7/12/1924 - 25/4/2005
Record updated 26-Sep-07
John Love was well known in Europe, having ventured to England in 1961 to race Ken Tyrrell's Formula Junior Cooper along with Tony Maggs. Although in his late thirties, Love was back for more in 1962, driving the works Mini-Cooper with spectacular success as well as competing in Formula Junior, but his season was cut short by an accident at Albi in which he sustained a badly broken arm. Business interests kept him at home from then onwards, apart from an abortive trip to the 1964 Italian GP, when his works Cooper was ill prepared. The first of Love's six South African championships came in 1964, and it was a tally that was only halted by a determined rival in Dave Charlton, with whom he had some ding-dong battles over the years. Success generally eluded John in the local World Championship Grands Prix, though, with the exception of the 1967 event, when only a late pit stop for fuel prevented him taking what would have been a fairy-tale victory. In addition to his single-seater exploits in South Africa, Love also regularly raced sports cars with distinction in the Springbok series of the late sixties and early seventies. He was involved in his dealership in Bulawayo & made frequent visits to South Africa for some historic festivals before his recent sad death from cancer.
Basil van Rooyen's McLaren M7a and John Love's Lotus 49 big wing.
John Love's Brabham Repco BT20 Gunston 8th Jan 1968, Cape Town
John Love's Surtees TS9, Charlton's Lotus 49c, Driver's McLaren M1
John Love, March 701 Clubhouse Kyalami
John Love ready to go
John Love shaken in truck to right, distressed mechanic Gordon J.