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Une voiture et un film – Ferrari 250 LM #5843

The Ferrari 250 LM was a development of the 250 P built for customers to race in 1964, Enzo Ferrari tried to get it classified as a GT car however the authorities denied the request because Ferrari could not prove the required minimum of 100 had been built so the cars were raced as prototypes.

Graham Hill and Jo Bonnier driving the Maranello Concesionaires owned chassis #5907 appear to have taken the models first victory at the 1964 Rheims 12 hours finishing ahead of the NART entered 250 LM #5909 driven by John Surtees and Lorenzo Bandini.

The 250 LM is known to have won at least 32 races outright, including Ferrari’s last ever outright win at Le Mans. Future World Champion Jochen Rindt and Marsten Gregory shared a 250 LM that after early ignition problems was famously driven flat out in a vane attempt to break the car so the drivers would not miss a nights sleep and ended up winning the race after the faster Ford GT40 Mk II’s had retired and the faster works Ferrari’s required unscheduled pit stops to change their brake discs.

Another future World Champion, Jackie Stewart, scored his only victory at the wheel of a Ferrari at Surfers Paradise in the 1966 12 hour race where he shared a Scuderia Veloce 250 LM with Andy Buchanan.

Thanks Cyril Teste at Ferrari Chat I believe the car seen here at Goodwood Festival of Speed last year, which is not mentioned in the programme, is chassis #5843 a car originally supplied to Ecurie Francochamps in May 1964. If the identity is correct this car is known to have won several races and hillclimbs in the hands of Lucien Bianchi, Armand Blaton and “Beurlys”.

At Le Mans in 1964 Pierre Dumay and Grégoire Langois Von Ophem shared a 16th place finish, this race was used as a background for the 1966 film “Un Homme et une femme” the red painted #5843 carrying the #23 was captured in the film on pit road and during the race.

This car first raced in the Belgian national colour yellow in 1965. I believe the owner of #5843 recently also acquired a 250 GTO for a cool $35 million dollars. Some boys sure have all the fun !

Thanks for joining me on this “Une voiture et un film” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Pole Sister – Nissan R90CK

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Like the Lancia LC2 seen in Monday’s post the Nissan R90CK seen here at Colin Bennett’s CGA Engineering Workshop is scheduled to appear at the Silverstone Classic for the Group C race next weekend.

Three serious works teams gathered to contend the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1990, Jaguar with three cars were the eventual winners, Toyota with three cars did not really figure, but Nissan with 5 front line R90CK cars became the first Japanese manufacturer to sit on pole position at this endurance classic.

The Nissan R90CK’s were built around Lola T90/10 chassis

and prepared for the World Endurance Championship by Nissan Motorsports Europe.

This particular vehicle has a rear facing camera connected to the screen seen here to aid reversing. Mark Blundell’s pole winning 3m 27s Le Mans qualifying lap immortalised with cockpit cam can be seen on this mind boggling youtube clip.

It is said that Mark had over 1000 hp available during his qualification lap from his 3.5 litre / 213 cui Nissan VRH35 V8 motor,

thanks to a ceased turbo waste gate.

Mark recorded a top speed of 226.9 mph on the Mulsanne Straight speed strap between the two newly installed chicanes a record that apparently still stands.

Six months after the unlikely Mazda victory at Le Mans in 1991, a NISMO version of the Lola T90/10 the Nissan R91CP won the 1992 Daytona 24 hour race in the hands of Masahiro Hasemi, Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Toshio Suzuki.

At the end of the 1990 season Nissan withdrew from the World Prototype Sportscar Championship but continued to develop the RC90CK cars for the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship which the manufacturer won in 1990,’91 and ’92.

This particular car is now owned by Katsu Kubota.

While there is still a good supply of parts for these vehicles

the cost of running one is expensive.

In 1990 the car driven by Kenny Acheson, Olivier Grouillard and Martin Donnelly

qualified in 5th place at Le Mans but was eliminated on the opening lap with a gearbox problem.

