Richard Parry-Jones CBE has been awarded the prestigious Royal Automobile Club Simms Medal in recognition for his immense contribution to the UK and world automobile industry.

As the Ford Motor Company Group Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, Parry-Jones set new standards in road vehicle dynamics that millions of motorists across the world benefit from today.

The Royal Automobile Club Simms Medal is named after the Club’s founding member Frederick Simms and is awarded to recognise a genuine contribution to motoring innovation by individuals or small companies that also exemplify the spirit of adventure.

'Richard Parry-Jones has recently retired from Ford Motor Company as Group Vice President and Chief Technical Officer after a career of more than 30 years in Ford,' said John Wood, Chairman of the Royal Automobile Club’s Awards Sub-Committee. 'He was the most senior engineer in the Ford empire and, as such, was responsible to the Company’s Board of Directors on all technical matters and for the functional leadership of all of Ford’s 30,000 engineers. Far more relevant though is the simple fact that Richard is recognised by his peer group as one of the outstanding vehicle engineers of his generation who set new standards in road vehicle dynamics and it is entirely due to him that millions of drivers have been able to enjoy and benefit from his determination to engineer safe vehicles with excellent handling qualities.'

'I like to express my appreciation to the Club for recognising me and awarding me this wonderful Simms Medal,” said Parry-Jones. 'I’ve done a little bit of research on the internet to find out a bit more of the history of this award and I found out very quickly that this is an honour not lightly bestowed and I’m all the more appreciative of that.'

Previous winners of the Simms Medal include Radical, BAR Honda and Simon Saunders, the designer of the Ariel Atom. Last year Bill Gibson, co-founder and Managing Director of Zytek, received the Simms Medal for his achievements in the fields of motorsport and electric vehicles.

The recipient of the Simms Medal is chosen by the Dewar Trophy Technical sub committee and is normally awarded alongside the recipient of the Dewar. While the Technical Sub Committee received many interesting submissions for the 2007 Dewar Trophy, it was felt that none of these met the very highest of standards and the decision was taken not to award the Dewar Trophy for 2007. Since 1906 the Dewar Trophy has only been awarded 38 times, with the last time in 2006 when the team behind the JCB Dieselmax land speed record project were presented with the prestigious trophy