By Roger Houghton
Chris Rea, the famous English singer and songwriter who died on December 22 at the age of 74, was a keen motoring and motorsport enthusiast.
I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Goodwood Revival in 2009 where he was racing a 1955 Lotus 6 Ford — the forerunner of the more famous Lotus 7 — in the Madgwick Cup for classic pre-1966 sports cars with engines under 2l.
Rea finished 11th in a field of 30 cars in the 13-lap race around the famous Goodwood circuit.
The reason I approached him in the pits was that I had a Millennium 7 — similar in appearance to a Lotus 7 — built for me in South Africa by Chris Carstens and his team in Kempton Park, hence my interest in Rea’s Lotus 6. A similar Lotus 6 Ford had been owned by Toby van Reenen, a fellow member of the Pretoria Motor Club who raced it in the early days of the new Kyalami circuit in the 1960s.
What shocked me during the short time I spent with the singer was the way he was surreptitiously smoking Marlboro cigarettes in the paddock, which was a non-smoking area. He held the cigarette backwards in his cupped hand and kept swinging it to and fro to disperse the telltale smoke.
I certainly had not expected a man whose voice was his fortune to be an inveterate smoker. I have subsequently learnt he quit smoking after suffering a stroke in 2016. He was also battling cancer at that time.
Early in his career, Rea had considered journalism, seeing himself writing about racing cars. The whim soon passed, and he concentrated his talents on music but retained his interest in motor racing.
He raced many different cars during his career, including a Lotus 23B, a 1964 Lotus Elan 26R, a Lola Mk 1 and a 1987 Caterham 7, a picture of which featured on the cover of one of his albums, Auberge.
He also owned the Ferrari 330 used as a donor car for the replica Ferrari 250 Le Mans used in the 1996 movie La Passione. In the latter stages of his racing career, he settled for competing in a 1957 Morris Minor 1000 in British Police livery.
However, his real racing passion was the restored replica Ferrari Dino 156 Shark Nose Formula One car he built using salvaged components such as the engines and transmission, with the frame and bodywork made from sketches and photographs.
The car had the choice of the 65° and 120° V6 engines. The task took 22 years, and the car, which was a tribute to American world champion Phil Hill, first appeared at the 2017 Goodwill Festival of Speed, where it was driven up the hill by Phil’s son, Derek.
Rea’s motor racing interests included attending Formula One races when his schedule allowed. His involvement in F1 included being a member of the Jordan team’s pit crew at the 1995 Monaco Grand Prix. Team owner Eddie Jordan, himself a musician, gave Rea a drive in one of his Formula One cars. The popular song Saudade was a tribute to one of Rea’s heroes, three-time world champion Ayrton Senna.
The British rock legend was a significant supporter of charities, including Refuge, which cares for people suffering from domestic violence, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) and organisations supporting cancer research.
His support included donating the proceeds from auctioning two of his cars to charities. These were the 1987 Caterham 7, which raised £11,500 (R258,609) for the NSPCC, and a 1989 Rover Mini, which had been electrified by Recharge. The latter raised £25,000 (R562,162) for Refuge.