Publisher Rob Sass revisited his own Le Mans dreams in this 1970 911T. LE MANS BY PORSCHE
I was minus the cool Italian Persol sunglasses, the French suede jacket, 99.9% of his cool factor, and the early Porsche 911 was a Tangerine Targa and not a Slate Gray coupe, but following the Autoroute toward Le Mans, I was doing my best Steve Mc- Queen as I retraced the opening sequence of the 1971 movie “Le Mans,” 40 years after I first saw it as a wide-eyed seven- year-old.
In that scene, Steve McQueen drives his 1970 Porsche 911S around the Sarthe départment in north central France, through the town of Le Mans and on the very public Sarthe Route Départementale D338, which makes up part of the famed rac- ing circuit. Te car, the scenery, the engine noise and the ac- cident flashback that frame the sequence were all imprinted on me during that first viewing.
Tanks to Jérôme Hardy of the Classic Car Network, and Chloé Allègre of Bonhams France, Phillippe Martin, the owner of a beautifully restored 1970 Porsche 911T, agreed to be part of our cinematic time travel. It got even better when Alban Martinet of the Automobile Club de l’Ouest and the Porsche Driving School offered unfettered access to the Bugatti Circuit, which makes up much of the non-public road portion of the track and includes the iconic Dunlop Bridge and chicane, the grandstand straight and the Ford Chicanes. So, not only had we followed much of McQueen’s route to the circuit, we were actually able to drive portions of the track. Initially with owner Martin driving, our progress was quick, smooth and safe. Al- though not nearly as smooth, I left no tangerine paint behind. Later, after nosing around the control room and defiling the winner’s podium, where the likes of Bell, Ickx and Kris- tensen have stood multiple times, we headed for the impres- sive museum where, not coincidentally, there’s a very fine Steve McQueen exhibit. For more information about the museum, which is about two hours west of Paris and accessible by Auto- route and high-speed train, go to
www.lemusee24h.com.
To see more photos from our trip, go to:
hagerty.com/lemans. 28 Hagerty Magazine |
HAGERTY.COM
longevity of the McQueen phenomenon. Tat question would be put to perhaps the ultimate test in August 2011, as RM Auctions consigned two notable McQueen cars to its annual Monterey, California, sale with great ex- pectations. Te first was the 1970 Porsche 911S driven by McQueen during filming of his motorsport magnum opus, “Le Mans.” Te car was delivered new to the set by Porsche, and on sale day came with a foot-thick file of documentation. Te second car was a 1953 Siata 208S Spyder. It had less than perfect ownership documentation, and in the end that kept the price down to $946,000. But the star of that show was without doubt the “Le Mans 911,” as it came to be called. Its McQueen ownership was unquestioned, and it fig- ured prominently, with McQueen at the wheel, during opening sequences of the film. Te Porsche served as McQueen’s personal transport in France during the summer of 1970, and he acquired the car after filming was concluded.
If classic car auction sales registered on the Richter Scale, the Mc- Queen Le Mans 911S’s performance on the RM auction block last Au- gust would have triggered a tsunami. When the gavel fell, the final sum was $1,375,000; an extraordinary amount of money for a 41-year-old non-racing 911, which would otherwise be worth around $100,000. “It’s not just about the car,” notes Michael Regalia, previous owner/ restorer and seller of the ex-McQueen Ferrari Lusso. “It all comes down to the intergalactic power of Steve McQueen. Remember that Steve Mc- Queen absolutely ‘had it going on’ back then, and his legacy still does today. Steve McQueen was the guy that every man wanted to be, and that every woman wanted to be with. For a time, he was the world’s most popular and highest paid actor. He was a tough character and lived life his own way. He had ‘edge,’ and then as now, people are drawn to edgy personalities. And of course his connection to cars was absolutely legiti- mate. He was a serious car guy with great taste in cars; ditto his passion for motorcycling. And he was a committed and capable racer, on two wheels or four. Let’s not forget that he placed second overall at the 12 Hours of Sebring, in a Porsche, just a few months before he went to France to film ‘Le Mans.’”
Rob Myers, the “RM” of RM Auctions, concurs with Regalia’s reason- ing: “It’s true that guys like Frank Sinatra and Elvis had nice cars. How- ever, they didn’t race and do the kinds of things that Steve McQueen did. McQueen was just so true and authentic as a car guy, and that’s what car and motorcycle collectors love about him and why his pieces command three, four or more times what an ‘ordinary’ example would.” Writing for Sports Car Market magazine, collector Miles Collier takes a somewhat different view, admitting that “there isn’t an atom of my being that gets the fascination of owning a piece of celebrity memorabilia.” But Collier acknowledges that there is certain value in owning a McQueen machine, explaining that the car connects the buyer to Steve McQueen, which is one of the “drivers for the extraordinary sum paid.” One area where Regalia and Collier disagree is in the longevity of the
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