Luis Fontés

Luis Fontés

Luis Fontés at the 1935 24 Hours of Le Mans
Nationality	British
Born	December 26, 1912 London, UK
Died	October 12, 1940 (aged 27) Llandow, Wales
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Participating years	1935
Teams	Arthur W. Fox
Best finish	1st (1935)
Class wins	1 (1935)

Luis Fontés (26 December 1912 – 12 October 1940) was a British racing driver of Brazilian parentage who, along with John Stuart Hindmarsh, won the 1935 24 Hours of Le Mans for the Lagonda automobile company. He also held a pilot's licence after learning to fly at Reading Aerodrome, Berkshire, UK, and entered his own Miles Hawk Speed Six racing aeroplane (registered G-ADGP) in the prestigious King's Cup Air Race in 1935. Fontés later briefly served as an Air Transport Auxiliary ferry pilot during World War II but was killed on 12 October 1940 while delivering a Vickers Wellington Mk1C bomber to an RAF Aircraft Storage Unit at Llandow in South Wales. The Le Mans Lagonda M45R ('BPK 202') survives in the Dutch National Automobile Museum (Louwman Museum) at The Hague and the aeroplane was owned and raced for many years postwar by the late Ron Paine but is now owned by retired Concorde pilot Roger Mills and flies from White Waltham airfield, Berkshire, UK.

External links

• Profile at Motor Sport magazine archive