Jaguar's legendary test driver would have been 100 today

Norman Dewis OBE would have been 100 years old today. He spent much of his career as a Jaguar test driver and engineer, pretty much flat out. Literally. Jaguar tells us he completed more than one million miles of testing at average speeds of over 100mph.

And as befits a man who spent his life going very fast indeed, he wanted to spend his 100th birthday driving a Jaguar at 100mph once more. Sadly, Dewis passed away in June 2019 at the age of 98, but leaves behind him an incredible legacy that has helped shaped Jaguar’s biggest moments.

Here are just a few highlights of Dewis’s career. Happy birthday up there, big man. Keep it pinned.

Dewis began his career with Jag on 1 January 1952, and alongside his job as helping develop the cars we all now consider iconic, he also played a “pivotal role” in the development of the Jaguar/Dunlop disc braking system.

Here he is with Sir Stirling Moss in a C-Type wearing – you guessed it – disc brakes.

A year after navigating for Sir Stirling at the Mille, Dewis was doing what he did best. In 1953 he set a production car speed record of 172.412mph in a modified XK120, on a closed section of the Jabbeke highway in Belgium. That’s… quick.

You may know of Dewis’s overnight heroics, driving a new E-Type 700 miles from Coventry to Geneva in one hit for its reveal at the 1961 motor show. As Jaguar said, “there was only one man for the job”. Indeed, he helped develop the very car that has become a cornerstone of what Jaguar stands for today.

Dewis also played a hand in developing the heart-stoppingly gorgeous, mid-engined XJ13 which launched in 1966. However, later in 1971, Dewis drove the XJ13 at the MIRA test track for a film celebrating the launch of the V12 E-Type. A punctured tyre resulted in a crash, flipping the only prototype over. Dewis, thankfully, emerged unscathed, and the 13 was later rebuilt.

He retired in 1985, but continued to represent Jaguar, and helped the Classic team on the 2014 launch of the ‘missing six’ Lightweight E-Types. Don’t forget, he originally helped develop the E-Type back in the 1960s.