John Starkey began life in Birmingham, England. After school, with dreams of "rock stardom" in mind, he played guitar in several bands, along the way opening for the Beatles in 1963, before becoming Jasper Carrott's manager. His father's love of fast cars had passed down to him and, starting with a Jaguar XK120, bought in 1966 for £120, he started discovering this heady world. After a 1958 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta, life was never quite the same again, and the racing bug bit hard when he first drove a Porsche RSR. This was followed by "a beast" of a 935, then a Lola T70 Mk 3b coupé, and a March 84G. These he raced across Europe and America. In 1997, John moved to America, where he began writing, naturally, about racing cars. After twenty books, John thinks he has now run out of subjects to cover, although he has recently begun a novel about the world of dealing in old cars.

He also investigates the individual histories of old racing cars for clients, and together with Su, his wife, enjoys walking his dog Boomer.