When we had his birthday party at my garage, people came from all over the world. Every great race car driver of the era was there. And the people that could not attend, telegrammed for days

To me the greatest thing about Phil Hill was that he was a regular guy. He just happened to be World Champion. I was only 11 when he won the World Championship in 1961, but I was lucky enough, later in his life and mine, to witness skills few people knew he had.

Phil was one of the most gifted mechanics I’ve ever seen. He’d work on a car and whereas anyone else would be covered with oil and grease, Phil would just wipe his hands on a rag and he was fine. He just had a deft touch.

When I came to California and I got interested in cars, Phil had a restoration shop called Hill and Vaughn that he worked at every day. Phil just liked being around mechanics and car guys. He would give me all sorts of interesting little tips: for instance, when driving any pre-war Packard, when you’re leaving from neutral, touch second, just barely, before bringing it down into first and you’ll never crunch a gear. And I never did.

I bought one of my first collector cars from Phil. It was a 1932 Packard that Phil Hill had restored himself, and to this day it’s perfect. I bought it from him 22 years ago and I’ve never had to do anything to it, other than just drive it. It runs exactly as it would have originally.

The interesting thing whilst over at his shop was that every little while it would be, ‘Phil, Dan Gurney’s on the phone’ or ‘Phil, the Ferrari factory called – they have a question.’ And then it would hit me again who he was, but the more time you spent with Phil, the more of a regular guy he was.

It was interesting to be in his office. He had his Championship memorabilia there, but not in that obnoxious glass-case sort of way. Things were push-pinned to the wall. Yeah, these are the things I won and there they are. No gold frames, just greasy thumbprints. He had all sorts of skilled craftsmen but every one of them would go to Phil when they had a problem. He wasn’t like a guy who owned a restoration shop and everybody in the shop knew more than he did. He was the guy who really knew everything. The most obscure, mundane little valve clearance, whatever it might be, Phil could recite it off the top of his head.

He was always the kindly older guy that worked on cars.

We had Phil’s 80th birthday party at my garage. In his last days, Phil loved to come over. We had a little beer cooler which had a seat and an electric motor and you could drive it around like a pensioner’s type of scooter. Phil loved to come to the garage and just spend the day watching the guys work on cars. He never wanted to be intrusive. He’d call and ask if he could come over and the answer was always ‘Of course’.

I was showing him my 1866 steam engine and I said, ‘Phil, you know why I put this thing in here?’ And he said, ‘No, why?’ ‘Because now you’re no longer the oldest thing in the shop.’ He thought that was hysterical.

Phil had lots of great cars. He had a 2.9 Alfa, he owned a Blower Bentley and a ’25 Locomobile, which he had tuned up so that it was really, really fast. He took me for a ride and we were going 95, 100 miles an hour, in and out of traffic, and Phil talking and gesturing.

The thing that used to send him crazy was that when I would drive him somewhere it would be very sedate. Race car driving is like sex: all men think they’re good at it. So whenever Phil would ride with someone they would scare the hell out of him because they would try to impress him with their driving ability. But of course most of them were awful and Phil just wanted to get to places alive. So whenever I drove him, it was always very sedately. And he watched you like a hawk. You didn’t want to miss a shift with Phil.

When we had his birthday party at my garage, people came from all over the world. Every great race car driver of the era was there. And the people that could not attend, telegrammed for days – AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, every icon in the world was sending congratulations to Phil at my garage. It was thrilling.
Mind you, even if Phil Hill had never been World Champion, we would still have had the party at my garage because he was really a true gentleman.

Maybe you can tell, but I was a huge fan of his.