Doug Nye

My old friend Simon Taylor has recently earned thoroughly well-merited praise for his lovely book on the HWM team and its cars. H W Motors still survives as a business in New Zealand Avenue, Walton-on-Thames. It was founded there as a partnership between keen racer George Abecassis and lanky engineer John Heath. Immediately after WW2 they mitigated the boredom of grey, cheerless (and flat broke) Britain by going racing, on a shoestring. George ran his Alta sports and Grand Prix cars while

John Heath built first a special, and then whole teams of Formula 2 and sports cars. HWM shone particularly brightly in Europe and during a period in which the hugely over-publicised BRM Formula 1 project stumbled and stuttered, the initials HWM earned high regard and profound respect, everywhere from Rouen-les-Essarts to San Remo, Naples to the Nürburgring, Lake Garda to Goodwood… John Heath sadly ran out of luck driving his HWM-Jaguar sports car in the 1956 Mille Miglia. On a rain-slick road near Ravenna he slithered into a ditch; his car ‘HWM 1’ tripped and overturned, damaging his lungs. Three days later he died, aged only 41