Ivor Léon John Bueb was born in East Ham, Essex, to Léon Gervase Bueb and Grace Marie Alice Vagnolini. His father was born in Breisach, Germany to French parents, and his mother had English, Italian and Welsh grandparents. His parents divorced in 1926. Bueb spent his childhood in Dulwich, South London, regularly visiting Crystal Palace to watch racing drivers Prince Bira, Freddie Dixon and Raymond Mays compete.
Bueb began racing seriously in 1953 with a Formula Three 500cc Cooper, graduating to the Cooper works team in 1955 when he finished second in the British championship. He made occasional starts in Grands Prix in 1957 with a Connaught and a Maserati run by Gilby Engineering. In 1958, he raced Bernie Ecclestone's Connaught at Monaco, and drove a Formula Two Lotus at the German Grand Prix.
In 1959, Bueb had two outings for BRP, firstly a non-qualification at Monaco, then another Formula Two entry at the British Grand Prix. He also participated in numerous non-Championship Formula One races. Following the death of Archie Scott Brown at Spa in May 1958, Brian Lister hired Bueb to fill the vacant Lister-Jaguar driver's seat. Bueb achieved success in sports car racing, scoring several first places at tracks such as Crystal Palace and Goodwood during the 1958 and 1959 seasons.
Bueb shared the winning works Jaguar D-type with Mike Hawthorn in the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans, a race marred by an accident in which 82 spectators were killed. He repeated this success with Ron Flockhart in the ex-works Ecurie Ecosse car in 1957.
In 1959, Bueb suffered serious injuries in a crash at the Charade Circuit near Clermont-Ferrand, France, while driving his BRP Cooper-Borgward Formula Two car. He crashed at Gravenoire, a multiple apex-section at the very far end of the circuit, and was thrown out of his Cooper. He died six days later at a hospital near the circuit.
Bueb served in the RAF during WW2. After returning, he invested money into selling ex-War department vehicles in Newport, Monmouthshire. He obtained his Aviator's Certificate in 1949 in Cardiff, piloting a DH82A Tiger Moth. Upon moving back to Cheltenham in the early 1950s, he began his career in motorsport, helped by Geoffrey Turk. Fellow racers affectionately called him ‘Ivor the Driver’, a play on ‘Ivan the Terrible’. Jimmy Ebdon paid tribute to Bueb after his tragic accident: “Despite his burly figure, he was indeed a quiet and very sensitive person. He was very modest in success and always most outspoken about his failures.”
Bueb was survived by his wife, Florence Ada Bueb (1925-2009) and his son, David Ivor Lee Bueb Thomas, who died in 1988.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus: a Wikipedia article about Ivor Bueb. No external sources were consulted, including autobiographies, period programmes, or specialist publications.