solid-disc clutch plate from then on." 1951: DNF, Jaguar C-Type, co-driver Clemente Biondetti. Retired from third place after 50 laps; no oil pressure. 1952: 3rd overall out of 57 starters, behind two factory-entered Mercedes-Benz W194 300SLs; first in class, ahead of triple Le Mans winner Luigi Chinetti's Ferrari; second in Index of Performance; winner, Gold Challenge Cup. Nash-Healey (a lightweight competition version hastily constructed for the race—the body was fabricated in less than a week; the entire car built from scratch in a fortnight). 1953: 11th out of 60 starters; Nash-Healey. His Mille Miglia results: 1950: 5th, Jaguar XK120. The best-ever result by an Englishman driving a British car, in this instance a production model beaten only by lightweight competition cars entered by Alfa Romeo (Fangio's came third) and Ferrari. 1951: DNF, Ferrari-Jaguar "Biondetti Special" shared with his 1951 Le Mans partner and four-time Mille Miglia winner Clemente Biondetti. 1952: 7th to Bracco's winning works team Ferrari, the works Mercedes-Benz 300SLs of Kling and Caracciola, and three works Lancias. Lightweight competition Nash-Healey, with Daily Telegraph motoring correspondent Bill McKenzie as passenger. 1953: DNF, Jaguar C-Type. Racing: single-seaters Johnson raced Delage, Talbot-Lago and ERA cars in single-seater events between 1946 and 1950. In August 1946, in his first drive in a "proper" racing car, albeit one that was already 20 years old, he broke the lap record at the Ards circuit (the Ulster venue of the RAC Tourist Trophy race from 1928 to 1936). The car was the supercharged straight-eight Delage previously raced by Earl Howe, Dick Seaman and Prince Bira. The clutch failed to release at the start so the car had to be pushed off the line. Having lost some 200 yards to the rest of the field, Johnson worked his way up to fourth behind Prince Bira, Reg Parnell and Bob Gerard but a spark plug melted four laps from the end, forcing him out. (He consoled himself with fastest average in the subsequent handicap race with his BMW 328.) He entered three 1947 Grands Prix with his ten-year-old ex-Louis Chiron Talbot-Lago T150C – Johnson raced it both as a sports car and a single-seater, simply removing the mudguards to convert it to Grand Prix configuration. The results were: 6th, Jersey International Road Race. Finished ahead of several Maserati and ERA single-seaters. 7th, Belgian Grand Prix, Spa. DNF, Swiss Grand Prix, Bern. There was an almost total lack