JaguarE-Type

Norman Dewis and the Jaguar E-Type

Jaguar's chief test and development engineer from 1952 to 1985, who sorted the E-Type at MIRA and drove the roadster 77 RW through the night to the Geneva show in March 1961.

About the pictureThe XJ13 at the British Motor Museum

A dark green mid-engined Jaguar racing car behind a display rail with an information panel.
Stand-in The XJ13, the mid-engined Jaguar racing car of 1966, at the British Motor Museum in 2022. He tested it; the picture is of the car, not of the man.Calreyn88, CC BY-SA 4.0

When the E-Type was announced in April 1961, Motor Sport named the man behind its testing: "much of the testing being done at M.I.R.A., under Jaguar's head-tester, Norman Dewis." He was 40, and had been at Jaguar for nine years. He stayed for another 24, and for the rest of his long life he was the man who had driven an E-Type through the night to Geneva.

His career, date by date, is in the panels on this page. Below are the years before the E-Type, the E-Type itself, and what came after.⁠1​2

Before the E-Type

Sources for Norman Dewis

Simon Taylor, "Lunch with… Norman Dewis", Motor Sport, Apr 2013, p. 86⁠3; Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Remembers Legendary Test Driver Norman Dewis on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth" (press release), 3 Aug 2020⁠2; François Prins, "The Story of the E1A: The Experimental Car That Preceded The E-Type", Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust⁠4; Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, "E-Type Evolution Exhibition"⁠5; Bill Boddy, "The New 3.8-Litre Jaguar E-Type G.T.", Motor Sport, Apr 1961, p. 35⁠1; Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, "1961 Jaguar E-type 77 RW: The First E-type OTS"⁠6; Andrew Frankel, "My Motoring Month", Motor Sport, May 2011, p. 115⁠7; Dominic Tobin, "'Britain's greatest test driver': Norman Dewis 1920-2019", Motor Sport (motorsportmagazine.com), 9 Jun 2019⁠8; British Racing Drivers' Club, "Notice of Death – Norman Dewis OBE (1920 – 2019)", Jun 2019⁠9; The London Gazette, The London Gazette, Supplement 61092, p. N12 (New Year Honours 2015), Supplement No. 1, 31 Dec 2014, p. N12⁠10; Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, "Swallow Sidecar Company Centenary 100 Facts Exhibition", 2022⁠11

Dewis was born in Coventry in 1920 and left school at 14. He served in the RAF in the war as a gunner in Bristol Blenheims, and was chief test engineer at Lea-Francis by 1947. He met his chairman in the experimental department about a week after he joined Jaguar, and remembered the greeting to Simon Taylor of Motor Sport in 2013: "Are you Dewis? I'm Lyons."

His first work was the Jaguar–Dunlop disc brake, and in 1952 he rode with Stirling Moss in the Mille Miglia to watch it work. In 1953 he drove a modified XK120 at Jabbeke, under a bubble canopy Malcolm Sayer had proposed, and in 1955 he shared a works D-type at Le Mans. Of a test driver's job he said:

You need to know what happens when a tyre blows at a car's top speed. So the tyre blows and you just hold onto the car, hope it stays on the road. This is the job of a test driver. You have to do these things.

Norman Dewis to Motor Sport in 2000, as quoted in its obituary of him, June 2019⁠3​9​2​8

The E-Type years

After E1A (the prototypes page has it), when the production car took shape he put in, as Simon Taylor wrote, "days and weeks of sorting at MIRA and elsewhere" to make sure the car reached the top speed Jaguar had set for it. He worked with Sayer there too, driving cars covered in wool tufts while Sayer watched them from a second car.

Then came Geneva. On 15 March 1961 demand for demonstration runs in the one press coupé, 9600 HP, was more than one car could meet. Sir William Lyons telephoned the factory, and on the night of 15–16 March Dewis drove the roadster 77 RW from Coventry to Geneva, arriving on the morning of the 16th to start giving demonstrations. Jaguar wrote in 2020, on the centenary of his birth, that "there was only one man for the job". The drive, and the one point the sources leave open about it, are on the 77 RW page.⁠1​3​4​12​6​13​7​8

Norman Dewis in his own words, recorded in 2015: called off testing at MIRA, the night drive to Geneva, and the demonstrations that followed. The timings he gives are his recollection.Video: Norman Dewis' Mad Dash to Geneva in 1961, Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, 2021

The XJ13 and after

His favourite cars, he told Taylor in 2013, were the XK150S, the long-nose D-type and the XJ13, the mid-engined V12 racing car that he took to MIRA one Sunday after Lyons had banned running it. In January 1971, filming at MIRA for the V12 E-Type's launch, he crashed it on the banking and escaped with bruising. "I know she caught me out," he said in 2013, "but she's still a lovely thing."

