Targa Florio winner Colin Davis passes away aged 79
Colin Davis, who won the 1964 Targa Florio, has died at the age of 79
Davis, who achieved most of his international successes in sportscars, was born in Britain in 1933, six years after his father 'Sammy' won the Le Mans 24 Hours with Bentley.
He made his own competition debut in 500cc Formula 3 in 1954 and won races against a list of contemporaries that included Ken Tyrrell, Stuart Lewis-Evans and Ivor Bueb.
His career advanced after he relocated to Italy and resulted in a handful of grand prix starts in a Cooper-Maserati run by Scuderia Centro Sud.
Of these, two were F1 World Championship events, his best finish an 11th place in the Italian GP of 1959.
It was in sportscars where he achieved most of his major successes, first in OSCAs and Maseratis, and later as a works Porsche driver.
He won his class on his Le Mans debut in 1958, sharing an OSCA 750 TN with Alejandro de Tomaso and repeated the achievement in a Porsche 906 in 1966 sharing with Jo Siffert.
Davis's greatest achievement, however came when he won the 1964 Targa Florio in a Porsche 904 with Antonio Pucci.
He retired suddenly in 1967 following the death of a number of his former team-mates, and emigrated to South Africa nine years later.
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