It’s all about speed for John Horsman.
“I like to go fast, yes,” he says, in his lilting British accent.
Years ago when he lived in England and drove a Sunbeam Tiger, “I could get over 100 in four places on my way to work.”
Of course, that kind of driving got him into some trouble when he moved stateside in 1976, settling in Scottsdale with its 55 mph speed limits.
“I collected tickets,” Horsman, 81, admits. In fact, it got to the point that he lost his driver’s license.
The need for speed is perfectly understandable once you know his background: John Horsman and professional car racing go together like, well, a pedal to the metal.
The engineer was behind some of the most famous race cars ever built — the iconic baby blue-and-orange Gulf-sponsored Ford GT40s, Mirages and Porsche 917s. Shelves are studded with mini versions of them, a little worse for wear after the grandkids have played with them over the years. Tucked in the midst of them is an eye-catching, massive hunk of etched crystal that has to weigh at least 20 pounds: the 24 Hours of Le Mans trophy from 1975.
“Usually all the trophies disappear with the drivers,” he says. “I’m lucky to have that.”
His cars won major races all over the world, the Le Mans three times — although Horsman maintains it should have been five.
“It’s a 40-hour day,” he says of the 24-hour endurance race.
He and his wife, Janet, who have four daughters between them, have lived in Tucson since 1983. One wall of the living room of their east-side, ranch-style home is made up of windows looking out onto the desert. The opposite wall is blanketed with paintings and photos of race cars and mountains. Horsman figures he has his dad to thank for both fixations. His father was a top rock climber in England in the ’20s who took his son out to explore the Swiss Alps as a teen.
As for the racing, “My father always drove pretty fast,” Horsman deadpans.
Horsman’s start in the world of racing began as an uncredentialed photographer. While an engineering student at Cambridge, he’d spend his weekends shooting races, hopping fences and tucking into gullies to get good shots of the cars whizzing past. Aston Martin used some of his pictures and after graduating, he landed a job there in 1958 as a project engineer. Later, he became assistant to managing director John Wyer, a legendary team manager in the world of car racing. The two worked together for decades, with Wyer eventually turning over the wheel to him.
Horsman — whose 2006 autobiography “Racing in the Rain” details his experiences — is very specific about his role in the auto-racing industry. He didn’t design, he developed.
“Designers designed the cars, I made them better,” he says.
Car in point: the Porsche 917. The vehicle had a reputation for instability and poor handling and Wyer’s team, which included Horsman, was called in to turn the car into a winner for the first race of the 1970 season. Horsman is credited with improving the car’s aerodynamics with a shorter, redesigned tail, initially improvised with aluminum sheeting and Duct tape.
Though Horsman was never behind the wheel, his spot on the sidelines could be dangerous.
Horsman remembers one competition, the 1972 6-Hour Endurance Race at Watkins Glen, when an M6 Mirage came in fast and slammed into him.
“I got hit by the car in the ankles,” he says, pointing to the photo in his memoir that captures the exact moment. “I flew and landed on my bum. I just sprang up and carried on.”
Another time, a gas leak ignited a fire, and Horsman grabbed a fire extinguisher to put it out.
So, what does the man, who had such an impact on racing, drive? He actually has three cars: a sleek, silver two-seater 2004 BMW Z4 that prompts other cars on the road to move aside, a rebuilt 1979 Mazda RX7 that he’s owned since 1981 and … a 2012 Ford Fiesta.
“For driving around town.”
