THE FAMILY WORKS

Carrying his father's racing spirit, Ray Mallock's life in motorsport as a driver, engineer, and constructor has stretched from Clubmans to Le Mans

- SIMON HUCKNALL

Ray Mallock is rightly proud of his family's motorsport heritage. The latest Mallock racing car, soon to go into production, is called the Mk37 and will hit the track some 64 years after his father Arthur produced the Mkl. Set aside Ferrari and Porsche, and you'll find that no other family name has had a longer continuous association with competition-car production and development than that of Mallock.

At 70, Mallock still cuts a youthful figure when we meet at the offices of RML Group (Ray Mallock Limited), the Wellingborough-based company that he founded 40 years ago after an illustrious racing career, and that since 2016 has been run by son Michael, himself a successful racing driver. Today, RML is the engineering backbone of many manufacturers producing high-performance cars, though more often than not it has to hide its expertise under a bushel to spare said companies their blushes. But in Ray's day, RML's name was synonymous not only with the enduring success of the Mallocks' eponymous racing cars, but also high-profile programmes such as the 1980s Group C Aston Martin Nimrod, Vauxhall's '90s British Touring Car Championship blitz, and Chevrolet's World Touring Car Championship wins this century.

"Growing up in a household led by Arthur, life was always going to be about motor racing," says Mallock. “He was fantastic at giving his children a long leash, and a wide range of opportunities and experiences. So we were left to get on with our own thing - because he was so focused on doing his own thing, which was motorsport.”