When you troll the paddock at a vintage race meet as often as I have, it takes a special car to catch your eye. While my heart still goes pitta-pat for Alfas, Moggies, 356s, and just about every Lotus and Jaguar, when a bright orange sports racer I have never seen before roars by through LRP’s Big Bend, I get serious palpitations. A quick scan of the entry list told me that this was a 1987 Spice Ferrari piloted by Paul Facella. What follows is what I learned about the car and its current owner, and the man and the company that created it – Gordon Spice.
Gordon Spice
Gordon Spice A few years back, I asked Derek Bell if he thought anyone was still having as much fun in Formula One as he and his contemporaries were having back in the day. (He had just regaled a bunch of us with non-PG stories.) He thought for a second and said that Johnny Herbert was, but that was about it. But it wasn’t until I read Gordon Spice’s autobiography, “Life of Spice” that I realized exactly what kind of shenanigans were commonplace for so many young drivers in the ’60s and ’70s. Given his confessed exploits in his autobiography, Spice’s name seems to have been appropriate! His motto, “Work as if you’ll live forever, live as if you will die tomorrow,” explains a lot. But I’m ahead of myself.
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