Bill Boddy
| Bill Boddy MBE | |
|---|---|
| Born |
William Boddy 22 February 1913 |
| Died | 7 July 2011 (aged 98) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation |
Motorsport journalist Author |
| Years active | 1930–2011 |
| Known for | Editor; Motor Sport magazine |
William "Bill" Boddy, MBE (22 February 1913 – 7 July 2011) was a British journalist who was the editor of Motor Sport from 1936 to 1991. After 1991 he still contributed regularly to Motor Sport magazine, continuing a career that lasted eighty-one years. He also co-founded the Vintage Sports Car Club, and founded the Brooklands Society in 1967 among numerous contributions to the emerging vintage car scene. At his death he was considered the longest-serving journalist in the UK.
Boddy was born in Wandsworth, London in 1913, to a Welsh mother and an English father who would shortly be killed in World War I. He became interested in cars from an early age and began to build up an encyclopaedic knowledge of motoring, leaving school in 1924 and immersing himself in automotive publications and the Brooklands racing scene.
In tandem with his journalistic work, Boddy drove the original HRG 1,497cc sports car at the Lewes Speed Trials on 4 September 1937 with a best time of 27.4 sec, finishing third in the novices class. Boddy entered his Lancia at the Prescott opening rally on 10 April 1938; his 1924 Aston Martin being commended by the judges in the Best Kept Car Competition. He also entered the Lancia 1,352cc at the first Prescott speed hillclimb on 15 May 1938. Boddy was riding as passenger when Sydney Allard won the last speed event to be held in England prior to World War Two. Having set the fastest time at the Horndean Speed Trials, their car overturned past the finish line and both occupants were thrown clear and uninjured.
Boddy's first published article, in Motor Sport in 1930, was on the history of the Brooklands track, where he had first gone in 1927. He worked with Brooklands Track & Air for two and half years from 1931, and was appointed editor of the struggling Motor Sport in 1936. He wrote under the initials W.B., as company policy insisted that full names could not be used as bylines, though his identity was common knowledge.
...
Wikipedia