Pauline Hailwood

Widow of the late Mike Hailwood, PAULINE HAILWOOD, passed away aged 76 on 14th June from cancer.

A former successful model, Pauline met Mike in 1960 at Snetterton raceway in England, where she boldly asked to borrow some spark plugs from him for her then-boyfriend’s bike. “He said I was very cheeky but he didn’t refuse me!,” she told an interviewer in 2014. “But nothing else happened until 1962 when I saw him at the Isle of Man TT.”

After being together for more than a decade, Pauline and Mike finally tied the knot on June 11 1975. They had two children, Michelle and David, and moved to New Zealand following Mike’s serious Formula One crash in the 1974 German Grand Prix in a McLaren. After Mike’s successful Isle of Man comeback in 1978, the family moved back to UK where Mike opened a motorcycle business in Birmingham. Tragically, Mike and Michelle died in March 21 after a motorway accident when a truck driver made an illegal U-turn in thick fog. David was also in the car but survived uninjured. Michelle later moved to Spain with David and there were plans to open a Mike Hailwood Museum. However this failed to happen and they again relocated to UK. Although she battled with cancer for a number of years prior to her death, Pauline said recently that she was looking forward to the forthcoming movie (produced by and starring Australian actor Eric Bana) but admitted, “I am not sure I’ll be here to see it.”