Need For Speed: Cici Muldoon, The Classic Car Collector
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12 hours ago
We talk to Cici Muldoon about her growing collection of old school motor vehicles
If classic cars is a man’s world de ned by conversations on understeer, dog-leg gearboxes and ‘red lining’ in third, the scientist and entrepreneur Cici Muldoon is air-cooled freshness personified, says Simon de Burton.
Meeting Cici Muldoon: The Car Collector
Cici Muldoon probably knows as much or more about the history, provenance and workings of old cars than anyone on the classic car circuit, male or female, not least because she’s been immersed in the world from her childhood. Her father, the well-known Ferrari collector Jaime Muldoon, first took his daughter to the renowned Pebble Beach event in 1987 when she was just three years old, and she has been a fixture of the historic automobile scene ever since. But the Mexicanborn, UK-based motoring enthusiast is more than a mere spectator, both when it comes to cars and to her life outside them – she brings her own accomplishments to what is a high-octane world: alongside a degree in physics and nance from Princeton, Muldoon is a scientist and entrepreneur with a PhD in experimental atomic and laser physics from the University of Oxford, and has a diploma from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust. She’s also an accomplished amateur ballerina.
Cici Muldoon’s 1974 Ferrari 246 GTS ‘Dino’
It was only in her early thirties that her true passion for cars was sparked, despite having grown-up around her father’s collection and having been ‘dragged along’ to countless events with her godfather, Giuseppe Risi, founder of the recently disbanded Risi Competizione – the most successful US-based Ferrari and Maserati GT racing team in history.
‘I came to Oxford in my early twenties and started going to a car club called the Oxford University Motor Sports Foundation,’ she says. ‘My PhD was in experimental physics, so I’m mechanically minded and I realised that the things I like most about cars are their engines. I’ve been involved in dismantling and rebuilding a few – a Bristol straight six, a Jaguar XJ and an MGA 1600 – and I’ve always really enjoyed understanding how everything works.’
It’s good that Muldoon is handy with the spanners given that, since acquiring her first classic about a decade ago, she has amassed a stable of six with a combined age of more than 330 years.
‘The first one was my 1955 Triumph TR3, which I still own. Then there’s a 1934 MG PA, which I use for puttering o to the pub; a 1960 one-o Ferrari 250 GT PF, which was built with a competition engine for Swiss hill climb champion Willy Daetwyler. And there’s a 1965 MGB race car that I’m hoping to use on track this season.
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‘But probably my favourite car is my 1974 Ferrari 246 GTS “Dino”. It’s in its original colour of Viola Metallizzato and was fitted with Ferrari Daytona seats from new.’ (Muldoon also owns a 1972 Daytona – but it’s up for sale so it doesn’t count – and is awaiting receipt of a Mercedes-Benz 500 SLC and a Ferrari 330 GTC.) For day-to-day use, Muldoon relies on a ‘modern’, in the form of a BMW M2 ‘Competition’ coupé; she became the first person to own a 650 horsepower Glickenhaus SCG 004S, but parted with it after finding it impractical for British roads. ‘I am a long-standing friend of Jim Glickenhaus [movie industry tycoon, car collector and founder of niche supercar manufacturer and race team Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus] and decided to buy the first 004S road car,’ says Muldoon. ‘It was finished in gold paint with giraffe-patterned upholstery, and the first time I drove it was when I took it up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2021. It was nerve-wracking.’
However, Muldoon’s favourite moments behind the wheel have been on ‘pleasure rallies’, often with her mother as navigator. ‘My mom gets us lost, which can be fun,’ she says. However, her full immersion into the classic car world came as a result of attending concours events around the world, notably California’s Pebble Beach and the Villa d’Este in Lake Como. ‘I used to wander around making notes about the cars and taking photographs of the details, and one day someone said, “Why don’t you become a concours judge?”’
Muldoon put herself forward and soon became a regular member of the judging panels at many of the world’s most prestigious shows, including Pebble Beach, the Cavallino Classic in Palm Beach, the Chantilly in France, Le Zoute in Belgium and the ICE in St Moritz. ‘I’ve always enjoyed the deep dive into the details of each car and having to use detective work to decide what’s right and what’s wrong,’ she says, referring to the minute details concours judges examine to determine a car’s originality and ‘correctness’.
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Lately, however, Muldoon has been forced to relegate that aspect of her passion to the back seat in favour of focusing on her work as the founder and CEO of Serox, an Oxfordshire-based medical diagnostics company developing a ground-breaking method of identifying cancer. Its non-invasive ‘disease agnostic’ approach analyses urine samples using a multi-test cartridge system that makes it possible for the presence of cancer to be eliminated in a matter of minutes without the need for more lengthy, more expensive procedures.
Established in 2022 and now operating with a team of 18, Serox is on track for FDA approval in the US and could prove to be game-changing in the eld of cancer diagnosis. Despite it being a more than full-time job, Muldoon hasn’t forsaken the world of wheels completely.
‘Although I’ve reduced my judging commitments, I’m still on the steering committee for the Hampton Court Concours of Elegance – and I’m very involved with a small, private car club.’ With around 50 members, the club organises weekend jaunts to different parts of the country. ‘Most members have modern supercars but I take the opportunity to drive one of my old ones. I might not be the first to arrive, but I probably have the most fun.’
You can catch up with Cici on her Instagram, @cicimuldoon
