Wednesday 6 June 2012

Minis at Le Mans (2012)

All the Mini derivatives that ever made it to the 24-hour race at Le Mans (or just about!) were described here in a series last year. This year three of these cars will make it to the Le Mans Classic on 16-18 July 2012. Two of these are Mk1 Mini Marcoses entered by French teams (just like the one in 1966), the first of them wears chassis number 9 and is being entered by Arnaud Pautigny and Jean Pierre Jabouille who is said to have co-driven the 1966 car (this one). With chassis number 6034 the other Mini Marcos is slightly later and will be driven by Jean-Pierre Manjard and legendary stunt driver Rémy Julienne, who catered for the stunts in the Italian Job and should know how to drive a Mini, I reckon! Third but not least is a Deep Sanderson 301. In fact it is the alloy bodied car that originally made it to the same track twice (and crashed in practice in '64 - see here). It's also the same car that was auctioned last year and is now enetered by a New Zealand/British team of Roger Wills and Joe Twyman. Intriguingly the car can be hired, too (click here). Perhaps something for Classic Le Mans 2014? Anyway: good luck gentlemen racers!

This Mk1 Mini Marcos will be driven by legendary stunt driver Rémy Julienne
Picture courtesy motorsport.com
While this one will have 1966 Le Mans veteran Jean-Pierre Jabouille at the wheel
Picture courtesy motorsport.com
A Deep Sanderson 301 (Number 9 here) is entered by Roger Wills and Joe Twyman
Picture courtesy ultimatecarpage.com

6 comments:

  1. Ohh man, i can't wait. But i can't understand one thing, these Mini Marcos's are not FIA cars? Only 7007 to 7056 were homologated?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know, but I reckon these have to be eligible as the original Le Mans Mini Marcoses were of the 6000-series.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well the 67 car was defenietly a Mk. 3, but the 66 entry must have been a Mk. 1.

    http://www.minimarcos.org.uk/memcars/glasby/index.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Excuse me, you are right of course! It would be nice to learnm which number the '66 Le Mans car actually wore. I guess it could be any one between 6003 and 6018 bar -07 and -09...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yeah. I would like to find that car some where. If you find it, let me know.

    But the 66 was defenietly a mk. 1 (6000 series)

    The homologation must have been made af the factorys exploits, on early 7000 cars. My car is 7012 and one of the 50 homologated.
    Do you know what chassis number the 67 car was?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I would like to throw some light on what homologation stands for in this case. In 1968 a minimum number of equal 50 cars in a year had to be produced and verified by the national motorsport association to compete in group 4. In these years group 4 was small series prototype sports cars (GTP).
    The Le Mans 1966 was competing in a prototype class hence different from the homologation cars.
    The current Le Mans rules will allow a mk1 because it is what they did in 1966 but also the homologated group 4 cars.
    In other races mk1 MM´s could be a problem but it depends on the rules.
    The homologation is not restricted to the cars from 7006 to 7057 but all mk3 cars can be race cars! Mk4 with longer wheelbase is not allowed!

    Joergen part owner of 7012

    ReplyDelete