Rupert Keegan

A life in motorsport, from Formula 3 to Formula 1, via frustration with Sir John Surtees to turning down an offer from Paul Newman

- James Page

MOTOR RACING HAS always done a good line in nicknames, but few are better-suited to their subject than 'Muttley' is to Rupert Keegan. It's now well over 40 years since he was christened as such by the Hesketh team, but the mischievous laugh that he shares with Dick Dastardly's canine companion is still very much intact. Despite the fact that he's only just flown into the UK when we meet, he's on excellent form as he looks back over a career that took him from precocious Formula 3 champion to Formula 1, Le Mans and Indianapolis.

Keegan admits with a smile that, even as a youngster, he was 'a bit of a bad boy. He was educated at King's Ely - one of the oldest schools in the world, with a list of alumni that includes Edward the Confessor - and he and his friends would regularly sneak out after dark. In fact, he almost missed one of his exams when his motorbike broke down on the way back from a night out in Cambridge.

After being 'thrown out of school for the last time, Keegan needed to decide upon a career and told his father that he wanted to become an actor. Mike Keegan was 'a bit of toughie' who had flown Liberators in the Far East during the war. Along with James Barnby and Cyril Stevens, he founded the BKS airline, and later owned Transmeridian Air Cargo and British Air Ferries. Mike was distinctly unimpressed with the thought of his son being an actor and told him to think again.

Rupert's uncle had done some racing, and he'd always been fascinated with that world. After watching Emerson Fittipaldi win the 1972 British Grand Prix, he was hooked and decided that here was his Plan B. RADA's loss would be motorsport's gain.