This effortlessly friendly, perma-Terrycloth hat-wearing raconteur will be greatly missed.

Former British Saloon Car Champion Frank Gardner died on Friday, August 28. He was 78. The laconic Australian competed in eight grands prix but is remembered more for his versatility in other categories.

A former boxer, he achieved great success on the home front aboard a self-prepared Jaguar C-type before moving to Europe where he was a front-runner in Formula Junior and a class winner at Le Mans in 1962.

One of many talented driver-engineers to arrive in the UK from the Antipodes in period, Gardner was already comfortably into his 30s when he won his first BSCC title in 1967 with the crack Alan Mann Racing squad. He followed though by winning the following year’s championship before outlining his versatility by taking the British F5000 crown in 1971. Having fielded his own big-block Ford Mustang in 1970, he would seal his final BSCC title in 1973 driving Adrian Chambers’ SCA Freight Chevrolet Camaro.

Returning to Australia in 1975, he won the Australian Sports Sedan series two years later before retiring to run the factory JPS BMWs. This effortlessly friendly, perma-Terrycloth hat-wearing raconteur will be greatly missed.