S. C. H. "Sammy" Davis
| Nationality | British |
|---|---|
| 24 Hours of Le Mans career | |
| Participating years | 1925 – 1928, 1930, 1933 |
| Teams |
Sunbeam Bentley Motors Ltd. Alvis Aston Martin Ltd. |
| Best finish | 1st (1927) |
| Class wins | 2 (1925, 1927) |
Sydney Charles Houghton "Sammy" Davis (9 January 1887, London – 9 January 1981, Guildford) was a British racing motorist, journalist and clubman.
Davis was born in South Kensington, London on 9 January 1887, the son of Edwin and Georgina Davis, his father was a merchant and tea importer. He was educated at Westminster School and University College London. While at school, he met Malcolm Campbell, and the duo were involved in a "spectacular pile-up" with a borrowed penny-farthing bicycle. In 1906 Davis became an apprentice with the Daimler Company. Training as a draughtsman, he became involved with the design of various products, from the Daimler-Renard Road Train to Daimler's team of cars in the 1907 Kaiserpreis race. In 1910, he joined the staff of Automobile Engineer, just then being launched by Iliffe (also publishers of ) as a technical illustrator and was by 1912 also a writer and sub-editor. At the start of the First World War he joined the Royal Naval Air Service and served in France with armoured car section. Following his demobilisation he became sports editor of although he also served in the Second World War in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
While best known as Sports Editor of , writing under the pen-name Casque (French for helmet), Davis also competed in many forms of motor racing in the 1920s. He won many awards in the popular trials competitions of the day.
As Sports Editor, Davis aided his prewar motorcycling associate, W. O. Bentley, in starting his company. In 1921, Davis was invited by S. F. Edge to join Edge's Brooklands AC racing team, in between magazine deadlines, while in 1922 he was part of Aston Martin's effort to break no less than 32 world and class records at Weybridge. Davis became one of the famous Bentley Boys of the late 1920s. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright in 1927. Partnered with Dr. Benjafield, they covered 1,472.527 miles at an average speed of 61.354 mph (98.740 km/h).Motor Sport reported: "The victory, in spite of its accident of the crippled 3-litre Bentley driven by J.D. Benjafield and S.C.H. Davis, will always remain an epic, and even if the competition was not as keen as in the past, it is great thing to have won a race with a car which was damaged in the early part of the event." In 1928 he finished ninth overall at Le Mans on a 1½-litre front-wheel-drive Alvis.
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