The name behind the race: Dick Protheroe

Protheroe’s technical background began not in cars but in aircraft. Born on 13^th October 1922, he was flying Wellington and Lancaster bombers for the RAF by the outbreak of World War II. Like many pilots, he used his fuel rations — an RAF privilege — to run a succession of MGs and an Aston Martin.

After the war, he flew in the Berlin Airlift and later became a test pilot for the Vickers Valiant and Handley Page Victor strategic bombers. He credited the RAF with giving him the engineering foundation he would later apply so effectively to racing.

During this period he lost the sight in one eye, not through wartime action, but after a bottle was thrown from the crowd during a post-war stock car event.

Protheroe began competing professionally in 1947, initially not in the Jaguars he would become synonymous with, but in a supercharged Austin 7. He described his early sprint events as “a few more or less successful” outings, each ending with an engine rebuild, an “agonising lesson that there is a limit to the peak revs for a given engine”.

That same year he bought a Bugatti Type 37 in need of a full rebuild. Finished in French Racing Blue, the Bugatti’s paint became his signature colour. He placed second at the 1947 Gransden Lodge meeting behind George Abecassis, also in a Bugatti.

Still serving in the RAF during the early 1950s, Protheroe — a friend of Sir William Lyons — ran the Gaydon airbase and offered it to Jaguar as a test facility in 1953.  That year he raced his first Jaguar, an aluminium-bodied XK120 acquired while serving in Egypt.

Returned to Britain and christened by Autosport as the “Ancient Egyptian,” it competed against a star-studded roster including Duncan Hamilton, Jimmy Stewart, Mike Hawthorn, Mike Head and Bob Berry. Protheroe wrote of the era: “Wild drivers did not ‘lose it’ and take other cars with them, but the occasional nudge was permissible.”

One such “nudge” came during the 1957 Gold Cup at Oulton Park while racing his Trojeiro-Jaguar ‘7 GNO’ against Duncan Hamilton. With fading brakes, Protheroe “positioned the car in a most gentlemanly manner” to keep Hamilton behind. Hamilton responded by rear-ending him, taking 18 inches off the Jaguar’s tail — but not the race result. “This little incident cost him, and will continue to cost him, a large number of drinks,” Protheroe wrote.

After a brief diversion in 1958 racing an Austin-Healey 100S, Protheroe returned to Jaguars in 1959, campaigning both the Ancient Egyptian and a second XK120, ‘MXJ 954’, now upgraded with disc brakes and Weber carburettors. The Ancient Egyptian, heavily modified with a 3.8-litre engine, famously beat all the E-Types at the inaugural Clubman’s Championship in 1961.

Later that year he moved to the E-Type, acquiring the fourth fixed-head coupé ever built and naming it CUT 7. In 1962 it won two British Championship races at Silverstone, even after being heavily damaged at Snetterton earlier in the season. Protheroe memorably beat Mike Salmon’s DB4GT Zagato during one of these races.

Salmon later reflected: “Dick was fanatical about racing… a good, fast driver who you could trust to race cleanly, but I found his attitude slightly scary.”

Late in 1962, Protheroe bought a lightweight low-drag E-Type with an aluminium body and block. The car that would also wear CUT 7. He drove it to a class win on debut and finished second overall at the 1963 Trophée des Voitures de Sport at Reims, behind Carlo Mario Abate’s Ferrari 250 TRI/61 but ahead of Lucien Bianchi’s Ferrari 250 GTO. Ferrari’s performance clearly didn’t escape his notice.

He finished sixth in the RAC Tourist Trophy at Goodwood that same year, and in 1964 ran third in the Spa 500km behind Mike Parkes’s 250 GTO and Phil Hill’s Shelby Cobra Daytona until his gearbox failed. Restricted to fourth gear, he still led his class until the final kilometre of the race.

An accident before the 1964 Nürburgring 1,000km left him concussed and damaged his E-Type, but he returned to score two class wins at Reims and Paris, driving for hours alone after co-driver John Coundley fell ill with malaria.

Planning for 1965, Protheroe wrote: “At present retaining the E-Type until GT regulations are finalised but in addition will appear in a large rear-engine sportscar.” That car was the Ferrari 330P, a 4.0-litre, 360PS (265kW) prototype Mike Parkes had helped develop and had advised Protheroe not to drive, recommending a 250LM instead.

A 250LM was due to be shared with Mike Salmon at the 1965 Reims 12 Hours, but the car never started the race after Protheroe crashed it into a Peugeot coming the other way on the return journey to the garage — Salmon reasoning that “presumably he just didn’t see it.”

The following year, during unofficial practice for the RAC Tourist Trophy on 28^th April 1966, Protheroe suffered a fatal crash at Oulton Park’s Druids in his Ferrari 330P, hitting a tree despite the chequered flag being shown for the untimed session. The car had won the Paris 1,000km only a year earlier.

Though his life ended prematurely, Protheroe’s legacy endures, not only in the Protheroe Cup, the single-model Jaguar E-Type race held at the 83^rd Members’ Meeting presented by Audrain Motorsport, but also through the cars he shaped, including the CUT 8 E-Type now owned and raced by Jenson Button. We suspect Dick Protheroe wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

The 83^rd Members' Meeting presented by Audrain Motorsport takes place on the 18^th & 19^th April 2026. Tickets are on sale now for GRRC Members and Fellows.

You can sign up for the Fellowship now. Click here to find out more.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.

Goodwood photography by Drew Gibson, Amy Shore and Jayson Fong.