Norman Dewis..the man behind Jaguar 1953-1976
#1
05-01-2008, 06:20 PM
Norman Dewis..the man behind Jaguar 1953-1976
Our local Jag club had a special guest on Tuesday evening, Mr Norman Dewis who was Jaguars chief test engineer and driver from Jan 1953 until retirement after the introduction of the XJ6 Series 3.I am trying to write up a summary from memory so may have an error or two.They were going to be bringingan XJ220 but unfortunately due to weather forecast they had to leave the XJ220 for a future date later in the summer.
Norman Dewis worked,drove and tested every model throughout that time and was involved with a lot of items we take for granted these days like disc brakes.
His 1st job given to him directly from Sir William Lyons (co-founder of Jag) was to develop disc brakes for the road car as up until then no production road car had disc brakes.Norman recomended getting the brakes to work on the D Type as if they could get them to work on that race car then they would work on any other Jag.
Secretly working with Dunlop,Ferrodo and Mintex the disc from a 4 seater plane was taken and the testing began.Main problems included complete pad disintegration (from asbestos in pads) to boiling of brake fluid as well as dics overheating.
The D Type was driven to Italy for the 1953 Mille Miglia (1000 mile race) and was set up before Stirling Moss flew in to drive the car with Norman as his co-driver.There were 620 cars in the race and the race scrutineers werent going to allow the D Type to race as they had never seen disc brakes.Norman took a wheel off told them to spin the disc and pressed the brake pedal stopping the disc immediately and they couldnt budge it.More scrutineers were called to have a look and scratched their heads.They werent going to allow the car to race until a Count was called over to sort it out.Stirling asked Norman if he knew the route.It turned out neither of them did.So they drove the 1st half of the race (500 miles) to Rome to learn the route.To get back to the start before running out of time they didnt have time to learn the last 500 miles.On returning they asked an Italian driver how they knew which way to go and he replied "just drive through the gaps between the people".
140 mph between people who could touch your hat!!
The cars started on the Sat and left every 2 minutes.Stirling Moss and Norman set of at 4:30am and when they got to Rome they were 3rd and within 30 miles of the finish they had moved up to 2nd behind a Ferrari and were outbraking it.Unfortunately the car suffered wheel,suspension damage after hitting a puddle on a fast right hand bend.But the disc brake had prooved successful.6 years later in 1959 the first disc brake was fitted to a road car the Jaguar XK150.
Stories were related for around 3 or 4 hours including when Norman took the D Type? to Belgium (1964?) (it had to be towed so scrutineers could monitor fuel used and seal cap).One half of a 5 mile section of dual carriageway section was shut down) to win back the land speed record held by Mercedes for 3 weeks and drivers on the opposite carriageway stopped and jumped over the hedge when they saw the press and timing equipment but didnt know what for.The D Type driven by Norman won the speed record back for Jaguar.
Other stories included the fibre glass body of the Daimler SP250 flexing in high speed corners so the doors came open before crashing resulting in webbing in the fibre glass being used to add rigidity.
One of the stories that I remember was when testing the E Type for approval for the US a tyre had to be burst at 150mph to see what would happen and how the car would behave.When asking for suggestions on how to explode the tyre at 150mph one of Dunlops staff suggest using a marksman with a high speed rifle.Norman said "not bo**dy likely when Im driving!" so he came up with a metal fork hinged on the front wing with a lever to the driver which he could then pull at 150mph to see what happened!!!
John Butterworth (right) owner of the last customer car to be built at Browns Lane and Norman Dewis (left)
We also learned that Jaguar are going to launch a coupe XF and in 15 months there is a new XJ which has been signed off.
Norman Dewis worked,drove and tested every model throughout that time and was involved with a lot of items we take for granted these days like disc brakes.
His 1st job given to him directly from Sir William Lyons (co-founder of Jag) was to develop disc brakes for the road car as up until then no production road car had disc brakes.Norman recomended getting the brakes to work on the D Type as if they could get them to work on that race car then they would work on any other Jag.
Secretly working with Dunlop,Ferrodo and Mintex the disc from a 4 seater plane was taken and the testing began.Main problems included complete pad disintegration (from asbestos in pads) to boiling of brake fluid as well as dics overheating.
The D Type was driven to Italy for the 1953 Mille Miglia (1000 mile race) and was set up before Stirling Moss flew in to drive the car with Norman as his co-driver.There were 620 cars in the race and the race scrutineers werent going to allow the D Type to race as they had never seen disc brakes.Norman took a wheel off told them to spin the disc and pressed the brake pedal stopping the disc immediately and they couldnt budge it.More scrutineers were called to have a look and scratched their heads.They werent going to allow the car to race until a Count was called over to sort it out.Stirling asked Norman if he knew the route.It turned out neither of them did.So they drove the 1st half of the race (500 miles) to Rome to learn the route.To get back to the start before running out of time they didnt have time to learn the last 500 miles.On returning they asked an Italian driver how they knew which way to go and he replied "just drive through the gaps between the people".
140 mph between people who could touch your hat!!
The cars started on the Sat and left every 2 minutes.Stirling Moss and Norman set of at 4:30am and when they got to Rome they were 3rd and within 30 miles of the finish they had moved up to 2nd behind a Ferrari and were outbraking it.Unfortunately the car suffered wheel,suspension damage after hitting a puddle on a fast right hand bend.But the disc brake had prooved successful.6 years later in 1959 the first disc brake was fitted to a road car the Jaguar XK150.
Stories were related for around 3 or 4 hours including when Norman took the D Type? to Belgium (1964?) (it had to be towed so scrutineers could monitor fuel used and seal cap).One half of a 5 mile section of dual carriageway section was shut down) to win back the land speed record held by Mercedes for 3 weeks and drivers on the opposite carriageway stopped and jumped over the hedge when they saw the press and timing equipment but didnt know what for.The D Type driven by Norman won the speed record back for Jaguar.
Other stories included the fibre glass body of the Daimler SP250 flexing in high speed corners so the doors came open before crashing resulting in webbing in the fibre glass being used to add rigidity.
One of the stories that I remember was when testing the E Type for approval for the US a tyre had to be burst at 150mph to see what would happen and how the car would behave.When asking for suggestions on how to explode the tyre at 150mph one of Dunlops staff suggest using a marksman with a high speed rifle.Norman said "not bo**dy likely when Im driving!" so he came up with a metal fork hinged on the front wing with a lever to the driver which he could then pull at 150mph to see what happened!!!
John Butterworth (right) owner of the last customer car to be built at Browns Lane and Norman Dewis (left)
We also learned that Jaguar are going to launch a coupe XF and in 15 months there is a new XJ which has been signed off.
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05-01-2008, 06:31 PM
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05-02-2008, 10:22 AM
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