Booking It

After more than a year, we finally have our hands on a copy of John Wright’s definitive tome on the legendary Bill Sadler. Gord Whatley gives us a long-awaited review.

Book review by Gord Whatley, Moto|ology Contributor.

Bill Sadler was arguably a genius. He designed, constructed and raced cars, engineered and built several novel aircraft and worked on some of the most clandestine and interesting military projects of the cold war era.

The racing biography of the year has arrived! Fast, Faster, Fastest is the story of Canadian, Bill Sadler, his life and his race cars. The book of nearly 400 pages containing over 700 photographs highlights a driver, his cars, aircraft company and truly amazing engineering skills.

Family photos and records of Mr. Sadler’s mechanical adventures during his early years illustrate his love of making everything go faster… Bill’s Jowett-powered racing Hillman Minx and the later version with Ford V8 60 flathead power are well covered. The original-designed frame-up car builds began in 1954 with the Mark I Jowett-powered car. Raced in 1954-56 it was replaced by the Mark II which featured an attractive body design with Chevrolet V8 engine and an Alvis preselector gearbox.

Bill had a brief stay in England with the Mark II and while working for John Tojeiro, Bill gained more knowledge and skills which eventually led to his development of the Mark III. The fascinating evolutionary details of these builds are well explained with great race records and photo coverage.

Historic events like the Bahamas Speed Weeks in 1957, Watkins Glen in 1958 and various other tracks in the eastern USA and Canada are duly noted. The build of the Sadler Mark III for the 1959 racing season was sponsored by Nisonger of New York and incorporated an advanced new chassis design. It was a very pretty car for the period, faster than the Mark II but unfortunately by the time of its introduction, it was not competitive. Later in the late 1990’s Bill recreated the car for vintage racing.

The Sadler Mark IV/Dailu Mark 1/11 of 1959 is well covered with photos and details of the design evolution.

The popular Sadler Formula Juniors and other open-wheeled varieties designed and built by Bill have extensive coverage. Great photos, race rules and even sales literature. Two more sections follow on Formula Juniors: Ownership Summary and Timeline, and there’s a complete Appendix by Nigel Russell on the Sadler Formula Juniors Project. It’s terrific!

Chapters on the Sadler-Meyer Special, Sadler Formula Libre and Sadler Mark V are all covered with detailed photos, descriptions of the builds and histories of the cars. A precursor to Can-Am?

Bill left racing and his Auto Electric business in 1961 and attended university until 1966 when he graduated from MIT with a Master’s Degree in Electronic Engineering. Time spent with General Dynamics and projects for the CIA filled his days with new adventures. In the early 1980’s Bill started his own aircraft company, the Sadler Aircraft Corporation, and built Ultralight Vampire aircraft and eventually larger more powerful aircraft and even “drones”. All this was a most interesting departure from auto racing and car construction.

In 1998 Bill got back into auto racing, “Vintage Style”, driving Wes Abendroth’s Sadler Mark 11 at Laguna Seca. The ensuing chapter is full of contemporary racing photos with many pictures of drivers and cars in detail.

The story does not end there as author John Wright has included “Appendices” to give depth and accuracy to the Sadler Racing History. Examples are: Race Records, Sadler Drivers, Race Tracks of the Period, Formula Junior Ownership records, Surviving Cars and a large Appendix of articles from periodicals on the Sadler builds. To complete the volume, there’s a detailed index to save the reader time locating information. This Sadler biography is much more than his life as it includes photos and details of many icons of the period racing fraternity.