He claims nobody remembers him as a racer, but as one of the sport’s formative Kiwi innovators, he became a lynchpin of some of the finest teams
INTERVIEW: ROB WIDDOWS
THE MOTOR SPORT INTERVIEW
Howden Ganley came to England from New Zealand in 1962 and, having won races back home in his own Lotus 11 he set about achieving his ambition to climb the ladder to fame and fortune in Europe. This took him longer than anticipated but in 1964 he got a call from Bruce McLaren and was one of the first four people, all Kiwis, to join the expanding McLaren team. He started as a fabricator, graduated to mechanic, and stayed three years before leaving to focus on his desire to race. In 1967 he got himself a Formula 3 Brabham BT21, along with a van and trailer, and took the first step up that ladder. Not only did his talent and determination take him all the way to Formula 1, with BRM, Williams, March and Maki, but he came second at Le Mans for Matra and later partnered with Tim Schenken to become a manufacturer with Tiga Race Cars. Lucky to survive two huge accidents at the Nürburgring in 1973 and ’74, Ganley has remained closely involved with the sport as a director of the BRDC and has written a lively autobiography, The Road to Monaco, which captures the ups and downs of a long and varied career.
Motor Sport: You were racing in New Zealand, winning some prize money, so why did you make the move to England with no prospect of a job?
HG: I wasn’t doing well enough to make a living. I’d done some journalism because my parents considered that qualified as a “proper professional job” but I didn’t see myself as a journalist. I wanted to be a professional racing driver. I could stay in New Zealand and be a big fish in a tiny pond or go to England and be a small fish in a big pond and swim my way to the top. My grandfather died, in a rather timely manner, and left me enough money for a one-way flight to Sydney, then a rusty old boat to Piraeus and a bus overland to London, arriving on a dark and foggy night.
I bought a copy of Autosport, went through the ‘sits vac’ column and after a few ‘no hopers’ who promised me cars to drive, I ended up at Gemini which led to me racing their Formula Junior car. They lost their Esso sponsorship so I went to the machine shop at Phoenix. They were building an F3 car, but that fell into the ashes rather than rising from them. So, needing money, I worked for Fulham Borough Council in their rubbish tip where they said I worked too fast! Then… one evening Eoin Young from McLaren called me, said Bruce wanted to talk to me. He came on the phone and I started the fo
