Brian Redman

For more than a year, racing legend Brian Redman has shared the highs and lows of his remarkable life and career. In his 16th column, Brian sits down with Tony Mcguiness to reveal some additional thoughts on his time during one of the most dangerous eras in motor racing

Last month I discussed my enormous accident in June 1977 driving the new Haas/ Hall Lola T333 in a Can-am race at St. Jovite, near Montreal. It was a disastrous race that nearly killed me. As I mentioned, on the way to the hospital, the ambulance blew a tyre. The next day when my wife Marion arrived, the headlines in Montreal’s papers read, “Redman est Mort”. The English translation… “Redman is Dead”. The photograph accompanying the headlines showed the ambulance upon the jack and the two medics working on the wheel with the backdoors of the ambulance wide open.

After three days in an induced coma, I woke up in the Montreal Neurological Institute and learned that I had suffered a broken neck (C1), a shattered shoulder, a split sternum along with fractured ribs. I was very fortunate my spine was only scratched; had it been injured more, I would be a quadriplegic today.

I was released from hospital after about a month and flew back to the UK. What I didn’t realise was that there were almost eight months of rehabilitation ahead of me and no visible means of income. In my mental condition at the time, I really didn’t care. Recovery was challenging. At times I couldn’t think clearly and had difficulty paying attention to conversations. All I did was lie around the house in an uncommunicative silence. I had shown no interest in anything, including getting well. Looking back, I was most likely suffering from head trauma. I received a serious concussion from being dragged upside down on the track. In fact, I wasn’t even required to followup with a doctor after my time in hospital. In those days, they didn’t understand the effects of a head injury like they do now.

Slowly my physical health started to return, which included regaining the feeling I had lost between my elbows and hands and from my knees to my toes. I could take walks, but I didn’t feel capable of driving any sort of car yet. During that time period, Marion drove me through the countryside daily, hoping the beautiful scenery would be good therapy and help me to return to normality.

One day Marion was driving me around through the Yorkshire Dales National Park. While returning home, we came upon a farmhouse that had an auction sign on it, so I asked Marion to stop.

It was a 250-acre farm that was coming up for auction. It was being broken into parts, which was fairly typical. The house and fifteen acres of land were one lot. Something clicked in me. In fact, Marion said it was the first time I had shown interest in anything since the worst accident in my career. I became obsessed by the upcoming auction and suddenly felt very much alive. The idea of owning and operating a farm became the focus of my life.

The house I lived in was worth the same amount as the estimate for the auction price of the farmhouse and land. So, I went to see Mr. Bainbridge, the bank manager at Barclays, to ask for a bridging loan which would allow me to buy the farm until I sold my house. Bainbridge then asked me, “How much lad?” to which I replied, “£80,000.” He thought for a minute and said, “I want some cash for protection of the loan. What have you got lad?”

My reply to Mr. Bainbridge was one I thought would surely impress him. “I’ve got a Porsche 917. I don’t really want to sell it. It’s a race car, a historic one! It’s worth about £30,000.” His reply, “A 917? Never heard of it.” He wasn’t impressed at all and stated, “Bring me £20,000 and I will lend you the rest.” That was good enough for me as I knew exactly how to raise the £20,000.

In 1975 I had been on the lookout for a 917 for some time. One day a friend of Vasek Polak rang to inform me that if I was still looking for a very good race car, there was a 917 for sale in Munich. The excellent German restorer Bernd Booch had just overhauled the car, so it was in excellent shape.

It didn’t hurt that the 917 really was the car Steve Mcqueen had driven during the filming of Le Mans.

The car of course was in Gulf Colours, which it would have been for the film. In theory, owner/driver provenance adds importantly to a car’s retail value, so I acted quickly and put in a bid of £8,500 ($19,000), which sounds unbelievable today, but it was enough to secure the purchase. So, I shot off to Munich with a trailer, paid for it and brought it back to the UK.

Then, in desperate need of the £20,000 to secure the loan that made my farming ambitions possible, I needed a cash buyer with some relationship to an exotic racing car.

The perfect person was Richard Attwood, my friend and occasional co-driver who, of course, won the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hours in a 917, giving Porsche its first ever outright win at Le Mans. Richard asked how much I would sell it for. Hoping for a sweet 350% profit, I responded with the number £30,000. The deal was done.

Much later, acting on Richard’s behalf, I sold ‘our’ 917 at RM auctions in Monterey, California for $1.2 million; so much for my sweet £21,500 profit. Still, Richard’s auction envy surely surpassed mine when a 917 purporting to be the same car was offered at Gooding’s 2014 Pebble Beach auction at the eyewatering anticipated price of $20 million.

Richard’s jealousy was premature. The Gooding’s car turned out not to be the 917 he and I had owned but one with a doubtful history, and it was withdrawn from the sale. So, save your pennies, the real Mcqueen 917 is still out there. With the funds secured, Marion and I purchased the property. We really enjoyed life on the farm. I embraced life and my new-found enthusiasm.

This was going to be my last column for Total 911, but I’m not quite finished yet! I’m happy to say I’ll be back next issue for one more ‘bonus’ column, where I’ll share my thoughts on ending my racing career in the US and helping create Rennsport Reunion.