Following my post about Lou Galanos Ferrari at Daytona shot, I stumbled across this great video clip from 1981. Clips from a documentary about the 1981 Le Mans 24 hours have been assembled into a short piece, not unlike De Cadenet’s admission part way through!

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Our second installment of our weekly review of C. Van Tune’s video archives. This week, Van tells a bit of Ford GT40 history and then puts a tungsten Ford GT through it’s paces.

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Sad news has reached The Garage that long time racer, automotive writer and engineer Paul Frere has passed away at the age of 91. He had been injured in a crash while testing for Road & Track and while he recovered from his injuries, he was never quite the same. Frere began his racing career on two wheels following World War 2, moving to cars a short time later. In 1952, Frere took part in his first Grand Prix and would go on to race 11 times in the pinnacle of motorsports. Perhaps the highlight of his career as a driver was in 1960 when he won Le Mans, co-driving with Olivier Gendebien. Perhaps Frere’s biggest accomplishment was his journalistic career, through which he was able to touch millions of enthusiasts with his experience and insight.

A couple of months before his crash, friend of The Garage Alois Ruf had told tales of driving with Frere. Alois said that Paul was a bit unstable on his feet, but that even at 90 he was more agile than most 20 year olds behind the wheel.

We have lost another great one.

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Aston Martin. Stirling Moss. Le Mans. Do we really need to say more?

Those three names conjure up all sorts of history inspired daydreams. The dream was the reality though, with Moss winning endurance races at Le Mans, Goodwood and the Nurburgring at the wheel of the mighty Aston Martin DBR 1. Shortly, that historic image of Moss at the wheel of an Aston will be recreated for the 2007 Le Mans Legends race which happens before the start of the 24 hours on June 16.

Please oh please people, get your videos of this historic occasion up onto the gootoobz right away for us poor sods who are stuck in North America!

Aston Martin press release after the break
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We are big fans of cool stuff here in The Garage, especially when said cool stuff combines cars and the web. How about a web application that scoops race feeds from Le Mans and puts all the race and team data into a slick package for all to see.

Thomas Baekdal isn’t a car guy per se, he just loves Le Mans. Really there isn’t much more to explain, except that Thomas wants to know every tiny detail of the race as it goes on. So he took his big brain and put all the info published by the Le Mans organizers into a slick interface that fans the world over would love to see. There is only one problem. They can’t! Due to licensing issues, Baekdal has to keep his cool new tool all to himself! Unless that is, the organizers decide to use his application to share their race with the world.

So endurance race organizers, give this guy a shout. He’ll gladly help increase the value of your brand!

Source Baekdal.com via Autoblog

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Legendary racer Hans Stuck has sustained serious injuries in the hardest crash of his long racing career. It seems that his BMW struck a car that was parked at the side of the track. Shades of Mario Andretti on Lakeshore Blvd. here in Toronto years ago.
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Once in a while a film comes along that creates everlasting icons. Sometimes, they aren’t even particularly good films but what they stand for becomes part of the fabric of modern culture. Steve Mcqueen’s Le Mans was one such film. Combining all the key style elements from 1970 with some groundbreaking film footage all pulled together by the cool that was Steve McQueen.

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Image of #20 Pontiac Crawford of Tony Stewart, Butch Leitzinger and Andy Wallace from Howard Boss Motorsports

The 2007 racing season is about to kick off, with the 2007 edition of the Rolex Daytona 24. The fabled endurance event features sports prototypes and production based sports cars battling it out over a full day at the historic Florida venue.
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It seems like Jacques Villeneuve has finally come to his senses. The place for an ex F1 World Champion is at Le Mans, not chasing rednecks around some dust bowl. What better place for Jacques to shine than with two time Le Mans winner Peugeot.

For the first time since 2005, Peugeot will contest the classic spring endurance event, with their new 908 HDi FAP. The project is proceeding alongside the 207 competition package which includes a tin top and a spider. The French Canadian driver is part of an all star line up that includes sports car racer Pedro Lamy and open wheel star Sebastion Bourdais.

Peugeot Motorsport press release and on track photo after the break
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2006 has marked the 40th anniversary of Ford’s historic 1,2,3 win over the old man from Maranello at the coveted 24 hour race at Le Mans France. Ford managed to get all 3 cars together for the first time since Ford staged a similar photo shoot for the 30th anniversary. I guess if repeating history works, we’ll see this again in 2016.

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