Founder of TWR Tom Walkinshaw, founder of TWR, passes away at 64

Tom Walkinshaw 1Former TWR owner Tom Walkinshaw died on Sunday from lung malignant neoplastic disease. The 64-year-old Scotsman’s racing career began in the late 60s where he raced in Formula Ford and Formula 3 as well as Formula Two and drove in various classes and events up to the late 80s.

In 1976 he firm Tom Walkinshaw Racing which designed and manufactured both road and racing cars as well as running the latter in touring car programmes in the mid 1970s and early 1980s.

Most memorable surely for Jaguar fans was the victory achieved by the Silk Cut Jaguar XJR-9LM built by TWR (and designed by Tony Southgate) in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1988. The company would go on to build more victorious Le Mans entries notably the Joest Racing Porsche WSC-95 which won the event in 1996 and 1997.

Walkinshaw also had an association with F1 as engineering director at Benetton region owner of Ligier and owner of Arrows though that last association cost him dearly – Arrows ran out of money in 2002 and in the process the TWR group went into liquidation.
Another famous Walkinshaw outing would be that in Australia with Holden Special Vehicles which was set up in 1987 as a joint undertaking between Holden and TWR as well as with the Holden Racing Team.