Born in Dovercourt to parents of Italian descent, Salvadori began competing in Grand Prix motor racing after World War II.

He graduated to Formula One by 1952 and competed regularly until 1962 for a succession of teams including Cooper, Vanwall, BRM, Aston Martin and Connaught.

With his ambition thwarted by World War II, Salvadori began his career in 1946, racing purely for pleasure, in minor events, in a MG and an ex-Brooklands offset Riley racer before stepping up to an ex-Tazio Nuvolari Alfa Romeo P3 in 1947.

[2] In the May 1951 BRDC International Trophy race at Silverstone, Salvadori had a serious accident when his Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica somersaulted two and a half times, ejecting him into the hay bales.

[5][6] Salvadori twice won the Oulton Park's International Gold Cup[7] where there were plenty of trees to hit and a lake to plunge into, which he did once driving a Jaguar Mk.II 3.8 saloon.

[8] Nor was the Le Mans Mulsanne Straight at night a place for the careless or nervous, nevertheless he scored his most notable success there in an Aston Martin DBR1/300 in 1959.

[12] It was in the 1956 RAC British Grand Prix at Silverstone when only a similarly 250F mounted Moss shaded him and a possible victory was lost to a fuel line problem,[15] marked him out as a potential top-level driver.

[17] However, 1958 (as teammate to Jack Brabham) was his most successful season, finishing fourth in the World Drivers' Championship for Cooper, behind Mike Hawthorn, Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks.

The Cooper now had strong competition in the form of Colin Chapman's Lotus cars, but Salvadori was catching Innes Ireland for the lead in the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen when the engine failed.

[14][20] He continued with Parnell for 1962, now under the Bowmaker Racing Team name with the Lola Mk4-Climax, but eight attempts yielded seven retirements and one failure to start (as John Surtees took the car).

The season had begun with a nasty accident in a Cooper during qualifying for the Warwick Farm '100' in Australia, which left him with a temporary facial paralysis.

The Englishman would bring the car across the finish line giving himself and Brown the Le Mans victory each had been longing for many years.

[26] While at Le Mans, he allowed his co-driver, Jim Clark sufficient scope to express himself, but provided enough wise counsel for the pairing to finish third in the Border Reivers' DBR1.

[32] 1961 would see him take two victories at Crystal Palace on the same day, plus a string of other podium finishes [26] He returned to the winning ways at the Circuit de la Sarthe in 1962, when he shared a Jaguar E-Type with Briggs Cunningham.

[33] A year later, he spun on oil dropped by Bruce McLaren's Aston Martin DP214 during the early stages of the race and flipped his E-Type onto its roof; the car then burst into flames.

[14] Salvadori was also involved in the early stages of the Ford GT40 project but resigned, when the machine's handling appeared problematic, without accepting a fee for his services.