1,000 Greatest Drivers: John Rhodes

The obscure British touring car legend is still alive and kicking at 97.

Rhodes, who turns 97 today, is one of the oldest living drivers who I consider a lock for my list (although still not quite as old as Paul Goldsmith, who I covered last week). You probably won’t have heard of him unless you’re a historian of British motorsports because his F1 career was a brief blip and because the British Touring Car Championship has never received as much press as it deserved, but the combination of his four straight British Saloon Car Championships (as the BTCC was called at the time), his European Touring Car Championship, his marquee sports car wins, and his extremely high open wheel rating (although it was admittedly based on an extremely small sample size in minor league series) were enough to push him over the line for me despite a rather short career.