I shall look forward to seeing this car in action, 21 years after I first saw one, at the Silverstone Classic next weekend.

That concludes a series of three Group C blogs, my thanks to Colin Bennett for his hospitality and Tony Gallagher for organising the trip to Colin’s workshop.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s ceased wastegate edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ and that you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Thirty Years Ago – Le Mans 1981

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This weekend sees the 79th running of the Le Mans 24 hours , unfortunately I will not be there in person but will almost certainly follow the progress of the race on the internet. Thirty years ago I went to Le Mans for the first time.

I arrived as practice was already under way, one of the many reasons I had wanted to see this particular race was because the Kremer brothers were running a brand new Porsche 917, see above, that they had built for the 1981 season, ten years after the original 917, immortalised in Steve McQueen’s film that takes its title from the race, had been made obsolete by the FIA.

It looked great sounded even better with a 5 litre / 305 cui flat 12 however it was a disappointment qualifying only 18th. During the race Bob Wollek the cars only professional driver took no further part in the race after his friend Jean-Louis Lafosse driving the #25 Rondeau was killed in an accident. The 917’s remaining drivers Xavier Lapeyre and Guy Chasseuil retired after completing 82 laps.

There is no on track action on the Friday before the 24 hours and back in 1981 spectators had access to virtually all area’s while the teams prepared for the race.

Cale Yarborough joined AJ Foyt and Mario Andretti in becoming one of the few drivers to compete at Le Mans, the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500 in 1981. While his #35 Stratagraph Camaro sounded good, easily the loudest car in the race, and was as fast as any other vehicle in a straight line, topping 200 mph, the Camaro’s brakes were puny compared to the competition and simply not up to the job of slowing, easily the heaviest car in the race, down. After the first hour the brakes gave up and Cale resorted to driving the car into the wall, ironically at the corner called ‘Indianapolis’ in order to bring his car to a stop, without injury to himself or anyone else.

The weekend of the 1981 Le Mans 24 hours was an absolute scorcher, Spaniard Emillio de Vilotta prepares to board his Lola T600 which he shared with Guy Edwards and Juan Fernandez, The Ford DFL powered #18 Lola started 12th and finished 15th after a multitude of problems which included running the last couple of hours in top gear only.

For this race Porsche AG prepared two special 936 models fitted with 2.65 litre / 161 cui twin turbo flat 6 motors that had originally been designed to run on methanol in the Interscope Indy car project. The #11 of Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell was the class of the field qualifying 3 seconds ahead of it’s sister driven by Mass / Schuppan / Haywood and finishing the 24 hour race with a record lead of 14 laps over 112 miles after covering a total distance of 4825 kms / 2998 miles.

Like many people I enjoyed taking a pictures of the cars at night, unlike many people this led to an all consuming passion for artificial light and film which after many years took me into the realms of art and animation.

The only challenge to the utter dominance of Porsche at the 1981 race came from the 5 car Rondeau team, it was the teams two slower GTP cars that survived the night with Jacky Haran, Jean Louis Schlesser and Philippe Streiff coming home a distant second in the #8 Rondeau M379 with

Gordon Spice and erstwhile Connew pilot Francois Migault coming home third in the #7 Rondeau. Both of the Rondeaus were powered by detuned 3 litre / 183 cui Ford DFV motors more commonly found in Grand Prix cars.

After a couple of hours sleep the relentlessness of 24 hour racing really came home to me on the circuit that used to be known as the world fastest round about. The #55 Porsche 935 K3 of Claude Bourgoignie, John Cooper, Dudley Wood, seen here just after dawn came in 4th overall winning the Group 5 class. I believe this vehicle has passed through the hands of Nick Mason, it may still be in his collection.

The #47 Ferrari 512BB LM #31589 of Andruet/Ballot-Léna qualified 37th, and finished 5th o/a 1st in IMSA GTX.

