Porsche 917K and Le Mans

[Mephisto]

Well, I have a couple of questions. Has anybody seen the movie Le Mans filmed in 1970 (I think) with Steve Mc Queen? Brilliant movie with many original recordings. Especially the crash with the 917K Gulf Porsche, as (in the movie) the driver got disorientated by an accident in front of him with a Ferrari. The Porsche crash pictures seem to be originally, but the Ferrari crash pictures have been refilmed especially for the movie.
Apparently, the driver who made the stunt was/is as far as I know quite famous. As he did the stunt he had to suffer some serious injuries.

Who was that driver that did the stunt ?
Who was the real driver that died ?

Further the race was at the end very very close. Of course, it is a movie but

Was it really so close ?

A mistake (better say a commercial interest from the Americans) the Gulf Porsche won, but in truth the Salzburg Porsche won driven by Hans Herrmann.

Has anybody got some racing pictures of the 917K Salzburg or Gulf ?

By the way, since I am still new in this Forum, and I am quite young, my details might not be correct. Everybody of course can correct me, but I just want to make sure, that I am interested in detailed facts, but I just don't always have them.
Sorry that there are so many questions, but my interest is big and my library is small, so I am very happy for any reply.

PS: There was some discussion that this forum was lacking new Topics, so I didn't hesitate.

[Gerard]

Hi Mephisto,

Yes, I did see this movie, I even have it on tape somewhere lying around my house.
The movie was made in 1971, directed by Lee Katzin.
I'm not absolutely sure, but I think the driver that got hurt in the accident was Paddy Driver. I believe he suffered serious leg injuries.
I could be totally wrong here, but maybe someone else knows more about this subject.

[Michael M]

David Piper drove the stunt, and he lost a leg in the accident. He's still active in historic racing, and still fast!
http://www.racecar.co.uk/david_piper_isp/david.html

[TimD]

Yes, quite right. David Piper it was, and I agree with Michael, he is very, very fast to this day.

The "Ferrari" crash is actually a radio-controlled vehicle. There was just no way a stunt driver could survive a take-off like that in a race monococque.

The car they used for the jump was an unfortunate Lola T70 Mk3GT, fitted with the glassfibre external panels from a Ferrari 512M. If you look carefully, you can see the gaffer tape holding them down!

This was the first movie my Father ever took me to see at the cinema. I was four years old when it came out, and I still have the picture in my mind's eye of the "Lolararri" pancaking down, and detonating, and I still vividly remember a boy in the seat behind me at that moment shouting "Cor, he's throwing it like a load of confetti."

Nearly 30 years on, I still haven't figured out what he was going on about!

[Gerard]

Paddy Driver, David Piper.
See, that's what is going to happen to you when you grow old.
Anyway, this topic has inspired me to go look for that tape and watch it once again.

[Leo]

Wasn't Rob Slotemaker, a Dutch touringcar specialist and Jan Lammers' mentor, involved in the Le Mans movie? Slotemaker was some kind of 'slip specialist' (there is still a driving school with his name at Zandvoort), and I thought he did some of the crash scenes in Le Mans.

[Michael M]

Rob Slotemaker has driven the camera car, a Ford GT40 "convertible" with cutted roof.



[This message has been edited by Michael M (edited 18 April 2000).]

[Gerard]

[Michael M]

But Gerard, this is a model! here's the real stuff:

The #20 Porsche 917 of Siffert/Rodriguez leads the #6 Ferrari 512 of
Giunti/Vacarella and the #21 Porsche 917 of Kinnunen/Rodriguez

[TimD]

Don't forget the other camera car.

The film company wanted to get authentic racing footage, so they actually entered a Porsche 908 Spyder for the 24 hours, with an enormous camera pod on the nose.

Herbert Linge and Jonathan Williams took it to 8th place in the general standings, althouth they were officially unclassified, having covered an insufficient distance.

They would have finished higher, if not for the extra pitstops undertaken to change the film cannisters!

The footage from the actual race was spliced into the specially shot footage, and the result is pretty seamless. There are, however, a couple of bloopers, including a great one, where a yellow Corvette and a green Lola, if I remember rightly, in consecutive shots, are carrying the same race number...

[Michael M]

Have to make a correction to my earlier posting concerning David Piper. I always thought that the Porsche 917 # 20 crash scene was an original sequence from the 1970 race, and only the Lola-Ferrari crash was specially filmed, that this is not correct. The 917 # 20 crash was also sequenced for the movie, and in fact driven by David Piper. The original917 # 20 in 1970 - driven by Jo Siffert an Brian Redman - dropped out by engine failure, and not by crash. So Tim of course is correct that the Lola-Ferrari was only radio-controlled.

The 1970 race - which was basis for the movie - was not close at all, there had been 5 laps between winning Porsche # 23 with Hans Hermann / Dick Atwood and the # 3 Martini Langheck-917 of Gerard Larousse / Willy Kauhsen. And Ferrari? No factory car had seen the finish, best was the NART 512S with Posey / Bucknum 30 laps behind the winner. Yes, there was also a bad accident in the real race, when Ferrari # 5 driven by Jacky Ickx and Peter Schetty left the track - over the armco - and killed a marshal.

[Mephisto]

As you can see, a movie can change many details or even race results. I am happy that so many people are actually responding to the subject. I was scared that it would be boring. To be honest I like the movie a lot, because together with Grand Prix it is one of the only movies that actually show how racing was at the time.
But of course there has to be an dramatic part, crashes, people dieing and the close race (as in the movie Le Mans.) I saw the 917K #23 that actually won the race in 1970 on the Nürnburg Ring 3 years ago, actually driven by Hans Herrman himself. It was raining so the didn’t dare to drive in real action. But the sound that those cars make is really amazing. Of course you can’t compare it with an BRM V16 from 1951 !!! Michael M found an MP3 with some very good recordings from that car and it is really shocking. As far as I know, that car belongs to Nick Mason, the drummer of the band Pink Floyed. Well that is an topic for it self, so I will stop here.


[This message has been edited by Mephisto (edited 19 April 2000).]

[jarama]

Nice photo, Michael M, this were the good old days of Le Mans...

About the Gulf-Porsche's, #20 was driven by Seppi Siffert and Brian Redman, instead of Pedro RodrÃ*guez.

[Michael M]

Correct of course, see also my text posting to # 20 (crash). The text to the picture has been paste copied directly from the internet, so it is proven again guys, NOT EVERYTHING IN THE WEB IS CORRECT AND TRUE!

[aiwa]

If I remember rightly a number of Chevron B16s were used to mock up other makes of car.

[Michael M]

For all of you outside there having satellite tv connection:
Today, 23h20 C.E.T., German TM3:
Le Mans - with Steve McQueen!

[This message has been edited by Michael M (edited 10 May 2000).]