- Lance Reventlow
Infobox Person
name = Lance Reventlow
caption =
birth_date = birth date|1936|2|24
birth_place =London, England , U.K.
death_date = death date and age|1972|7|24|1936|2|24
death_place =Aspen, Colorado , U.S.
spouse =Jill St. John , 1959 - 1963 (divorced)
Cheryl Holdridge , 1964 - 1972 (his death)
occupation =Racing driver ,Heir
yearsactive = 1959 - 1972
othername = }nickname =
children =Former F1 driver
Name = Lance Reventlow
Nationality = flagicon|USA American
Years = F1|1960
Team(s) = Scarab, Cooper
Races = 4 (1 start)
Championships = 0
Wins = 0
Podiums = 0
Points = 0
Poles = 0
Fastest laps = 0
First race =1960 Monaco Grand Prix
First win =
Last win =
Last race =1960 British Grand Prix Lance Reventlow (
February 24 ,1936 –July 24 ,1972 ) was a wealthy playboy, entrepreneur, andracing driver . He was the stepson of actorCary Grant .Biography
Count Lance von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow was the only child of Danish nobleman "Count Curt von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow" and American socialite
Barbara Hutton who almost died giving birth to him. He was born atWinfield House inLondon , built by his mother and named for her grandfatherFrank Winfield Woolworth . His parents' marriage was a tumultuous one, filled with his father's emotional and physical abuse of him and his mother, and his mother's growing alcohol and drug addiction.Fact|date=December 2007 She had inherited the Woolworth department store fortune and was then one of the wealthiest women in the world. The marriage, Barbara Hutton's second of seven, did not last and the child became the subject of a bitter custody battle.Left to be raised by nannies and boarding schools, Lance Reventlow was six years old when his mother married actor
Cary Grant who took the already troubled boy under his wing. Reventlow's mother and Grant divorced onJuly 11 , 1945 and two days later the then nine-year-old was abducted by his biological father and taken toCanada but later returned. Grant remained close to Reventlow, who spent a great deal of time in the Los Angeles area.Racing career
Beginnings
In 1948, at age 12, Reventlow was introduced to the world of
Grand Prix motor racing when his mother married Prince Igor Troubetzkoy who won theTarga Florio that year. As a teenager, Reventlow's money afforded him the latest in exotic cars that led to his involvement in motor racing.In
Hollywood , Reventlow became close friends with fellow auto enthusiastJames Dean and competed in club events around California. OnSeptember 30 , 1955 Lance Reventlow was one of the last people to speak to Dean when they met on their way to an auto race inSalinas, California . Dean was killed a few hours later in his racingPorsche 550 Spyder .Professional career
Reventlow eventually decided to go to Europe to race cars and spent a season driving Cooper
Formula 2 cars. He then returned to the United States and set up his own company inVenice, California to constructChevrolet -powered race cars he named Scarab. Along with hired driverChuck Daigh , the two were initially successful in racing.They won the majority of major sportscar events they entered, often in competition with the Cunningham team of Lister Jaguars. Daigh drove a Scarab to victory in the 1958 Riverside International Grand Prix in California beating a field of international race car teams, including the world famous race car driverPhil Hill and the Ferrari Team.Carroll Shelby drove a Scarab to first place at Continental Divide Raceways inCastle Rock, Colorado , breaking a course record.Personal life
In 1959, Lance Reventlow visited the mother he barely knew at her new mansion in
Cuernavaca, Mexico . She had just divorced her sixth husband. Reventlow confronted her over his upbringing, and after a heated argument the two parted company. Already reluctantly in the media spotlight because of his mother and the family wealth, shortly after the confrontation with his mother, Reventlow married actressJill St. John . The glamorous couple were the focus of much media attention and his racing team was much talked about for having built the firstFormula One race car in America. Shifting operations overseas to Britain, Reventlow's team raced the Scarab cars inFormula One with little success against the new rear-engine race cars. Lance went back to the drawing board and built a very competitive prototype Scarab rear-engined car, but had become less interested in racing before its testing was complete. In 1962 he shut down the operation, leased the California facilities toCarroll Shelby , and quit auto racing altogether.Reventlow's organization constructed a total of eight Scarabs during its existence. In a 1971 interview, Reventlow confirmed that three front-engined Chevy powered sports cars, three front engined formula cars, one rear-engined formula car and one rear engined sports car were built. Two of the front-engined formula cars were powered by Reventlow-commissioned engines drawn up by American racing engine designer
Leo Goossen to Reventlow's specifications, while the third car was powered by a Goossen designed and engineeredOffenhauser engine. The rear engined formula was powered by a modifiedBuick powerplant; this engine and the suspension/brake package was taken from this car and used on the rear-engined sports car, the last Scarab built.Reventlow's marriage to Jill St. John ended in divorce in 1963. In 1964, he married ex-Mouseketeer
Cheryl Holdridge , introduced to him by close friend, singerJimmy Boyd . The couple mostly remained out of the glare of publicity for several years. An avid Alpine skier, hiker, sailor and pilot, Reventlow maintained a home inAspen, Colorado . It was there in 1972 while looking at an area to build a ski resort with real estate brokers, that, according to theNTSB report, Reventlow was a passenger in aCessna 206 . Unknown to Reventlow, (who was a fully rated instrument, multi engine, commercial pilot with thousands of hours), the Cessna pilot was an inexperienced 27-year-old student who flew into a blind canyon and stalled the aircraft while trying to turn around. The small plane plunged to the ground, killing Lance Reventlow and the others aboard.Cary Grant took some of Lance's closest friends along with him in his plane to Aspen for Reventlow's memorial service, given by his widow Cheryl. His widow later marriedManning J. Post , a major figure in the Democratic Party in California.Complete Formula One World Championship results
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