NORMAN DEWIS OBE

[SESH]

Norman Dewis, famed Jaguar test driver, to be made OBE

Norman Dewis, one of the motoring world?s most revered characters, was finally recognised in the New Year Honours with an OBE
Norman Dewis - Andrew English interviews the legendary Jaguar test driver, 25/02/2014
Norman Dewis is to be made an OBE in the New Year's Honours
By Andrew English2:20PM GMT 31 Dec 2014
There will be those who?ll say under their breath that it?s not before time, but the celebrations over Norman Dewis?s OBE, announced in the New Year Honours list, will drown out the perhaps understandable grumps.
This pint-sized, 94-year old former test driver for Jaguar helped develop one of the greatest-ever developments in automotive braking, the disc brake, which has probably saved tens of thousands of lives over the years.
In his 33 year career with the Coventry car maker, he was also a key part of the team which developed and raced the three-times Le Mans winning D-Type sports racing car; is a member of the last surviving all-British Mille Miglia crew; and helped develop some of the world?s most important sports cars and saloons in the world including the E-type and the XJ saloon.
?Oh I?m delighted,? said Dewis today. ?It was a big surprise and I?m very honoured to receive it. It?s a very personal thing and I feel it?s a bonus.?
Many folk including Ralph Speth, Jaguar Land Rover?s chief executive and Telegraph Cars have called for Dewis to be honoured, and staff at JLR including Speth are overjoyed at the decision to make him an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Perhaps it?s the doubtless coincidental fact that this is Jaguar?s 80th celebration year that has spurred the honour, perhaps not, but it?s long overdue, particularly when you consider the risks he ran when developing the disc brake.
?They?d been fitted to a XK120, and were terrible things, burning out, boiling the fluid,? Dewis told Telegraph Cars in February 2014. ?I was asked to help out and said we needed to fit them to the fastest car we made, the C-type.?
This was January 1952; prototype C-type 001 was duly converted, and the small team of Dunlop and Jaguar engineers was set up, testing in secret at a former RAF aerodrome at Perton near Wolverhampton.
?Oh yes, it was dangerous,? says Dewis quietly. ?Sometimes I?d be driving at 130mph and there?d be no brakes. The pedal would sink to the floor and I have to take to the grass.?

Dewis reckons the honour has been awarded for his entire career, however, not just the disc brake.
?It?s probably for the overall experience,? he said, ?for all the time I?ve been at Jaguar. You need to remember just how advanced some of the cars we were working on were. The D-Type was the first car with no chassis, so it was really new technology, and two years later the E-type was the first road-car application of that. It wasn?t until two years after that Formula One picked up the same technology.?
So congratulations Norman. We?re sure there isn't a motoring enthusiast who won?t be raising a glass to you this New Year?s Eve.

[PeterCrespin]

The D-Type was the first car with no chassis, so it was really new technology, and two years later the E-type was the first road-car application of that. It wasn?t until two years after that Formula One picked up the same technology.?
So congratulations Norman. We?re sure there isn't a motoring enthusiast who won?t be raising a glass to you this New Year?s Eve.

Indeed. Very well deserved although a few XK, D and E drivers wish he'd been quart-sized rather than pint-sized. His statement about the D (apart from it having a separate car ID-numbered chassis) will also come as news to Andre Citroen (Traction Avant 1934) and Alec Issigonis (Moggy Minor 1948) amongst others but he's a gem, no question. His very good continued health!

[christopher storey]

Peter I think has misinterpreted what was said. the D type undoubtedly was the first of its kind , with a monocoque providing the accommodation, all the rest at the front being hung off it on a spaceframe rather in the manner of an aero engine . Anyway, congratulations to Norman Dewis ( I didn't realise he had not been honoured donkeys' years ago ) . I just hope he doesn't wear his cowboy jacket to the palace !

[PeterCrespin]

Not really Christopher. The E has a true monocoque tub front to back, with removable engine frames that terminate at the bulkhead as you describe. There is an argument that says the two rails running underneath and the legs over the IRS make it a unibody with non-detachable chassis and skin fabricated as a single integrated structure (wheras a true monocoque has no chassis components it's all in the skin/tub like an F1 car or McLaren road car) but we can agree the E uses monocoque construction.

The D frame is a much larger one-piece chassis that continues through the bulkhead and forms a tube frame spine inside the bodywork rather like a Lotus where it then connects to transverse structural steel rear beam subframe that supports the trailing arms and torsion bar/A-frame axle locators. The transmission tunnel is just a thin detachable cover over the tube chassis.

The alloy tub certainly does bear some major stresses but when the upper section was cut out for the XKSS nothing changed. So the stresses are mostly to do with a passenger cell and supporting the integrated front-to back steelwork that carries the car identity. Plus there may be other unibody examples besides the Citroen and Morris Minor having no separate chassis years before the D.

But this is Norman's thread and I think his comments do apply to sports racing cars. So he was undoubtedly right in terms of the technology seen at race tracks and indeed probably 99% of road car factories. I was just putting a little rider on the great man's quote (if indeed he was quoted verbatim?). I probably shouldn't have mentioned it as this is purely an E-type forum anyhow. My apologies.

Pete

[Durango2k]

It was Ambi-Budd who invented all-Steel "self-varying" / monocoque Chassis, and who licensed this Patent to Andr? Citroen, who then charged Andr? Levebfre to develop the Traction Avant, the 7cv and shortly after the 11 CV in 1934.

Carsten

[steve3.8]

To add to the celebration of Norman's achievements , a video released by Jaguar .

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/mot ... -film.html

[mystery type]

a video released by Jaguar .

It was good, but a bit short