Robert Charles Tullius, known to one and all as Bob, passed away at home in Florida yesterday at 95 years old.
He packed a lot into those 95 years. After service in the US Air Force and a later career at Kodak, he rather stumbled into motorsport.
In 1960, Bob took his wife’s Triumph TR3 to a race school and won the race held at graduation.
Club racing adventures followed before Bob, together with mechanic Brian Fuerstenau, and New York advertising executive Dick Gilmartin established Group 44 Inc. in Falls Church, Virginia in 1965.
Together they effectively invented modern motorsport marketing via a wholly professional presentation of the whole team, including the cars, haulers and crew members – in this case, in what became a truly iconic white and green ‘look’.
That saw groundbreaking and long-lasting sponsorship arrive too – and that was noticed by many others in the business.
But Bob’s Group 44 effort was more than just a professional facade, much, much more!
A quarter century of racing saw Group 44 take 300+ race wins across SCCA, IMSA GTP and Trans Am with 14 national and three Trans Am titles. Bob Tullius, meanwhile, was far from just a team leader, he contested more than 250 races in an amazing range of machinery.
Tullius and Group 44 became synonymous with British GT race cars – Triumphs including Spitfires and GT6s, also spanning the TR era from that original TR3 through to the mighty TR8 that saw a Sebring class win in 1980 in the hands of Tullius and Bill Adam.
Alongside all of that were some glorious campaigns with Jaguar, success with a highly developed E-Type, that car succeeded by XJSs that saw more on-track wins before perhaps the biggest adventure of them all, taking Jaguar back to Le Mans with the Fabcar-based, in-house developed XJR-5 prototype.
The XJR-5s were trailblazers that became race winners in IMSA GTP competition by 1984 and took a class win at Le Mans in 1985.
That visibility would see the first steps towards a full-blown return to Le Mans and World Championship competition made by the Jaguar brand, but Group 44 would eventually lose out in running that programme to TWR. The XJR7, successor to the XJR5, would be the last Jaguar campaigned by the team as the US-designed cars were succeeded by TWR’s Tony Southgate-designed XJRs.
The XJR7, though, did provide Bob Tullius with his last race win as a driver at the 1986 3 Hours of Daytona.
Group 44’s successes, though, would continue beyond their Jaguar era, the team taking their third Trans-Am title in 1988 with Audi, Hurley Haywood at the wheel of the Audi 200 Quattro.
Thousands of visitors to Sebring Raceway would add a visit to the Group 44 Hangar, where many of his famous race cars were housed together with Bob’s collection of historic aircraft, one of his other major passions.
Bob’s contribution as a driver and motorsport pioneer and professional was recognised time and again with induction into the Sebring Hall of Fame in 2014, the SCCA Hall of Fame in 2015, the British Sports Car Hall of Fame in 2017, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2018, & the IMSA Hall of Fame in 2025.
There are plans in preparation to mark his passing at this weekend’s 12 Hours of Sebring.
He is survived by his daughter, his daughter-in-law, 8 grandchildren, & 3 great grandchildren, together with countless friends in motorsport and in his local community.
“Bob Tullius was one of the true originals in American sports car racing,” said IMSA President John Doonan. “He was a visionary competitor, a gifted team leader, and a gentleman whose presence elevated every paddock he entered. His success with Group 44 and his decades of innovation and excellence left an unmistakable imprint on IMSA’s history and on the countless people he inspired along the way.
“We mourn the loss of a Hall of Famer, a pioneer, and a dear friend to our community. On behalf of everyone at IMSA, we extend our deepest condolences to Bob’s family, friends, former teammates, and the many fans who cherished his remarkable legacy.
“On a very personal note, Bob was a lifelong hero of mine,” Doonan said. “Bob and my grandfather (John W. Doonan) were very close friends and met – just by chance – in a London restaurant on their way back to the states from Le Mans. Because they both lived in the same area of Virginia/Maryland, they shared racing stories, plane stories, car stories, and true friendship from then on.
“I first met Bob at the IMSA 500-mile race at Road America in 1982, a day I will never forget. My last visit with Bob was last year at his Florida home when we presented him his IMSA Hall of Fame medal. Rarely does it come to be that one gets the chance to induct one of their heroes into the Hall of Fame. In this case, I cherish the fact that I could.”
All at DSC send our sincerest condolences to all who knew Bob.
- With thanks to the Daytona News Journal
- Pic top copyright IMSA Hall of Fame
- Other pics copyright and courtesy of racingsportscars
