascination to cars and motorsport after a 1947 family holiday to the Isle of Man, where he saw his first motor race, the British Empire Trophy.

After art college and National Service with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Michael was taken on as an illustrator by a London advertising agency.

Already an enthusiastic motorist, his first car was an Austin Seven special, followed by an MG F-Type Magna and, in 1955, an SS100 Jaguar, a car so good he bought it twice (see Octane 250 for the full story).

When Michael first bought the modified SS, registered DTF 28, he harboured ambitions to be a racing driver but was reliant on it for daily transport and, after witnessing a major accident at Silverstone, decided that racing was too risky.