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The fate of Michael L. Currie


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#1 Nanni Dietrich

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Posted 27 May 2013 - 17:47

Britain's sportscar driver Michael L. Currie finished first of class, 11th place overall in the 1000 Km of the Nürburgring, then a round of the 1953 World Sportscar Championship, sharing a Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica with Don Beauman.

I've found a 1955 magazine clipping (possibly The Motor, or MotorSport, don't know), with an article about Don Beauman's fatal accident in the Leinster Trophy, held on the Wicklow road circuit, on 09 July 1955. The text read "Beauman then shared a Frazer Nash with the late Michael L. Currie to win the 2-litre class of the 1,000 Kms race at Nürburgring, Germany".

What was the fate of Michael L. Currie? (Mike Currie, according to different sources). Presumably he died that same year (1955).

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#2 Vitesse2

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Posted 27 May 2013 - 18:14

His full name was Michael Lorne Currie and he is recorded in Andrews Newspaper Index Cards as having died in a road accident in Belgium on September 1st 1953. Source of the cutting - a death announcement - not stated, but it looks like it's from The Daily Telegraph. The National Probate Calendar says he died at Butgenbach in Belgium: his home address was given as Maragua in Kenya. Appears to have been born in 1930 in London.

Source: Ancestry

#3 Doug Nye

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Posted 27 May 2013 - 18:18

A very sad incident. On the way home from competing at the Nurburgring, Mike Currie was driving his Frazer Nash in convoy with Hawthorn mechanic Brit Pearce in some kind of road car I cannot recall. Near the Belgian border they came upon a crashed car whose occupants, if I remember correctly, were US servicemen. They were badly injured, and while Brit did his best to help them, Currie took off in the 'Nash to get help from the nearby border post at Butgenbach...not far from the Spa circuit. At the border post the barrier pole was down, but dusk had fallen, it was night-time, yet the barrier pole was unlit. Poor Currie did not see the obstacle until too late to avoid hitting it. The 'Nash's nose swept underneath the pole which hit Currie full in the face, inflicting the injuries from which he died...

DCN

#4 Vitesse2

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Posted 27 May 2013 - 18:21

Here's the story as reported in The Times, September 2nd 1953:

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#5 Doug Nye

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Posted 27 May 2013 - 18:38

Ah - perhaps the memory is not quite as bad as I sometimes fear. Maybe Brit was riding with Mike Currie in the 'Nash rather than in a second car, but he stayed on site to keep the injured Americans pumping while poor Currie charged off alone to find outside help for them... His concern then cost him his own life.

DCN

#6 Jagjon

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Posted 27 May 2013 - 22:44

Ah - perhaps the memory is not quite as bad as I sometimes fear. Maybe Brit was riding with Mike Currie in the 'Nash rather than in a second car, but he stayed on site to keep the injured Americans pumping while poor Currie charged off alone to find outside help for them... His concern then cost him his own life.

DCN

In Hawthorn's "Challenge Me the Race" is written about him returning to paris & then to England by air after the Nurburgring 1000km race where Don Beauman & Mike Currie had been competing in the Fraser Nash & Hawthorn being met by his father who told him the bad news that Mike Currie had been killed.
Don Beauman was driving back to England in his Lancia Aprilia with Brit Pearce & Mike Currie following in the Fraser Nash.
Soon after crossing the border from Germany into Belgium they came across an American car which had just crashed into a tree, two occupants were dead but there seemed hope for the third which is why Mike Currie said he would return to the border post to call for a doctor.
When he did not return Brit Pearce & Don Beauman returned to the frontier post where they found the FNash wrecked, Currie had crashed into the unlit barrier with fatal results.
M.Hawthorn says he had known & been friends with Mike Currie for some time and Currie had bought the FNash from Hawthorn snr.