Sir Gawaine Baillie

The legendary touring car driver of the 1960s died peacefully on December 21st. He was my childhood hero, and in the past ten years, a personal and business acquaintance.

Gawaine raced saloon cars, initially a Jaguar 3.8, then a Ford Galaxy, followed by Mustangs and Falcon Sprints. He also owned a Lotus Elite that Mike Parkes drove for him.

I had many, many conversations with him about his life and times, but he was unconvinced that anybody else would be interested, and our chats were unrecorded.

Hopefully there is enough archive material to celebrate the acheivements of this outstanding and modest gentleman.

He got a really good obit in the Telegraph - I did not realise Leeds Castle was his

Steve, i'm sorry to say that I only really got upto speed on what Sir Gawaine's exploits were quite recnently.
The 'Ford in Touring Cars' book by Graham Robson details a fair bit on the sixties when he raced the Galaxie and Alan Mann's Falcons and Mustangs. Well worth a look.
My other half's father was reminiscing recently about his visits to Goodwood as a boy, when he would see Sir Gawaine, Jim Clark, Graham Hill et al out in touring cars and at least one other race a day! Great stuff.

I had the pleasure of seeing Sir Gawaine Baille racing his Ford Galaxie at Longford in Tasmania in 1964 or 1965. The straight was called 'The Flying Mile'. The top speed of the Galaxie on the straight was 130mph, the corner at the end of it was Mountford. Sir Gawaine had to brake from 130mph to 30 mph to get around Mountford. After about 3 laps the brakes overheated. Great memories of a golden era of motorsport.

I saw Sir Gwaine in the Galaxy at Warwick Farm in 1964.Dicing with Bob Jane,Brian Muir,Norm Beechey et all.It's difficult to describe these things to others,you just have to be there.But,the sound of a 7 litre Galaxy on full noise is something I'll always cherish.Rest well Sir Gwaine.

Agree with all the comments. A biography would, I'm sure, make very interesting reading.

As josvanperre says above, there's an excellent obituary in the Telegraph, Saturday, Jan 3rd (you can view it on their website).

Just received my invitation to the rememberance service on Jan 23rd. All of the HPC employess are going, and the 3 pages of maps and logistic options indicate a very large event.

Sad news. One of the Touring Car legends.

I saw Sir Gawaine race several times in Jaguar, Galaxie, Mustang and Falcon in the sixties and he was one of the top tin top drivers of his day.

A great shame he didn't commit his memories to print, it sounds like a very interesting story.
Glyn