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| Grover Williams - an appreciation. http://www.bugattibuilder.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=487 |
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| Author: | Legaleagle [ Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:20 am ] |
| Post subject: | Grover Williams - an appreciation. |
GROVER WILLIAMS, William Charles Frederick. The “Anglo-French enigma” was born in the Parisian suburb of Montrouge on the 16th January, 1903 to an English father and a French mother. He was raised in Paris and became chauffeur to the fashionable English portrait artist Sir William Opren in the early twenties with his mistress Yvonne Aubicq. Williams drove his employer’s Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost at Deauville and Le Touquet and also drove for his father who operated a car hire business in Paris. His competition career began with a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and his first event with a car followed in 1925 at the Gometz-LeChatel hill-climb in 1925. He was known as “W. Williams or just “Williams” and to his family he was simply “Willlie”. He competed twice in the Monte Carlo rally ; in a Hispano-Suiza and later in a type 43. His first race was with a GP Bugatti in March 1926 in the GP de Provence. He had put Segrave under pressure in the race and eventually finished second. His purchase of a type 35 was probably assisted by his father and possibly by Aubicq to whom he had grown close. She left Orpen and married him in 1929 (see above). Williams had many works drives for Bugatti and won the Grand Prix de La Baule (on the beach of his home town) on three occasions, the Grand Prix de l’ACF twice and the Grand Prix of Belgium and Monaco. He came to England at the start of WW2 and joined the army as a driver. He was recruited into the Special Operations Executive charged by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill with setting “Europe ablaze” and was one of the agents parachuted into France where he set up a resistance network which included Benoist and Wimille. However, he was arrested by the Gestapo on 2nd August, 1943* and was executed at Sachsenhausen in March, 1945. (Photo : see VSCC 239/65 and B.36/1/30). (“Bugantics” editor John Staveley is currently researching the story of Grover Williams). |
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| Author: | Simon Whittley [ Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:23 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
I can strongly recommend "The Grand Prix Saboteurs" book by Joe Saward which documents William Grover Williams and Robert Benoist's resistance activities during the war - an excellent read with an appropriate scattering of Bugatti references throughout... http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h ... +saboteurs |
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| Author: | barttore [ Sat Dec 01, 2012 3:26 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Grover Williams - an appreciation. |
http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sun ... -1-2321005 |
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