Photographer, engineer, writer, editor, movie
director, travel enthusiast, mechanic, car restorer and racing fan,
Ozzie Lyons was also a great dad. With Geraldine, his wife of over 50
years, he gave their four children the widest possible exposure to the
world and its myriad opportunities.
Ozzie’s fascination with cars began in
childhood, and never ebbed. His first racing photos date from 1938,
when he shot dirt trackers in lurid action at the Altamont county
fairground in New York state. He was at some of the earliest Watkins
Glen sports car races, and began going to Bridgehampton almost as soon
as racing started there. He traveled to far-off Florida for the
second-ever Sebring 12-hour race in 1953, and liked it so much that the
Lyons family made that growing classic event the core of its annual
vacation.
It was there that he became friends with Gregor
Grant, the founder of England’s Autosport magazine, who
eventually appointed Ozzie his American correspondent.
Though his weekday employment was in engineering
and film making with the General Electric company, Ozzie energetically
pursued his journalistic career on weekends, reporting on races and
rallies, covering car shows, and photographing custom and classic
vehicles both for magazines and the car’s owners. When he could,
he’d take his son and often the whole family along on adventures
to every corner of North America. It was on these expeditions that he
patiently taught his son how to use a camera, and on returning home,
how to process the film and print the photos.
In 1957, intrigued by its superb engineering, he
bought a Rolls Royce Phantom II built in 1934. That summer the Lyons
clan set off in this magnificent, wire-wheeled monster for a
coast-to-coast tour. By the end of the month young Pete, who’d
only just received his driver’s license, had almost gotten the
knack of the non-synchronized (“crash-box”) transmission.
Ozzie loved that car; he drove it to work, he stripped it down to the
frame, he rebuilt its engine, gearbox and axles, he and Gerry drove it
cross-country again; he kept his PII for 25 years.
Even after finally parting with the car itself,
he remained active in the Rolls Royce Owners Club, for many years
serving as editor of the national organization’s magazine, The
Flying Lady.