In retirement he spent three decades as a speaker and an ambassador for Jaguar. When he was appointed OBE "For services to the Motor Industry", in the New Year Honours of 2015, he called it, in Andrew Frankel's column, "a very great honour and nice to know my work has been recognised".⁠3​11​2​10​14​15​8

Roles

  1. 1952

    Chief test and development engineer

    1 January 1952–1985. Started at Jaguar on 1 January 1952, hired by William Heynes after an interview in October 1951, and retired in 1985

    Simon Taylor, "Lunch with… Norman Dewis", Motor Sport, Apr 2013, p. 86⁠3; Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Remembers Legendary Test Driver Norman Dewis on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth" (press release), 3 Aug 2020⁠2

  2. 1957

    Test driver

    May 1957. Drove E1A with Lyons and Heynes, and took it to MIRA on 24 May 1957, still unpainted, according to the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust

    François Prins, "The Story of the E1A: The Experimental Car That Preceded The E-Type", Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust⁠4; Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, "E-Type Evolution Exhibition"⁠5

  3. 1961

    Test driver

    15 March 1961. Motor Sport reported at the launch that much of the E-Type's testing had been done at MIRA under him. On the night of 15–16 March 1961 he drove the roadster 77 RW from Coventry to the Geneva show, summoned when the demand for demonstration drives outran the one press coupé; by his own later account, Lofty England sent him straight out giving drives when he arrived

    Bill Boddy, "The New 3.8-Litre Jaguar E-Type G.T.", Motor Sport, Apr 1961, p. 35⁠1; Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, "1961 Jaguar E-type 77 RW: The First E-type OTS"⁠6; Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, "E-Type Evolution Exhibition"⁠5; Andrew Frankel, "My Motoring Month", Motor Sport, May 2011, p. 115⁠7

  4. 2014

    Adviser

    According to Jaguar, he advised Jaguar Classic on the continuation Lightweights of 2014–15

    Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Remembers Legendary Test Driver Norman Dewis on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth" (press release), 3 Aug 2020⁠2

Sources

Sources are given as plain text; their addresses are on the sources page.

  • Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
  • Referenceserious later work: clubs, specialists, magazines, books
  1. Bill Boddy, "The New 3.8-Litre Jaguar E-Type G.T.", Motor Sport, Apr 1961, p. 35, p. 35; p. 35, the testing passage. Primary
  2. Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Remembers Legendary Test Driver Norman Dewis on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth" (press release), 3 Aug 2020, opening paragraphs; the Lightweight paragraph. Primary
  3. Simon Taylor, "Lunch with… Norman Dewis", Motor Sport, Apr 2013, p. 86, p. 86. Reference
  4. François Prins, "The Story of the E1A: The Experimental Car That Preceded The E-Type", Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, May 1957. Reference
  5. Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, "E-Type Evolution Exhibition", E1A; "Geneva Motor Show, 1961". Reference
  6. Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, "1961 Jaguar E-type 77 RW: The First E-type OTS", the Geneva drive. Primary
  7. Andrew Frankel, "My Motoring Month", Motor Sport, May 2011, p. 115, p. 115. Reference
  8. Dominic Tobin, "'Britain's greatest test driver': Norman Dewis 1920-2019", Motor Sport (motorsportmagazine.com), 9 Jun 2019, obituary. Reference
  9. British Racing Drivers' Club, "Notice of Death – Norman Dewis OBE (1920 – 2019)", Jun 2019, notice. Reference
  10. The London Gazette, The London Gazette, Supplement 61092, p. N12 (New Year Honours 2015), Supplement No. 1, 31 Dec 2014, p. N12, New Year Honours 2015, p. N12. Primary
  11. Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, "Swallow Sidecar Company Centenary 100 Facts Exhibition", 2022, fact 54. Primary
  12. Jaguar World (Kelsey Media), "Sentimental journey" (contents: "Malcolm Sayer tribute"), Nov 2015, pp. 42–49, the wool-tuft tests. Reference
  13. Jaguar Land Rover (Jaguar media newsroom), "Jaguar Celebrates 50 Years of Iconic E-type" (press release), 24 Jan 2011. Primary
  14. Andrew Frankel, "Dewis recognised with OBE", Motor Sport (motorsportmagazine.com), 6 Jan 2015. Reference
  15. Andrew Frankel, "The extraordinary life of Norman Dewis, a hero", Motor Sport (motorsportmagazine.com), 9 Jun 2019. Reference