My first Automobile Year came as a birthday present in 1960, when I was 14. It had to be ordered specially by the biggest bookshop in Belfast, my hometown. I treasured it, and those that were to follow it, which fed my teenage ambitions of becoming a Grand Prix driver. I loved the way in which it covered every aspect of cars and the motor racing, and I was fascinated by the descriptions of the races and the cars that took part in them. I particularly remember an article illustrated by cutaway drawings of some of the great racing engines of the past, together with examples of what were at that time the state of the art in Formula 1 power units. Looking at them from my position today, as a commentator on today’s F1, it is incredible to see the progress that has been made.

I collected Automobile Year for ten years – the ten years that ended when I saw my ambition of becoming a professional racing driver become a reality. When I left home and started to race regularly as a professional, I didn’t have the time or the space to maintain my collection. But I still treasure the Automobile Years of my youth – I just wish I hadn’t read them so much that my first two copies needed to be covered in a protective wrapping of brown paper. That means that I no longer have those wonderful jacket photographs that attracted me in the first place. But I do still have Number 12, with the superb shot of Dan Gurney in the Cobra on the Targa Florio. For me, that’s one of the greatest racing photographs ever taken.

Born in Belfast in 1946, John Watson is Northern Ireland’s most successful racing driver. As a schoolboy he was determined to compete in racing, and he started in an Austin Healey ‘Frogeye’ Sprite in 1964. In 1970 his family backed him as he went full-time, and their faith was rewarded in 1973, when he made the breakthrough into Formula 1 at the British and US Grands Prix. A full season in a Brabham followed in 1974, and in 1975 he drove for Surtees, Lotus and Penske. The latter contracted him for the 1976 season and he brought the team and himself a first GP win that year in Austria. He returned to Brabham for the next two years and in 1978 he joined McLaren, for whom he took four more victories between then and 1984. Turning to sports cars, he drove for Jaguar among others. Now he is a TV commentator and road-tester for F1 Magazine.