Norman Dewis, who is closely associated with the history of the Jaguar sports car company, was placed on the Queen's Honor List at the end of the year and received an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to the British car industry.
A life for Jaguar
Born on August 3, 1920 at Jaguar's headquarters in Coventry, the Briton worked for the big cat brand for 33 years and covered over 400,000 kilometers at speeds of over 160 km/h as chief test driver. No chassis malfunction escaped his sensorium - only when Dewis gave his "okay" was a new Jaguar allowed to go into series production. It is fair to say that Jaguar sports cars and saloons owe much of their quality to him.
Norman, who still loves to travel today, survived two nasty but no-fault accidents in his long career, including the crash with the XJ13 prototype, contested the 1952 Mille Miglia with Stirling Moss in a C-Type equipped with disc brakes for the first time and made a one-off appearance as a works racing driver at Le Mans in 1955 after the retirement of a regular driver.
To this day, he travels around the world in the service of Jaguar as a brand ambassador and walking history encyclopedia.
Zwischengas congratulates Norman on this award.
