Frank Raymond Wilton "Lofty" England (24 August 1911, Finchley, Middlesex – 30 May 1995, Austria) was an engineer and motor company manager from Britain.
After the company's withdrawal from racing England moved into the mainstream management of Jaguar Cars, later succeeding Sir William Lyons as its chairman and Chief Executive, before retiring in 1974.
England was apprenticed as an engineer to the Daimler Company in 1927[2] where, owing to his 6' 5" (196 cm) height, he quickly acquired the nickname, "Lofty", which would stick with him for the rest of his life.
In 1932, his final year as an apprentice, England finished second in the inaugural RAC Rally, driving one of Laurence Pomeroy's Daimler Double Six cars.
[2] Being based in Hendon also meant that England could easily attend race meetings at the Brooklands circuit in Surrey, and he became a familiar face at the Track.
On completing his apprenticeship Lofty England found that his technical skills, allied to his motorsport enthusiasm, meant that he was in great demand among the gentlemen racers of the early 1930s.
His time at ERA was not happy, mainly due to the works' lax attitude toward their customers' cars,[2] but he was employed by Dick Seaman almost immediately following his ignominious exit.
Unfortunately for England, what may have proved to be a productive relationship with the up-and-coming Grand Prix star was curtailed in late 1936 when Seaman signed for the dominant Mercedes-Benz racing team.
The company did not have any motorsport plans at this stage, but in the hands of a few privateer owner-drivers Jaguar's new XK120, introduced in 1948, proved to be competitive with the more specialised offerings from continental manufacturers.
[2] Jaguar's newly formed Engineering Competition Department provided six top pre-war drivers (including England's old employer Prince Bira) with lightweight, pre-production, aluminium-bodied XK120s in 1949, and results were encouraging.
Leslie Johnson won major sports car races in Britain and America that year and took fifth in the 1950 Mille Miglia, the Jaguar beaten only by works Ferraris and Alfa Romeos.
Stirling Moss drove another of the pre-production cars, entered by Tommy Wisdom, to a dominant victory in the 1950 Dundrod TT, his speed in the rain also winning him a place in Jaguar's 1951 Le Mans team.
[4] While results continued to come with the production XK120 model, England and Heynes realised that it was too overweight and aerodynamically compromised to have a serious chance of winning the Le Mans race.
The eventual winning driver pairing of Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt headed to a bar expecting that they wouldn’t race that night, while Lofty England took matters in hand and managed to persuade the Automobile Club de l'Ouest to reinstate the cars.
Appropriately, the iconic D-Type made its debut at the 1954 24 Hours of Le Mans race, where Hamilton and Rolt were beaten into second place by only one lap, by the Ferrari 375 of Formula One stars José Froilán González and Maurice Trintignant.
Tragically, an accident triggered by the D-Type of Mike Hawthorn caused the deaths of Mercedes driver Pierre Levegh and 83 spectators, plus injuring 120 others.
When, at Reims in early 1956, Le Mans hero Duncan Hamilton ignored England's pit signals, the team manager fired him on the spot.
With increasing industrial tensions and centralised decision making within British Leyland, England felt that his position was untenable[2] and, aged 63, he retired to Austria in 1974.
The company wished to establish a European distribution network for its Scimitar GTE sports estate car following the development of its more refined SE6 version in 1986.