Tim Layzell began showing prowess drawing automobiles at the age of three. He grew up watching the ERAs, Bugattis and Alfa Romeos racing around the local tracks, and began sketching them. His family supported him and helped him transition from pastel and pencils to oils and acrylic.
At age 13 he entered, and won, the British Racing Driver’s Club’s prestigious Young Motoring Artist Award, for artists up to age 23. Part of the prize was to have his winning paintings exhibited alongside some of the World’s greatest motoring artists at that year’s Coys International Historic Festival at Silverstone.
Tim utilizes two distinct styles in his paintings, one is more realistic, and the other is more ‘pop art’ using bright blocks of color and thick black lines. As an avid enthusiast, Tim is most drawn to the pinnacles of motorsport, the 1930s to the 1970s, and his works typically cover these periods.
Tim’s ability to know where a car would be on a track, with all body roll and lifted wheels included, comes from beginning go-karting when he was eight, and his families love of racing and the TVR. Tim has completed in road rallys and hillclimbs in one of the two TVRs he has owned.
The RetroAuto poster for the 2016 Pebble Beach Councours depicts three Delahayes driving near the Links at Spanish Bay. Delahaye was the featured marque of 2016 and Henri Chapron was the celebrated coachbuilder. The car in the foreground is the Delahaye 145 Coupe bodied by Henri Chapron, and owned by Peter Mullin, followed by a 1948 Chapron cabriolet and a 135CS. All proceeds from the sale of this painting went to the Pebble Beach Foundation, and it is not the first Pebble Beach poster that was done by this young, talented artist.