Looking For The Real Weasel is a new book from author Rich Duisberg, it delves into the life and times of one of the motor racing world’s most infamous scoundrels –
Perhaps most famously, James would be the getaway driver for the thieves involved in The Great Train Robbery – a heist that is still today remembered as one of the biggest and arguably the most famous in British history.
Above Video: This episode from the channel Carfection features the author of this book, Rich Duisberg, along with cohost Darryl Sleath, telling the story of “The Weasel” Roy James.
James’ life was fascinating for a few reasons, but perhaps mostly because of the big “what if” that it leaves you with. You see, he had been a promising racing driver who battled on track with some of the biggest names of the era, but his life of crime would see him imprisoned and as a result his racing career fell by the wayside.
This book is the best deep-dive into the life of Roy James that has ever been written, the author Rich Duisberg is a well-known motoring writer and host, and one of the best qualified people to tell the tale.
Official Description: Looking For The Real Weasel
“Best known for his role in the great train robbery, Roy James was also an experienced racing driver, skilled silversmith and bon vivant. This is the story of the author’s attempts to find who the real Weasel was by working backwards through his life and investigating many outrageous capers.”
Here we see a young Roy James in one of his early open-wheel race cars, this was years before he became famous as the getaway driver for The Great Train Robbery. Image courtesy of Bonhams.
“We meet F1 drivers, cat burglars, gangsters, and a topless hang-gliding model. The author explores our secretive anti-hero’s haunts, accidentally learns about QPR’s synthetic football pitch, races a punk band, and trolls Bernie Ecclestone by post – all in his pursuit of the man they called The Weasel.”
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
