Meet Team Tazio’s newest member: Peter Stevens

In the next issue of Tazio, coming out next week, you can read Peter Stevens’ first article. Next to his well-known car designs – McLaren F1, JaguarSport XJR-15, Lotus Esprit II, Lotus Elan – Stevens worked on the graphic design of many a race car. Precisely this is the topic he’ll cover in Tazio.

Peter Stevens is just about the nicest person you’ll ever meet, but as you can see for yourself on his Facebook page, he can be razor-sharp when commenting on design. Whilst his car portfolio speaks for itself – in fact, Peter just wrote a book about the XJR-15 – his passion for motorsport is less well-known. The root can be found with Peter’s famous uncle, Denis Jenkinson, Motor Sport’s longtime Continental correspondent. And of course, Stirling Moss’ navigator in what was the fastest ever Mille Miglia in 1955, which they won in their Mercedes 300 SLR at an average of 100 mph.

From Brabham to BMW V12 LMR

Peter Stevens worked on the liveries of race cars from the mid-seventies onwards. First on the Brabhams – at Bernie Ecclestone’s request – later on the TWR saloon cars Tom Walkinshaw raced and on Richard Lloyd’s race cars. Stevens was also involved in Prodrive and Subaru’s WRC-winning Impreza, to be continued with Prodrive’s Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello and he did design work on the Le Mans-winning BMW V12 LMR. And that is all just part of his resumé.

Canon Porsche

If there is one man who can tell us what makes a good livery and why one works where others don’t, it’s Peter Stevens. In this series, he’ll talk about his own work and other liveries that have become ‘iconic’. In his first article for us, Peter goes through the history of car liveries at Le Mans, starting with the national colours first, and gradually seeing sponsor stickers take over, to then become themed by a main sponsor. And he talks about the work he did on the Richard Lloyd-entered Canon Porsche 956 that came second at Le Mans in 1985.

Tazio 11 comes out next week.