St. John Horsfall

St John Ratcliffe Stewart "Jock" Horsfall (31 July 1910 – 20 August 1949) was a British motor racing driver.

In his early 20s, Horsfall began competing in British club level events, and he won The Motor Trophy at the MCC's Llandudno Trials in 1934, driving Wolseley. During the late 1930s, He became a familiar and popular competitor at British and European motor races, commonly driving his Aston Martin 2-litre Speed Model, nicknamed the 'Black Car', or Tony Rolt's ERA. Driving the Black Car, Horsfall won the 1938 Leinster Trophy race at Tallaght. In the same year the pairing took victory in the 2-litre class, and finished second overall, in the RAC Tourist Trophy race at Donington Park, beating the more fancied BMW works cars.

In addition to his competitive career, during World War II he was employed as a specialist driver for the British secret service. As part of his duties, he was involved in Operation Mincemeat, a famously successful disinformation plot to convince the Germans that the Allies planned to land in Greece rather than Italy. This operation was featured in the film "The Man Who Never Was".

In 1945 he acquired a second Speed Model registration EML129 which initially was comprehensively developed into a "Formula B" car running on Methanol.

Returning to the track following the cessation of hostilities Horsfall he drove the Black Car to victory in the 1946 Belgian Sports Car Grand Prix.

In 1948 he and co-driver Leslie Johnson won the Spa 24 Hours race, sharing a prototype Aston Martin 2-Litre Sports car. Also in 1948 he entered EML129 to the Hill Climb at Luton Hoo and posted the fastest unblown time for an unsupercharged 2 litre car.

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