Le Mans 24 Hours, 31 May-1 June 1986: Start of the race – Porsches dominate the lead group
In Part 1, Stories from Le Mans – with a Porsche flavour, our intrepid scribbler who hails from that beautiful part of South Africa, the Western Cape, shares with us some hilarious and revealing stories from his many trips to Le Mans. Richard Wiley, a lifelong motoring journalist, has always loved Le Mans, Group C and especially the Porsches of that era. A sting in the tale, covers his early trips to Le Mans in the late ‘80s.
Le Mans 24 Hours, 12-13 June 1954: Leading the Porsche contingent on a media parade lap ahead of the 1954 Le Mans 24-Hour race is the #40 1498 cc Porsche 550 Spyder of Glockler/von Frankenburg followed by the similarly spec-ed #39 car of Johnny Claes/Pierre Stasse with the #41 car of Herrmann/Polensky just behind. At the rear is the #47 550 driven by Zora Arkus-Duntov/Gustave Olivier, the class-winning 1098 cc car
For most of my three score years and ten, I lived – or should I say, survived – in Zimbabwe, an observation which may well invite the retort: “So what?”
