Michael was born in England on 27th April 1941. He spent his early years in Bermuda, later attending school in England. He has also lived in Johannesburg, Clifton Beach in Cape Town for three years between 1970 until 1973, Australia, New Jersey in 1984, Chicago, finally settling in New York from. He started school in Bermuda followed by New York, Sussex, Inverness and Somerset UK. After a short spell working on the Stock Exchange, Michael decided to follow his passion for cars by leaving the Stock Exchange to become a car salesman. He later graduated from the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School at Snetterton and began his motor racing career in the Formula Junior Series in 1962 racing a Lotus 22.

“I needed to be around people of considerably more violence, such as Jim Russell who looked like he could have exploded at any minute. Somehow he and I got on terribly well together. He taught me almost everything he knew about driving, racing tactics, shoving people off, getting in the way and not backing off. The one problem was that he himself never knew when to back down and I also had the same trouble, so I could see that Russell was going to push me into a serious accident, which he himself had had. Damn nearly died at Le Mans, third degree burns driving a 2-litre Cooper Monaco with none other than Bruce McLaren. This was real racing. Once it’s in your blood and you’ve got here, to Goodwood, there’s no question of backing down. If you get killed, tough; if you get burned, too bad. You just get on with it. It was somehow a sort of phobia or fever. You were there to bloody race and win.”

Most famous for driving a Porsche 906 and Lola T70, Michael also raced a Porsche 904 GTS, a Ferrari 250 GTO, a Lotus 22 and a Ford Mustang Boss. In January 1968 Michael set a new South African Land Speed Record clocking a recorded average speed of 191.8mph in his Lola T70 and held it for 20 years. He retired from motor racing at the age of 30, a difficult decision at the time but continued to enjoy his passion for motor sport, jazz music, playing the harmonica, ballroom dancing and travelling throughout his life.