Hill was a driver with few peers
By STEVE PARKER Special to the Daily Press
SALINAS Phil Hill, the only American-born Formula One racing world champion, classic car expert, journalist, Italian opera afi-cionado, piano player and 70-year resident of Santa Monica, died Aug. 28 as a result of respiratory problems complicated by Parkinson’s Disease. He was 81.
Philip Toll Hill, Jr. was born in Miami, Florida, on April 20, 1927. His family soon moved to Santa Monica, where his father served as postmaster. Hill lived in that family home, north of San Vicente Boulevard, until his death.
He drove his first car there at age 9, commandeering a family friend’s then-new 1936 Oldsmobile.
Hill died during his annual sojourn to the Monterey Peninsula, where the vintage car races at Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway and the car world’s top classic car exhibition, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, are held every August. He occasionally drove in the vintage races and was a highly-respected Rolls-Royce and Ferrari judge at the Concours.
Hill won the Formula One title for Ferrari in 1961. Other highlights in his singular racing career include winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times (first American to ever win there), the 12 Hours of Sebring three times, the Argentine 1,000 Km three times, the Grand Prix of Italy twice and the Belgian Grand Prix. He raced for the factory teams of Ferrari, Ford and good friend, and sometimes driving partner, Jim Hall’s Chapparal team.
He dropped out of the University of Southern California to work on and sometimes race cars. Hill raced from the 1950s through 1967, when he retired. Though deaths in racing occurred then with a sickening regularity, Hill remained relatively unscathed. His driving abilities, combined with an intimate knowledge and understanding of the parts and engineering which went into each of his race cars, gave him better odds than most in finishing with his car’s wheels still on the ground.
He was also a longtime contributor to Road & Track magazine. Hill’s coverage of Grand Prix racing in Europe was, for many American readers, their first taste of F1 racing and other motoring events “on the continent.”
Hill and Vaughn, a business once co-owned by Hill when it was widely regarded as one of the world’s finest Rolls-Royce restoration facilities, was located for many years on Lincoln Boulevard, a block north of Interstate 10.
When he was 12, an aunt helped him buy a Ford Model T, and thus began his lifelong passion. He went to England as a Jaguar trainee in 1949 and signed with Enzo Ferrari in 1956. He made his debut in the French Grand Prix at Rheims, France in 1958, driving a Maserati.
Cars owned by Hill twice won the most-coveted prize in car collecting, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Best in Show. Some readers may remember seeing these cars on local streets, including a 1931 Pierce- Arrow 41 LeBaron Convertible Town Cabriolet which won in 1955, and the winner in 1977, a 1927 Packard 343 Murphy Convertible Sedan. His winning two of those trophies, more than two decades apart, is a true achievement.
Hill was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1991, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in Novi, MI, in 1989.
His son, Derek, ended his own burgeoning racing career to help his father as his Parkinson’s Disease advanced.
Hill is survived by his wife of 37 years, Alma Baran Hill, a daughter, Vanessa Hill Rogers of Phoenix, Arizona and son Derek Hill, of Culver City; also a sister, Helen Kellogg, of Essex, N.Y.; a stepdaughter, Jennifer Svendsen Delaney, of Niwot, Colo., and four grandchildren.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 3, 2008. Read the original PDF.