In RACER's Heroes V Issue: Forever First

Phil Hill will always be America's first Formula 1 World Champion – nobody can take that away from him. But his list of accomplishments doesn't stop there.

A perfectionist blessed with a photographer's eye and a piano tuner's ear, Phil Hill neither broke a bone, nor drew blood during motor racing's most dangerous and unforgiving age.

This modest man with much to boast about wondered aloud if, "He'd not been trying hard enough."

Not so.

Neatly bookending with victories a career of 18 years, he scored the final victory for a front-engined grand prix car and the first international win for a sports car carrying a high-mounted rear wing.

Hill was the first American to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans and, 55 years on from the feat, he remains the only American-born Formula 1 World Champion.

He finished second in a wild, wild, wild Carrera Panamericana, broke the sub-nine-minute barrier at the Nürburgring, marked his farewell open-wheel race – not that he knew it at the time – by overtaking Jim Clark and Jack Brabham, and set a fastest lap at Le Mans, despite a swirling morning mist.

But...he never hit the bricks at Indy. Which perhaps explains – but certainly doesn't excuse – why he's seldom mentioned in the same breath as a Mario Andretti, or a Dan Gurney.

Though he kept the same Santa Monica, Calif., address throughout his life – although he was born in Miami, Fla., in April 1927 – Europe was where it was at for this Kappa Sigma opera lover. But that's not to say he was afraid of getting his hands dirty.

He dropped business admin at USC in favor of unpaid work as a mechanic's mate on a friend of a friend's Midget racer. Then he joined International Motors, which was Beverly Hills only in terms of its address, but at least paid him and sent him on an apprenticeship to Jaguar Cars and SU Carburettors in post-war austerity Britain.

Having already scored his debut victory in a self-tuned MG at Los Angeles' homespun Carrell Speedway in July 1949, an extracurricular trip to the 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone set Hill firmly on his path. The Jaguar XK120 and Alfa Romeo 2900B he graduated to were earned the hard way, but his Ferrari 212 Export of '52 was an inheritance purchase.

Hill's relationship with his late father, a city postmaster, had been difficult – but he was about to replace it with another. He'd fallen hook, line and sinker for Ferrari's romantic shtick – with which Enzo would "beat" him often.

Although Hill won the races – three Le Mans, plus three Sebrings – that forged Ferrari's name in affluent America, Enzo would casually label him "not outstanding." They met in the summer of 1953 when Ferrari's "Captain America," Luigi Chinetti, recommended Hill to Enzo.

Two years later, having finished a close second at Sebring as a paid driver in a privateer Ferrari co driven by Carroll Shelby, Hill was awarded a works drive at the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans. His encouraging performance would be ended by a clutch problem, and hugely overshadowed by the sport's most cataclysmic crash.

Get the whole story in The Heroes V Issue of RACER magazine, on sale now.

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