NORMAN DEWIS, OBE

JAGUAR’S MOST FAMOUS test driver passed away on 9 June aged 98. From 1952 until 1985 Norman Dewis drove all the most successful Jaguars, from the legendary D-type to the silken XJ6, including the ferocious XJ13. After his retirement he became a Jaguar ambassador, gallivanting around the world and enchanting everyone with his infectious enthusiasm.

Born in 1920, he left school at 14 to provide for his family. He started at Humber, then moved to Armstrong Siddeley, before serving as a turret gunner in the sitting-duck Bristol Blenheim during WW2. When he joined Jaguar, his first task was to evaluate whether aircraft-style disc brakes could be adapted to motor cars. He and Stirling Moss raced a C-type in the1952 Mille Miglia to test the Dunlop discs, but they had to retire after reaching third place. Norman was a good enough racing driver to earn a seat in a D-type for the fateful 1955 Le Mans, but he was regarded as being too important for his talent to be risked in racing, so he was withdrawn. Thereafter he stuck to test-driving, racking up more than a million miles at over 100mph.

Norman survived three horrendous accidents at the MIRA test facility; even the slowest occurred at over 130mph. On all three occasions, in a C-type, a D-type and the XJ13, he survived by tucking himself under the dash – no seatbelts or roll bars to impede him!

In 1961, after finishing a full day’s testing at MIRA, he was told to drive the new E-type Jaguar to Geneva, where it was needed for the show launch the next morning. He drove the 760 miles in 14 hours, then spent the next day giving journalists passenger rides. On being awarded an OBE in 2015, Norman declared himself to be ‘truly chuffed’. Robert Coucher