The PRV (Peugeot Renault Volvo) Turbo V6 powered #4 WM 79/80 of Denis Moran, Charles Mendez and Xavier Mathiot started 16th and came in 13th the faster #82 P81 sister car of Thierry Boutsen was not so lucky having an accident on the Mulsanne Straight which resulted in the death of a track worker at the end of the first hour of the race.

Despite two fatalities during the race victory celebrations went ahead as usual, not sure that would happen today.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s trip into memory lane and that you’ll join me again tomorrow for a look at a unique vehicle called The Farrallac. Don’t forget to come back now !

Outlaw Racer – Ferrari 365 GTB/4

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Launched in 1968 the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 replaced the Ferrari 275 GTB/4 and to this writers mind represents the pinnacle of front engine rear wheel drive fastback GT cars. Until outlawed by US legislation in 1971 the 365 GTB/4 came with headlights mounted behind acrylic glass covers.

This most stylish of vehicles is powered by a 347 hp Lamperdi inspired twin overhead cam 60º V12 stretched to 4390 cc / 268 cui motor, each cylinder with a volume of 365 cc from which the model gets its name.

To optimise the weight balance and handling the gearbox is mounted as part of a transaxle just in front of the rear wheels.

As one would of expect of a vehicle this cool to look at it has performance to match being capable of reaching 60 mph from rest in 5.4 seconds with a top speed of 174 mph.

Competition versions of the 365 GTB/4 run by privateers with up to 450 hp counted amongst their successes a GT class winning 5th overall at Le Mans in 1971 along with GT Class wins in the same race in ’72, ’73, and ’74 scoring 1st to 5th in class in ’72, and five years after production of the model had ceased an amazing 2nd overall in the Daytona 24 hour race.

Dan Gurney and Brock Yates also drove a 365 GTB/4 2,876 miles from New York to Los Angeles averaging 80.1 mph to win the inaugural Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash in 1971.

It is thought just 1,406 of these cars designed by Leonardo Fiorvanti of Pininfarina and built by Scaglietti including 122 Spiders and 15 lightweight competition vehicles. The high desirability of the rare Spiders has led to several Berlinetta models being converted and several companies have made Spider replicas with a variety of engines.

The 365GTB/4 was replaced by the rear engined 365 GT4 Berlinetta Boxer.

I hope you have enjoyed today’s Outlaw Racer edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ and that you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Coming up Short – Triumph TR8 Twin Turbo

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All of motor sport is littered with heroic failure and there is possibly none less understandable than the Janspeed Engineering Triumph TR8 twin turbo, when one considers John Buffum’s success with the TR8 on the US Rally Stages in North America and Bob Tuliis equally outstanding success with his TR8 on the race tracks, so much in fact Bob was forced into a successful switch from SCCA to IMSA series.

Like the Buffum and Tullis programmes Janspeed’s Le Mans programme had absolutely zero factory backing but unlike Buffum and Tullis, Janspeed did not even have a budget to run the car let alone test it.

Legend has it that this vehicle started life as a left hand drive test hack used by Janspeed on behalf of British Leyand, when the tests had been completed Jan Odour acquired the vehicle with the intention of preparing it for a British modified series, however a change of rules in that series, around 1977, led Jan Odour to attempt something far more ambitious namely to take on the onslaught of Group 5 Porsche 935‘s in the World Sports Car series.

The Janspeed TR8 ran with a dry sumped twin turbo version of the all alloy Olds/Buick V8 design purchased by Rover and was said to produce over 500 hp, but it failed to set a qualifying time on it’s debut at Silverstone in 1980, where the car was loaned out to ADA Engineering in a vane effort to get the car onto the track.

Later at Le Mans despite being recorded travelling in excess of 200 mph on the Mulsanne the car failed to qualify.

I remember looking forward to seeing what the TR8 could do when I returned to Silverstone in 1981, despite arriving in time to catch qualifying I was already too late, the car had been crashed and withdrawn from the race much to my disappointment.

