STIRLING Moss, the name even has a smooth, fast sound to it.  He was a motorsport legend, the man generally considered Britain’s greatest ever racing driver and he cut his competitive teeth by roaring full throttle up a Worcestershire hillside.

He also lent his name to a generation of traffic policemen who, after pulling over a speeding driver, would lean through the window and enquire: “Who do you think you are, Stirling Moss?”

A Blue Plaque has now been unveiled at Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb in the Teme Valley, the oldest motorsport venue in the world, to mark Moss’s remarkable career. After all it was here on his first visit as a rookie in September 1948 he came First in Class and followed it up the next year by setting the record for the fastest un-supercharged car (in June, 1949) and achieved Fastest Time of the Day (September, 1949).

It was the start of a glittering career that won the hearts and minds of motor racing fans worldwide, although ironically never a World Drivers Championship for the man who was knighted in 2000 and died at the age of 90 last year.

One of Moss’s great friends was Worcestershire businessman and author Philip Porter of Knighton-on-Teme, who founded the Jaguar XK Club in 1997 with his wife Julie and Sir Stirling became its patron.

“I had been crazy about him ever since I was a boy,” Philip explained. “I remember my parents taking me to my first motor racing event at Silverstone in 1956 when I was five. I must have been a right pain to them, pointing out Stirling every time he went past.

“There were other famous drivers there, like Fangio and Mike Hawthorne, but Moss had the magic. There was just something about him. I first met him in the 1980s when he was guest of honour at the opening of a Lotus garage near Pershore and was struck  by how relaxed and friendly he was. We got on well and later collaborated on a series of books about his life.”

The Blue Plaque unveiling, which had been organised by Worcester Civic Society, took place at Shelsley Walsh during a special weekend to mark the 60th anniversary of the Jaguar E-Type, a car maker with whom Moss had a special association.

Philip added: “Stirling’s first major international race victory came on the eve of his 21st birthday at the wheel of a borrowed Jaguar XK 120 in the 1950 RAC Tourist Trophy at Dundrod, and he always described this as his great break. It led William Lyons (MD of Jaguar Cars) to ask him to join the planned Jaguar works team.

In 1951 he raced one of three C-types at Le Mans, went on to break the lap record with an average speed of 105.1mph and ‘broke’ the opposition, leading to Jaguar taking a victory that did more to establish the brand worldwide than anything else in its entire history.

He won the RAC TT six more times and continued to race for Jaguar until the end of 1954. He remained a dedicated Jaguar fan.”

The Shelsley event saw famous Jaguars arrive from all over Europe, including the three E-types used for the 1961 launch of the model at the Geneva Motor Show and an  XK 120 fixed-head coupe owned by Stirling Moss and used by him to drive between race meetings in the 1950s.

So prestigious were some of the cars, that a line up of six of them at the plaque unveiling  was valued at an astonishing £30 million.

But it says much for the legend of Stirling Moss that had he been there, he would still have been star of the show.