Salon Privé
Salon Privé’s first motor sport category draws in 50 years of Le Mans veterans
Le Mans arrives at Blenheim, including an iconic Porsche 962C
Racing cars were showcased for the first time at the Salon Privé concours as it took to the Blenheim Palace lawns for its 2020 edition. The non-road-legal motor sport category, Milestones of Endurance Racing, drew an impressive roll-call of sports prototypes alongside the Indian Garden, from Group 6 to the present day.
Porsche-kremer 962C
‘This is the first time this car has been shown at a concours, and the first time it’s been seen outside of the US since 2000,’ said show organiser Mark Donaldson of the Kenwood-liveried Group C Porsche 962 leading the Endurance Racing class display. ‘It was a Kremer-built car, and it finished ninth at Le Mans in 1988 with Kunimitsu Takahashi, Hideki Okada and Bruno Giacomelli at the wheel.
‘Immediately after Le Mans, unusually for a front-running Group C car, Kremer entered it in the FIA Coupe d’europe Interserie rather than the World Sports Car Championship, driven by Kris Nissen.’ He won two races – at Hockenheim and Wunstorf – in the series that pitted Group C and Can-am cars against each other in single-driver events rather than team endurance races.
‘After that it went to the US and stayed there,’ said Donaldson. ‘Group C cars never stopped racing over there – a combination of IMSA regulations, then the HSR Series rules, meant it was competitive until 2000, when it was bought by Le Mans Hotel de Paris owner Martin Overington, and brought back to Europe for a full rebuild.’
Jaguar XJR-15
‘This car’s never been shown like this before, but now there’s a new Nineties and 2000s series it can race in, you’ll be seeing a lot more of it,’ said class curator Jarrah Venables of the ex-bob Wollek Jaguar XJR-15 racer. ‘The car was the brainchild of TWR boss Tom Walkinshaw and designer Peter Stevens, who came up with the idea of the Intercontinental Jaguar Challenge. Tom’s idea was to make a customer Group C car that it was possible to use on the road, using the same chassis as his XJR Le Mans cars and a detuned race engine, but with more manageable bodywork. The
result was the first carbonfibre-bodied supercar.
‘They cost £500,000, and Walkinshaw’s idea was to build 50 and do a Pro-car-style series with all the cars built as racers. In the end, just 16 drivers and 17 cars raced. The race cars had six-speed nonsynchromesh gearboxes and no air conditioning.
‘Walkinshaw negotiated to hold three races, and buyers of the racing XJR-15S had to commit to securing a famous driver to campaign it. Wollek was one; others were Tiff Needell, David Brabham, Derek Warwick, Win Percy, Armin Hahne and Cor Euser.
‘The races were at Monaco, Silverstone and Spa-francorchamps. The winners of the first two rounds won a Jaguar XJR-S road car, while the prize for winning the Spa round was $1m. However, the drivers plotted to fix the race and split the prize money afterwards! Walkinshaw found out about this, and decided to put the chequered flag out at random, so the drivers wouldn’t know how many laps the race was supposed to last.
‘They were wild to drive, partly because they were designed around different tyres, then Walkinshaw did a deal with Goodyear just before the series began that put different compounds front and rear, making them very tail-happy.
‘Some were converted for road use, so only eight racing XJR-15S survive. The VINS are random though – the only guide to the build sequence are the numbers in pen on the inside of the body panels.’
Alfa 6C 2500 Garavini Cabriolet
‘This car is not much liked in Italy, on account of being built during World War Two for the Axis regime by a fascist collaborator,’ said owner and collector Peter Heydon of his unique 6C 2500, which won the Salon’s Coup de Coer as part of the concours’ tribute to 110 years of Alfa Romeo.
‘It was probably built for the Austrian diplomatic corps – no private passenger cars were sold in Italy during the War – although it’s very unusual for a diplomatic car, most are four-doors. However, Milano had been bombed, and Alfa had some spare 6C chassis, so they were sent to Garavini in Torino, which hadn’t been, for completion.
‘Garavini was best known for utilitarian service vehicles like ambulances and trucks. The car was almost a direct steal of a Touring design, but rather than ash and aluminium it was finished in oak and steel – much harder to work with, as well as being extremely heavy and unsuited to this kind of design. For a coachbuilder unused to building cars like this, the workmanship is incredible. But money was no object in Fascist regimes.
‘It was bought by an American GI, who stayed on in Italy for the reconstruction. He tried to modernise the car – badly – by putting a different grille on it, before exporting it to New York. But the GI lived in San Francisco – he set off to drive across the country but only got as far as Indianapolis, where he lost it in a poker game!’
Lister Storm
This is the first time this car – which won the 2000 FIA GT Championship – has been seen in 12 years. ‘It’s owned by Bobby Verdon-roe, who raced Storms when they were new, and is preparing to race it again,’ said Duncan Mclellan, who looks after the car. ‘Julian Bailey and Jamie Campbellwalter drove it, and won five out of the ten rounds of the Championship – Valencia, Estoril, Silverstone, Zolder and Magny-cours.
‘It was built in late 1999 and raced until 2004. It changed liveries often, including Laser Tools, Adidas and Creation; here it’s replicating the Zolder win in the iconic Newcastle United sponsorship.’
Ferrari 500 Mondial
‘It’s the first time this car, the most original surviving 500 Mondial, has been shown at an event like this in this condition,’ said dealer Tom Hartley Jr of the Ferrari on his stand. ‘The reason is, it wasn’t used much – it contested the 12 Hours of Hyres in 1955, raced at Casserta and did the Liège-romeliège, but its career ended abruptly in 1956.
‘It resurfaced at a Pebble Beach auction in 2001, resprayed red. A collector bought it and sent it to Quality Cars in Padova for a full restoration to original condition. But the restorers started to strip the paint off and found this incredible patina underneath, so it became a preservation job. It’s the only example that has matching body, engine and gearbox and has never been taken apart.’