Ronnie Spain

The Author Ronnie Spain, a lorry driver by profession, began his obsession with GT40s in the late seventies, at a time when they were just old cars lying around, often without chassis plates, and referred to according to their history – for example: ‘The Hawkins car’ (AM GT2); ‘The Filipinetti car’ (1033); or ‘The seven-liter car’ (1012, at that time being rebuilt). As a self-confessed ‘data junkie’, he took an interest in identifying the cars and in the end became the individual on Earth who has seen more GT40s than anybody else – in fact, all of the survivors except five, those being, according to Ronnie, 1038, 1052, 1068, M3/1105 and AM GT-1, and he says he has not given up on ticking those off his list too! The GT40 community has welcomed Ronnie, sometimes affectionately calling him ‘a nuisance’, because he has asked so many questions and loved things being accurate and correct. In doing this, he has gained a lot of supporting friends, and also some very determined enemies when he wouldn’t simply accept their ‘stories’ and unhesitatingly fought back against their false rewritings of history. More importantly for history, he has amassed an immense documentation and photo archive, and his forensic approach has enabled him to confirm the correct identity for several cars which had lost their provenance. This volume represents in great part his life quest, to the point that it is literally the core of his identity – as any of his family members and friends will confirm, from having had to listen to him talk about his obsession over the years!