Tim Rootes, the only son of the Rootes Group co-founder Sir Reginald Rootes, has passed away aged 95.
Born in Kent in 1925, Tim left Harrow School at 15 to work for Humber but this was halted when he was called up for military service in 1943. He worked briefly in Cairo and then Baghdad, driving home from the latter in a Sunbeam Talbot Tourer on a gruelling, hazardous seven-week trip that even included coming second in a Concours d’Elegance in Biarritz.
In 1950, Tim sailed to New York to join his cousin Brian Rootes, who oversaw Rootes Inc, the North American sales and marketing division. The next year, he became a regional director based in Beverley Hills before a return to the UK in 1956, where he was made…