After plummeting 50 feet down a lift shaft at his Mayfair home, racing legend Stirling Moss is apparently approaching his recovery with a typically stiff upper lip.
Sir Stirling suffered two broken ankles in the horror fall from the third floor of his town house, after a malfunction lead to the doors opening while the lift 'car' was on the floor above - leaving the driving great stepping out into thin air.
While the carbon fibre car was specially fashioned for the upmarket pad by Formula One team Williams, Stirling was quick to point out that the malfunctioning mechanism that caused the accident had nothing to do with Williams.
And despite having also broken bones in his foot and chipped four vertebrae, he seemed to be in top form as he wrote from his hospital bed that he was looking forward to being fit in time for his 30th anniversary cruise next month with wife Susie.
In a letter, reprinted by car site Jalopnik, Stirling said that he was facing his "sixth or seventh" time in a wheelchair as part of the expected six-to- eight-week recovery time, and admitted that Susie had given up on counting the numerous spells he had spent in a chair.
"The good news is that I didn't sell the wheelchair after the last shunt!" he added cheerily.
The legend also showed a touch of humility regarding the messages of goodwill he had received, adding: "This really has opened my eyes to how kind all my friends are, over an old ex-racing driver, flogging a fading image!"
With 16 Formula One wins, Stirling won almost one in four of the Grand Prix races he entered - though he never took the overall championship. In a 14-year career, split across numerous racing disciplines, he won 212 of the 529 races he entered.