Later in 1981 the car ran again at Brands Hatch where it qualified but failed to finish after a spin and a stall, unfortunately I was in Germany at the time so I never did get to see possibly my all time favourite Triumph run.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s twin turbo edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’, and that you’ll join me again tomorrow for a look at a truly unique vehicle that was perhaps just an on board sick bag short of reaching production. Don’t forget to come back now !

Wild Goose and The Pet – MINI T Building

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On Sunday I got the chance to pop in to the T Building which houses the MINI Visitor Centre at Cowley near Oxford. Here are a couple of the vehicles on display.

The MINI One Alan Aldridge Special 2008, is a work of art by ‘The Graphic Entertainer’ Alan Aldridge who created a well known related work with an original Mini back in 1965 that appeared on the cover of The Sunday Times Magazine at the time.

Mini Mokes have featured in this blog, before this 1968 Austin Mini Moke is for Weske & Anja over at the Belgian Mini Forum and for everyone at the Mini Moke Club Forum.

The Mini Wildgoose was aimed at folks intent on spending their kids inheritance before the kids spent it for them.

Based on the Mini Van this wild RV conversion provided four seats in a ‘dinette’, ‘double bed’, table, curtain’s, cupboards and water carriers.

Optional extras included combined luggage rack and spare wheel carrier, which I guess was better than having it in the support vehicle driven by the wife, extended wing mirror’s, just how could you possibly reverse with out them (?), hammock bunk and all important undersealing of the cab !

Finally The Pet MINI covered in cow hide, was exhibited alongside a mass produced chaise longue similarly covered by Le Corbusier in 1927 at the ‘neue raume 07’ design exhibition in Zurich, Switzerland.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s Mini Museum edition of Getting a lil’ psycho on tyres’ and that you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a 215 hp spec MINI Cooper S R56. Don’t forget to come back now !

Moby Dick – Porsche 935/78 #006

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The Porsche 935/78 was a one off vehicle built to win the 1978 Le Mans 24 hours and was the ultimate works development of the, then 15 year old, 911 which would not be topped until the advent of the 911 GT1 built in the late 1990’s. Notice that in preparation for Le Mans the drivers seat was placed on the right hand side optimising weight distribution for a race run on a clockwise track.

Thanks to a rule made at the request of arch enemy BMW the body was lowered 10cm 3.9 inches over the standard 911 by cutting out the standard floor plan with the engine like wise now lowered the gearbox was inverted to raise the drive shafts closer to their original height. Apart of from the front windscreen almost every body panel was optimised to maximise the top speed on the 4 mile Mulsanne straight where 235 mph was eventually achieved.

The 935/78 was equipped with a 750 hp 3.2 litre 195 cui flat 6 with 4 valves per cylinder in water cooled cylinder heads, a first for Porsche who had always raced air/oil cooled motors up until this time.

The car seen here driven Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass at the 1978 Silverstone 6 hour race, a warm up for the Le Mans 24 hours, romped away from the opposition, mostly private Porsche’s with a single works BMW driven by Ronnie Peterson and Hans Joachim Stuck, finished a ridiculous 7 laps ahead of the rest of the field.

Stommelen/Schurti qualified ‘Moby Dick’, as the 935/78 was known, third on the grid at Le Mans however a silly stunt in which the car was driven on the road from Porsches garage outside the circuit to the circuit on race day went horribly wrong when predictably the car got caught in race day traffic causing the engine to over heat which created an oil leak. The subsequent loss of performance meant the car could only finish 8th.

935/78 #006 appeared twice more in 1978 but disgraced itself with two retirements and has since been consigned to the Porsche Museum. Joest Racing built two further 935/78’s from factory drawings in 1981.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s 235 mph edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ and that you will join me again for another turbo charged blog tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Gettin' A Li'l Psycho On Tyres

Art Tidesco blogs on all things motoring