Amon tunes in

These days he is a farmer in New Zealand, but he hasn't forgotten how to drive well or the engineering skills which made Enzo Ferrari rate him as the best test driver to ever race for his grand prix team.

Many people believe Amon was the finest racer never to win a world championship grand prix - although he took dozens of other races and titles including the Tasman Cup for the sixties Formula One summer series in Australia and New Zealand.

"Who would have thought the same technology would eventually be in a Toyota Camry road car?" he says. "Things have really come a long way."

But he's not surprised by Toyota, or its technology, after more than 15 years of helping to fine-tune the cars sold under Brand T in New Zealand.

"I used to work on television doing critiques of new cars. One day Toyota called up and asked me if I'd like to try and make their cars better," says Amon.

It was a new challenge for the retired racer, who started competing at 17.

His suspension tuning work is heralded within Toyota and he has been given the final say on every Australian-made model shipped across the Tasman.

Amon had always found something to tweak and improve, until he came up against the 2002 Camry. He says sometimes the Aussie-made cars were even too firm for New Zealand roads.

But this time the F1 legend was satisfied first time, and he signed-off the new car's suspension without making a single change.