The Nov/Dec 2022 Vintage Motorsport issue is in the mail to subscribers and if you are a subscriber, thank you! It’s also headed to newsstands at Barnes & Noble bookstores nationwide. If you’re not a subscriber, you can go to VintageMotorsport.com/Subscribe or call 877-425-4103. Single copies can be purchased at our online store HERE.
It was Ferrari’s Stealth Fighter, the 250 LM, and no one at the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans saw it coming—most notably, the Ford Motor Company racing juggernaut, with its armada of Cobra Daytona Coupes, GT40s and 7.0-liter MkIIs.
The FIA’s refusal to homologate the 250 LM as a GT forced it to compete with true prototypes, thus decreasing its chances of victory, particularly at an endurance classic like Le Mans. So when drivers Jochen Rindt and Masten Gregory, racing for Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (NART) qualified back in 11th, it seemed a forgone conclusion that a victory here was out of the question.
Yet, as the Fords dropped out, one after another, our 250 LM cover car moved up in the standings, hour by hour, with future World Champion Rindt and Gregory making no mistakes behind the wheel. A rumor has it that Ed Hugus climbed into the driver’s seat late at night, relieving Gregory, who suffered from poor eyesight in the darkness, our 7-page Salon feature telling the tale of Ferrari’s very last win at Le Mans, with amazingly beautiful photography by Ron and Brian Kimball.
Mario Andretti fans will love writer David Linden’s feature “One of a Kind,” about Mario’s impressive success at the fast circuit known as Road America. He won three Indy car races there in the mid-1980s, and he tells VM readers what enabled his wins there.
In VM’s ongoing “My Favorite Race” series, Porsche driver Patrick Long tells us about his experience at the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans, where he and co-drivers Richard Lietz and Raymond Narac, driving for a French team from Rouen, pulled off a GT class victory in the Matmut Porsche 997 GT3-997 GTR battling the Ferrari F430 teams and other Porsches as well. The race had its usual drama, and heavy rain as well.
NASCAR fans, don’t miss reading Joe Scalzo’s entertaining look back at Curtis and Bill, that is race driver extraordinaire Curtis Turner and the head of NASCAR, Big Bill France. France called Turner the greatest race driver I ever saw. But he banished him to oblivion anyway once Turner got the bad idea to organize the drivers into the Teamsters Union.
With Toyota’s recent domination of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, we thought it would be fun to look back on one of the company’s earlier attempts at the race in 1985 with the 85C GTP, in a feature titled, “Father to Son.” For the occasion of the most recent Le Mans Classic, recently retired driver Kazuki Nakajima was back behind the wheel driving the actual Toyota 85C in which his father Satoru finished 12th in the 1985 24 Hours of Le Mans.
And for those readers who appreciate automotive art, Canadian artist Kellen Silverthorn’s work with actual stones will blow your mind. Black quartz and marble are favorite materials, and what he creates with his work in artist-dimension stone. Like he says, “Who knew cars could be sculpted from stone?”
Race reports includes the big bash at Monterey that celebrated Le Mans 24 Hours cars, Lime Rock’s Historic Festival that honored Corvette, the wild street racing of the 40th Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix, the UK’s always glorious Revival, and Masters Historics at The Glen.
Popular columns by Burt Levy, Pete Lyons, Jeff Allison, Jochen Mass, Jim McCraw and D. Randy Riggs are here as well, along with all the latest auction sales and trends by John L. Stein.
