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Ray Wiltshire
(Filed: 07/06/2002)
Ray Wiltshire, who has died aged 65, was president of the Bentley Drivers' Club and the only non-Frenchman ever to be elected to the board of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), organisers of the Le Mans 24-hours race.
Raymond Geoffrey Wiltshire was born at Theydon Bois, Essex, on October 1 1936. His father, a former military man and strict disciplinarian, was 52 at the time Ray was born, and thus remained a somewhat distant figure of authority throughout his son's early years.
As a boy, Raymond's imagination was fired by Full Throttle, the autobiography of Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin, the famous Bentley racing driver who, with Woolf Banato, won the Le Mans 24-hours race in 1929, driving a 6.6-litre Speed Six Bentley, and again in 1931, sharing a 2.3-litre Alfa Romeo with Lord Howe.
After leaving the Grange School, Essex, Wiltshire qualified as a mechanical engineer at the South-West Essex Institute of Technology. On leaving college in 1954, he embarked on a career in construction, first joining Millar's Timber & Trading; he achieved rapid promotion and, in 1959, came to the attention of John Gooch, a member of the board and an enthusiast for vintage Bentleys; it was he who encouraged Wiltshire to buy his first Bentley, a 1923 3-litre.
At the age of just 29, Wiltshire was appointed chief executive of Willment Ready Mixed Concrete. And by 1974 he had become President Directeur General of La Prefabrication Moderne SA, based in Paris.
As a Bentley enthusiast, Wiltshire determined to restore the marque's neglected link with the classic Le Mans 24-hours race. He began in 1980 with a modest rally of Bentley Drivers' Club members to Le Mans, and the foundations for a lasting relationship were laid. The French, however, remained unimpressed; so Wiltshire cultivated the friendship of Herve Guyomard, a senior member of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest who shared his appreciation of the Le Mans heritage.
In 1982, to mark the 50th anniversary of the race, Wiltshire enlisted support from the motor industry, including that of Dennis Miller-Williams of Rolls-Royce and Bentley, to assemble an impressive collection of British historic Le Mans racing cars at the circuit. He then used his powers of persuasion to get the still-sceptical ACO to permit a parade of the cars on the full circuit before the race began. The crowd reaction was so positive that the ACO then asked Wiltshire to repeat the exercise on an annual basis, and Wiltshire formed Motoring Cavalcades Ltd, in partnership with Miller-Williams, to take this proposal forward.
The Le Mans cavalcade grew in reputation, an invitation to participate becoming highly prized by owners of suitable cars. In 1999, celebrating the 40th anniversary of Aston Martin's sole victory in the 24-hours, Motoring Cavalcades organised a successful rally of 250 Aston Martin cars to the circuit.
By now converted, the ACO granted Wiltshire's request to stage a 50-minute race for historic Le Mans cars shortly before the main event. Called the Le Mans Legend 2001, it was announced by Michel Cosson, President of the ACO, at the Royal Automobile Club in London. Cosson paid tribute to Wiltshire's tireless work and, conceding that the Le Mans 24-hours could be seen as "the greatest English race held in France", announced Wiltshire's election to the Board of the ACO.
Last year's inaugural Le Mans Legend race, for cars from 1949 to 1964, was a highlight of the race weekend. It will now be repeated in alternate years, the next being in 2003.
A tall man, with a confident, kindly, if sometimes teasing, manner, Wiltshire was an effective leader in many fields. He was president of the Bentley Drivers' Club from 1986 until his death. A director of the RAC since 1995, he was due to take up the post of chairman of the RAC Motor Sports Association this month.
Ray Wiltshire married, in 1959, Elspeth Scott, who survives him, together with their son and daughter.
