Luis Fontés
Nationality | British |
---|---|
Born | London, England | 26 December 1912
Died | 12 October 1940 Llandow, Wales | (aged 27)
24 Hours of Le Mans career | |
Years | 1935 |
Teams | Arthur W. Fox |
Best finish | 1st (1935) |
Class wins | 1 (1935) |
Luis Fontés (26 December 1912 – 12 October 1940) was a British racing driver of Brazilian parentage who, along with John Stuart Hindmarsh, won the 1935 24 Hours of Le Mans for the Lagonda automobile company and won the inaugural Limerick Grand Prix in 1935 in an Alfa Romeo. He also held a pilot's licence after learning to fly at Reading Aerodrome, Berkshire, UK, and entered his own Miles Hawk Speed Six racing aeroplane (registered G-ADGP) in the prestigious King's Cup Air Race in 1935. Fontés later briefly served as an Air Transport Auxiliary ferry pilot during World War II but was killed on 12 October 1940 while delivering a Vickers Wellington Mk1C bomber to an RAF Aircraft Storage Unit at Llandow in South Wales. The Le Mans Lagonda M45R ('BPK 202') survives in the Dutch National Automobile Museum (Louwman Museum) at The Hague and the aeroplane was owned and raced for many years postwar by the late Ron Paine but is now owned by The Shuttleworth Collection, UK.
External links
- Profile at Motor Sport magazine archive
- Use dmy dates from April 2012
- 1912 births
- 1940 deaths
- English racing drivers
- 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers
- 24 Hours of Le Mans winning drivers
- Air Transport Auxiliary pilots
- Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in the United Kingdom
- British military personnel killed in World War II
- Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1940
- British auto racing biography stubs