John Starkey began life in Birmingham, England. After school, with dreams of Rock stardom in mind, he played guitar in several bands, along the way opening for the Beatles in 1963, before becoming Jasper Carrott’s manager. His father’s love of fast cars had passed down to him and, starting with a Jaguar XK120, bought in 1966 for £120, he started discovering this heady world. After a 1958 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta, life was never quite the same again and the racing bug bit hard when he first drove a Porsche RSR. This was followed by “a beast” of a 935 and then a Lola T70 Mk 3b coupe and a March 84G. These he raced across Europe and America. In 1997, John moved to America, where he began writing, naturally about racing cars, and has published more than twenty such books. He also investigates the individual histories of old racing cars for clients, and together with Su, his wife, likes walking and swimming, plus driving that Jaguar XK120.