Obituary

Martin Morris

One of the best-known vintage racers has died, aged 74. Hugely successful with ERA R11B, winning 10 Seaman Trophies in it, Martin Morris was the only driver to win both Historic and Vintage Seamans on the same day.

He began racing and hillclimbing in the 1950s in his Speed Six Bentley and then a Frazer Nash LM Rep. He also raced Anthony Blight’s Talbots, taking BGH23 to one of the first major historic meetings abroad. After R11B arrived in 1962 he alternated with OKV3, the D-type he felt obliged to buy after crashing it heavily, racing all over the world and driving the D to and from meetings whenever possible; on one New Zealand trip Morris did nine races and 4000 road miles in it.

He won often in both cars, but heart problems meant that from the 1980s he had to wind down his racing; however he retained a speed licence and did his last hillclimb only last year. In his fifties he became a high-performance driving instructor, but his enthusiasm for historic racing never flagged, and he was usually on hand while his son David raced R11B. The VSCC pits will be emptier without him. GC