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In his new November 2006 book Norman Dewis of Jaguar - Developing the Legend,
author and site contributor Paul Skilleter
describes in Chapter 10 the major part Norman played in development of the Jaguar Mark 1. Towards the end of the chapter, Paul discusses
the fatal crash in January of 1959, also recording Norman's own memories.
Norman knew Mike well both as a work colleague and as a close friend and had driven with him many times during
the course of his work at Jaguar. He also piloted car no 8 (Mike was in no 6) as part of the Jaguar team at the 1955 Le Mans race.
You can see short video of Norman we've put on YouTube discussing Le Mans and how he ended up with a faster Jaguar D-type then Mike was driving by refusing to have some mods made to the windshield:
And there is another Video where Norman tells a short story of how he went with Mike to the airport one day..
His feelings on the reasons for the Mark 1 crash, including something of importance that hasn't been revealed in print before,
are summed up in his own words below.
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Mike in VDU 881, the car he was to die in
Image: © Paul Skilleter
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On 22 January 1959, in wet and extremely windy conditions and having just
overtaken Rob Walkers 300SL, the car went out of control on a fast right-hand bend on
the Guildford by-pass. It clipped a truck, left the road and hit a tree; Mike was found in
the back seat and died at the scene. The police who investigated the accident put it down
simply to the car travelling too fast for the conditions. That the car was shod with Dunlop
Durabands, with the sharper break away typical of early radial tyres, might have been a
contributory cause.
Held in special regard by all at Jaguar, especially Sir William and Lofty, his death was
an awful shock, not the least to Norman — who does not consider it likely that Mike was
indulging in a dangerous race with Rob Walker's 300SL, as has been suggested. Norman
had, in fact, found Hawthorn to be a steady driver on public roads:
“I once drove with Mike from the Nürburgring to Düsseldorf, because he’d got to catch a plane, and the idea
was that I would drive the car back to England. Mike said, ‘Do you mind if I drive to Düsseldorf?’ I
said, ‘Fine.’ And OK, he was driving quickly, but there was no way he took chances like sliding
it through corners and things like that.”
“Mike might have had one of his black outs. Very few people
knew about these, but Lofty told me about them.
But what I didn’t know was that he’d
already had
three blackouts."
There is one other factor that has not been discussed before, but which might, Norman thinks,
have been the cause of the tragedy. “I think there could have been more to it than
just the car and the conditions”, he says. “Mike might have had one of his black outs.“
"Very few people knew about these, but Lofty told me about them. I knew that Mike had
a health problem and maybe had five years to live. But what I didn’t know was that he’d
already had three blackouts. Jean Ireland [who as Jean Howarth was Mike’s fiancée] told
me that information recently. She thought that might have been the possible cause of the accident –
that he had a complete black out. Because, she said, Mike knew that road like the back
of his hand, and he wasn’t crazy.
“I do not think he would have got into a situation like that and lose the car. Even if
it had started to go, Mike would have corrected it in some way, or spun it harmlessly. He
would have avoided wrapping it around a tree, I’m sure. But that’s assuming he was all
right. If he wasn’t …"
© 2006 Paul Skilleter
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