1955 Le Mans-Winning Jaguar D-type Chassis XKD 505. Photo: Peter Collins
1955 Le Mans-Winning Jaguar D-type Chassis XKD 505
The temptation is to dissolve into a wave of superlatives…that would not be a problem. Chassis XKD 505 won the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hours with Mike Hawthorn and Ivor Bueb behind the wheel, the race remembered for motor racing’s worst accident. It should and could have been remembered for the titanic duel between Hawthorn in the D-Type and Fangio’s Mercedes Benz. Five D-Types started that race, but two of the works cars retired, as did the Cunningham-entered car, while the Belgian D-Type was 3rd. Had the Mercedes team not withdrawn after Pierre Levegh’s huge accident on the pit straight, the Mercedes-Jaguar battle would have carried on. One of the Jaguar works drivers, Norman Dewis, had been waiting on the pit counter to take over from Don Beaumann in car number 8, chassis XKD 508. He witnessed the Mercedes’s vault into the crowd. It seemed somewhat amazing to me that 50 years later Dewis, Jaguar’s long-term competition development driver, would end up being the one assigned to try and turn me into a D-Type driver!
D-Type…A Car for Le Mans
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