John Stoneham

Under the pen name of ‘Stonie’, John Stoneham has been published in the motoring and motorsport media for some 40 years. In parallel to cartoon, caricature and illustration work, active participation in motor sport event organisation has provided a backdrop to a career that started at a local speedway in his home city of Adelaide, South Australia. Dabbling in motor sport competition as a privateer in many classic car events over the years, then as a media participant, the cartoonist moved into major work with key sponsors and factory race teams. After a brief period working in London in the late seventies, the young illustrator was advised by a former president of the Cartoonist Club of Great Britain that he would never achieve a level of ability in cartooning until he had engaged in politics. Returning to Australia, and after many yearly attempts, eventually Stonie was accepted into Rupert Murdoch’s Adelaide afternoon newspaper, The News in 1984. Motor sport still followed the cartoonist. In 1984 the City of Adelaide announced it would host a round of the Formula One World Championship around the city’s parkland streets. After eight years of politics and motor writing, the cartoonist-come-writer was freelance again because Murdoch closed The News in March 1992. The motoring and motor sport hub of Australia was mostly based in Melbourne. In 1996, three years after John went there to live, the Australian Grand Prix moved to Melbourne. Stoneham added media liaison to his editorial cartoon duties at many events including the Australian Grand Prix, the FIA international marathon desert rally round, the 1997 Australian Safari, and, from 1998 to 2004, an international tarmac event, the Classic Adelaide Rally. This book is the result of a serious amount of mucking about in motor cars!