Harry Schell

Born in Paris but of American parents, Harry O’Reilly Schell was a fun-loving extrovert who was one of the great characters of the fifties motor racing scene. His childhood during the thirties was filled by racing, for his father Laury was the patron of Ecurie Bleue, a team which raced Delahayes and Talbots. His mother Lucy took over the running of the team following the death of her husband in a road accident and ran René Dreyfus at Indianapolis just before the war. Young Harry was on that trip, and resolved to race himself once old enough.

The war saw him serving in the US military in Finland, and by the late forties he was taking his first steps in racing. In 1949 he managed a second place with a Talbot in the Coupe du Salon at Montlhéry but it was the following year, when he raced a Cooper-JAP, that brought him success. Schell handled the little car with great verve, frequently embarrassing Formula 2 opposition. At the Circuit du Lac, in Aix-les-Bains, he succeeded in beating the works Ferrari in his heat and comfortably led the final before being forced into retirement. He managed to gain an entry for the Monaco GP that year but was eliminated in the first-lap multiple crash, but at Bremgarten he enjoyed his first taste of a real Grand Prix machine, taking a Talbot into eighth place.

Schell mainly raced Maseratis entered by Ecurie Platé in 1951 and 1952, but started to gain solid results only when he joined forces with Simca Gordini. A second place in the Cadours GP of 1952 encouraged both parties to continue together the following year, when Harry was out of luck in the championship Grands Prix, but took a string of good finishes in the French championship rounds. Schell ran his own Maserati A6GCM in 1954, taking second place at Castelfusano and thirds at Pescara and Aintree, but by the end-of-season Spanish GP he had his own Maserati 250F and caused something of a stir as he drove off into the distance at the start, only losing the lead to Fangio after a spin and eventually retiring with transmission failure. There was talk of the American running on half-tanks to break up the opposition, but he had certainly made his mark, for both Vanwall and Ferrari used his services in 1955, and he won some minor events for Tony Vandervell. Schell showed the green machines’ startling potential in 1956 when he put on a marvellous show at Reims, snapping at the heels of the works Ferraris, and scored a win in the Caen GP before taking his leave to join the works Maserati team in 1957.

Harry fulfilled a useful subordinate role to Fangio, recording a number of good results, including a fine if distant third place at Pescara. He also took second place at Pau and third at Modena before arranging to join BRM for the 1958 and 1959 seasons. Harry proved an excellent acquisition for the Bourne team, his second place at Zandvoort being the closest the American would ever get to that elusive Grand Prix win. At the end of the 1959 season he purchased a Cooper-Climax which he raced under the Ecurie Bleue banner as a privateer. He also raced the car at the beginning of 1960 before joining the Yeoman Credit team. It was while practising one of their cars for the International Trophy in the wet at Silverstone that he was to lose his life, crashing after the Cooper got away from him on one of the circuit’s fast bends. Harry was an immensely popular character, and his death was a great loss to the racing scene as it moved into a new era.