another article in OCTANE

[Jim Rosenthal]

Long article in this month's OCTANE on one of the Gulf GT40s for sale, unfortunately a good deal of misinformation identifying 1076 as the double LM winner etc. A bit spoiling an otherwise decent effort. Don't mean to be an anorak or trainspotter but if you're going to identify ONE GT40 correctly, it ought to be the one with the most impressive race record, don't you think? Still, some nice photos of the car in question in its LeMans camera-car days for Steve McQueen, who evidently actually owned it at one point in time. The pictures are worth seeing the article for.

 

[Allan Feldman]

Yes as an anorak I email Octane about their misinformation 1076 being the double 1968/69 Le Mans winner but have had no reply. I think his (Steve McQueens) company Solar production got P1074 and modified it for the camera shots.
Regards Allan

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

1074, formerly the Wyer Team LeMans car, formerly the McQueen camera car for "LeMans", and formerly the property of Bernie Carl of Washington, D.C., sold for ten million dollars at the RM Auction within the last day or two. The release did not say who the new owner is. I think this car was one of the ones restored by Robert Ash, if I'm not mistaken, who did his usual superlative job on it.

This may be a new auction record for a GT40- there are GT40s that are worth more, but none of them have changed hands in recent years. There are not a lot of GT40s that would be worth more than this, perhaps only three or four- 1075, J5, and J6, that come to mind. And 1076 would, I imagine, be worth a similar amount.

Many of these cars belong to folks wealthy enough to campaign them as vintage racers and fix them if they break, so perhaps we'll see this one out on the track at some point. I hope so.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Yes agreed Jim it would be nice to see more of the original cars on the race track. But with prices around $10 million it might br safer to polish rather than race

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

You would think so, Pete, but I saw 1075 out on the track at Laguna Seca in 2003 being driven hard by Rob Walton, who owns it. He could afford to recreate the entire car from scratch if he had to. so he just drives it. Good for him.

 

[Troy]

What month edition of Octane is the article in? Maybe I missed it on the news stand?

 

[Stephen Ducker]

That's issue No. 111 dated September 2012.

Regards Steve