Obituaries: Peter Agg

The Grand Prix entrant whose Trojan company manufactured McLaren sports cars and single-seaters under licence, has died aged 82.

Peter Agg moved from the family wine business into importing scooters during the 1950s, leading to reviving the moribund pre-war Trojan marque to build bubblecars. In 1962 he bought the Elva sports car company which two years later contracted to assemble M1s for McLaren. Over the next few years Elva and Trojan built some 200 cars for the Woking race team, including F5000 and CanAm chassis, but as McLaren expanded its own facilities, Trojan briefly became a race manufacturer in its own right.

Ron Tauranac designed F5000 and F1 cars, helping Jody Scheckter to the 1973 US F5000 title, while in 1974 Tim Schenken contested eight Grands Prix in the Trojan T103 (above), an early DFV ‘kit car’. Recognisable by his handlebar moustache, Agg also assembled a fine collection of vintage cars. His son Charlie Agg currently races in historics, notably in Trojan-built McLarens.