Le Mans 1970

Watching the dvd GULF JW GT40S AND 917S IN ACTION last night I was struck by two things.

Firstly the acceleration of the 917K was remarkable. These cars really did leap out of a corner...

Secondly there was very little coverage of the Le Mans 24 hours. And of the two sequences used was that actually a shot from the movie LE MANS of Steve McQueen himself, getting into the car, that I spotted??? Has anyone else noticed this? John Wyer commentates over the top by referring to Pedro Rodriguez but the driver getting into the car in the pits wasn't him.

I wonder if the filming rights to the 1970 24 hrs were exclusively taken up by Solar productions for the movie? Did any other companies film the event (Shell, Castrol, Esso etc...)? And if they did has anyone seen it?

Simon Lewis
Transport Books
www.simonlewis.com
Suppliers of Rare and Collectable Motor Sport Books.

That is a very good point I have never seen any '70 footage either other than on the feature film.

There is a GULF Oil film reviewing the 1970 season with thakes that were not in Solar Productions film. I can't remember the name of the movie though. Good interviews with Mr Wyer himself, as well as Pedro and Seppi.

cj

Originally posted by cjpani
There is a GULF Oil film reviewing the 1970 season with thakes that were not in Solar Productions film. I can't remember the name of the movie though. Good interviews with Mr Wyer himself, as well as Pedro and Seppi.

cj

This is actually the very film I am reffering to . The actual title of the dvd is GULF/WYER GT40s & 917s IN ACTION, I was quoting from memory earlier, apoligies, and it combines a 68 Le Mans film from Ferodo and the 1970 season review with JW himself as narrater and contributions from Pedro (in English) and Seppi (in French). The only shots of Le Mans are the start sequence and the shot of a black helmeted driver getting into the car who I am certain is McQueen. There is actually much more footage of the Targa which is a little surprising given the remoteness of the event compared to Le Mans.

So maybe the ACO did give exclusive rights to Solar in 1970?

Simon Lewis
Transport Books
www.simonlewis.com

Originally posted by simonlewisbooks

The only shots of Le Mans are the start sequence and the shot of a black helmeted driver getting into the car who I am certain is McQueen.

McQueen wore a metallic mid-blue helmet in the film.

'That is a very good point I have never seen any '70 footage either other than on the feature film.'
I have at least 25 minutes worth of home movie footage from 1970 in my collection !

Originally posted by Twin Window
McQueen wore a metallic mid-blue helmet in the film.

I confess I havn't watched the film in a while so I'd forgotten that.

Who from the 1970 Gulf squad wore a plain black or very dark blue helmet?

Simon Lewis
Transport Books
www.simonlewis.com

Well, Siffert's, Rodriguez's and Hailwood's helmet liveries were all fairly distinctive (especially in colour); Redman's and Kinnunen's principally white I think. Could it be Hobbs? His crash helmet acquired a deal of yellow in later years, I believe, but I think II recall him racing in a largely plain dark hat in '69 (in the Surtees F5000 car). I have that Gulf-JW film so I'll have a look too when I get a moment. I think David Hobbs is rather tall, isn't he?

Maybe Leo Kinnunen, before he switched to a light-coloured full-face:

http://www.tsf1.com/...images/PC05.jpg


Paul M

Was Derek Bell using his traditional crash helmet back then??

Perhaps Jackie Oliver's??

or maybe, Redman:





cj

If we're in 1970, that would rule out Bell or Oliver from the JW equation.

In the film that Simon refers to, Kinnunen appears to begin the season with a metallic mid-blue open-face with a white peak before switching to a pale-coloured one. Redman is seen wearing both open- and full-face versions of the white with broad dark horizontal band around the middle.

The solitary clip in the Le Mans stage of the film shows a driver with a very dark open-face helmet, with same-coloured peak (and 'pelmet' or 'valance' to the peak) and a white cloth face mask drawn very high up under the eyes. It doesn't suggest "Hobbs" as I podered, but there is virtually nothing else by which to determine when or where that shot is actually from. I don't have a copy of the McQueen film to check with (I never thought much of "Le Mans" anyway, but that crash-helmet sounds familiar).

Until I looked again at the Wyer film I'd forgotten that there is no footage at all from the Le Mans race included - is wasn't much of a race for them and is somewhat glossed over in the scheme of things.

Just watched the video and there's no doubt that it's a sequence from "Le Mans" the movie.
It's Steve McQueen all right, getting into the #20 car (Seppi's). The Heuer and American banner patches are give aways.

Brian Dandridge again!  The spectator's view.

 

 

Regarding film rights for the 1970 LeMans race - The ACO produced its own race film every year, at least in the 1960's and 1970's. They sometimes can be found on YouTube.

 

Here's the official ACO film for the 1970 race, it has a watermark from the INA.fr institute. There is a passing mention of Steve McQueens #29 camera car and production company at the race,  but no evidence of McQueen's participation in the making of this ACO film.  The production crew names in the ACO film's credits all appear to be Frenchmen, and the voice-over narration is in French.

 

It appears to have been made with the common sort of 16mm film stock used by documentary film makers in the 1960's and 1970's, not the higher-quality 35mm film and cameras that Hollywood-standard producers, like McQueen's Solar Productions, would use.  There is an odd gap in the audio track in the middle of the video:

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=2SIkZFrMdmU

 

There are interesting shots of scrutineering, including the withdrawn Porsche Salzburg #24 entry (blue & white).  Also, there are post-race shots in the Parc Ferme, where Hans Herrmann and Gerard Larousse get out of the two top-finishing 917s after the race.

Edited by Emery0323, 26 March 2023 - 20:37.