Norman Dewis

Norman Dewis at the Mille Miglia 2012

Sir Stirling Moss and Norman Dewis at the world premiere of the new Jaguar XE in 2014

The Jaguar C-Type back at the Mille Miglia. Stirling Moss and Norman Dewis drove the first disc brake sports car at the Mille Miglia in 1952 until it failed due to a steering defect

The Jaguar XJ 13, destroyed by Dewis in an accident and later rebuilt at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2009

Norman Dewis , OBE (born August 3, 1920 in Coventry - † June 8, 2019 ) was a British racing car driver and test driver for Jaguar Cars .

Test driver at Jaguar

Norman Dewis was Chief Test Development Engineer at Jaguar Cars for 33 years . When he retired in 1985, he was considered Britain's most successful test driver.

During the Second World War , Dewis served as a gunner in the Royal Air Force and after the end of the war worked as a test driver for Lea-Francis , in 1952 he joined Jaguar and there very quickly took over the test work on the racing and road models of the vehicle manufacturer. One of the first tasks was the test work on the C-Type . The new disc brakes were tested for the first time under racing conditions at the 1952 Mille Miglia . Dewis was the co-driver of Stirling Moss . After a few problems with the technical inspection, where the officials initially did not want to remove the new braking system, the car broke down due to a steering defect. The test was so successful, however, that all Jaguar racing cars were equipped with disc brakes.

The first road car development in which Dewis was significantly involved was the XK 140 in 1954 ; the last of the XJ40s presented in 1986 : in between were 1.6 million test kilometers at speeds over 160 km / h. On October 25, 1953, he set a speed record for near-production vehicles on a cordoned off section of the motorway near the Belgian city ​​of Jabbeke . With an aerodynamically and technically adapted Jaguar XK 120 he achieved a speed of 172.412 mph (277.41 km / h).

During the training drives for the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1955 , he accelerated a Jaguar D-Type to the limit. In order to be able to overtake Karl Kling in the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR , he was at the end of the Ligne Droite des Hunaudières with a top speed of 309 km / h. Mike Hawthorn , who was also present at the training session, explained to his astonished team manager Lofty England : “Why am I here? If Norman is happy with the car, so am I. "

When the Jaguar E-Type had its world premiere at the 1961 Geneva Motor Show , another exhibition vehicle was missing. Dewi went at 19:45 in Coventry going on and the next day came 20 minutes before the exhibition opening - which was at 10am - in Geneva on. Fog in France had stopped him, otherwise he would have been there long ago, was his explanation to the perplexed Jaguar colleagues who had expected his arrival in the afternoon.

In February 2015 he was honored by Elizabeth II with the Order of the British Empire .

The accident with the XJ 13

Norman Dewis survived two accidents almost uninjured. The second was particularly dramatic. At the presentation of the Jaguar E-Type with V12 engine and overhead camshaft, there should also be film recordings of the single chassis of the Jaguar XJ 13 . On January 20, 1971, a rear tire burst during the filming on the test site near Nuneaton at around 220 km / h. Contrary to Lofty England's instructions not to drive the car too fast, Dewis moved the sports car developed by Malcolm Sayer at top speed. The car overturned several times and was totaled. Dewis was able to free himself from the vehicle largely unharmed. After Lofty England had replaced company founder Sir William Lyons at the helm, he had the XJ 13 restored two years later. Fortunately, the wooden molds used to make the body panels still existed so that they could be faithfully reproduced. The situation was different with the wheels - two were completely destroyed in the accident and the mold used was no longer there. Therefore, other, wider wheels were installed.

Sports car racing

In addition to testing, Dewis also competed in a number of sports car races. After the Mille Miglia in 1952, he was engaged as a driver in Le Mans in 1955 . Teammate was Don Beauman , who had an accident with the D-Type in the race. He finished fifth overall in the 1955 Goodwood 9-hour race .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1955	Jaguar Cars Ltd.	Jaguar D-Type	Don Beauman	failure	accident

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
1955	jaguar	Jaguar D-Type	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	TAR
						DNF

literature

• Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909413-06-3 .
• Halwart Schrader: Jaguar. The complete brand history , Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-613-02259-1
• Nigel Thorley: Jaguar E-Type , Heel, Königswinter 2002, ISBN 3-89880-108-X

Web links

Commons : Norman Dewis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Norman Dewis on Classic Driver
• Norman Dewis at Racing Sports Cars
• Press release from Jaguar Germany

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1]
2. ↑ To the test of the Jaguar C-Type at the Mille Miglia 1952
3. ↑ To the test of the Jaguar C-Type at the Mille Miglia 1952
4. ↑ Norman Dewis and Stirling Moss and the Mille Miglia Jaguar C Type ...
5. ↑ ... and in 2012 in the same vehicle at the historic Mille Miglia
6. ↑ Quote from Mike Hawthorn ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ^ Order of the British Empire
8. ↑ The XJ 13 before ...
9. ↑ ... and after the accident ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ ... and after the accident
11. ↑ 1955 Goodwood 9 Hours