1974 Le Mans

1974 — OPEC and Watergate occupied the headlines. The oil embargo changed the way the world thought about cars and summoned a three-fold increase in crude oil prices. The 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring were sacrificed to public opinion. FOCA had taken hold of F1, and the Can-Am had decayed into nothing more than a lounge-act imitation of itself. But Le Mans was still road racing’s ultimate, and Matra’s budget for the event underlined that boldly.

The Matra works at Velizy forced the evolution of its Le Mans-winning MS670 and appeared with a new MS680 to compliment the 670s that comprised the bulk of French throw-weight on the Sarthe.

Alfa-Romeo won the first event of the 10-race Makes Championship season at Monza, but Matra swept the remaining rounds preceding Le Mans. Porsche’s new Turbo Carrera was a variation on a new theme with the familiar 2.1-liter flat-six carrying forced induction and all the hard, expensive lessons learned in two years hammering all comers in the rich North American Can-Am series.

John Wyer’s Mirages led the British DFV contingent. JWA had a pair of renamed "Gulfs" that had shed the Mirage nameplate for obvious commercial reasons. Alain de Cadenet had re-christened his impressive one-off "Duckhams" DFV-powered prototype as, simply, "de Cadenet".

Alfa Romeo stayed home from the Sarthe pleading poverty and whining that its stunning T33TT12 wouldn’t last 24 hours and so on. Ferrari was gone as well. The SEFAC concentrated on its profound F1 problems with great effect. Five 365GTB Daytonas were entered in the juicy GT category, and NART sent a selection of used sports racing cars, including an aged 312, vintage 1969 and a new Dino 308.

On paper the 51st anniversary edition of Le Mans with its pitiful 49-car entry should have been a cruise for the four-car Matra team that seemed equipped more like the missile and aerospace side of its business than the shallower car racing department.

Rain started to fall gently and sporadically at the start, but the Matras rocketed away as expected. Derek Bell had convinced himself that it might be good to lead the first lap in John Wyer’s Gulf G7 but arrived at Mulsanne to find the road soaked. He abandoned the notion to common sense and caution and fell in line behind the French cars. Chris Craft pitted the de Cadenet Cosworth at the end of the first lap to have a wheel lug tightened. Bad omen for a good car. Henri Pescarolo and Jean-Pierre Jarier carried on in the leading Matras, and the race had that familiar theme. Monotony.

The battle in GT was far better. Four Carreras were running in a clot just two seconds across: Claude Ballot Lena and Vic Elford led the Stuttgart scrum from the Fernandez/Haldi, Heyer/Keller and Rua/Toural Carreras until it stopped for seven laps to repair a halfshaft.

JWA was in trouble as well, and the race was taking on a pathetic tone. Vern Schuppan’s Gulf G7 went inert with clutch troubles on the 16th lap. The Australian managed to get the car back to the pits where the problem was remedied, but only for another 33 laps when the No. 12 went DNF with related problems. Bell and Mike Hailwood in the No. 11 car soldiered on with a persistent oil leak and wonky CV joints. The JWA crew did what it could, greasing the CVs on each stop, then had to plug in a new starter solenoid. But the first-string G7 was never able to run with the Matras on speed alone.

The best of the DFV-runners became the Craft/John Nicholson de Cadenet, a happy fourth place behind the fleeing Matras and Gijs van Lennep in the Martini Porsche Turbo.

Just after midnight, the four-car Matra team was reduced to a duet: the Jean-Pierres Beltoise and Jarier car that had been second through the evening, lost its engine. Seconds later Bob Wollek pitted the No. 8, and the crew watched a huge pool of oil form beneath the rear of the car. A connecting rod had penetrated the block. The teammate to the fourth place Martini Porsche lost its engine in a much more spectacular fashion, while at full gallop down Mulsanne and made the kind of billowy smoke usually associated with complex naval maneuvers.

Craft and Nicholson worked the de Cadenet-DFV up to a heroic fourth overall but were fouled when a rear suspension bit broke in front of the pits. It sent Craft on a wild ride, then to the dead car park.

Daylight found the Pescarolo/Gerard Larousse Matra MS670B leading with ease, ironically with a Porsche-designed gearbox that Matra had used to win Le Mans the previous year. The ZFs were too weak for the strain of the Sarth, or so the theory went, and Velizy sought help from the best source to the east.

Near 10:00 a.m., the second place No. 22 Porsche Turbo Carrera lost fifth gear, which is totally at the wrong end of the ratios when Le Mans is at stake. Van Lennep and Herbert Mueller were forced to cruise around loosing almost 40sec to the leading Matras on each agonizing lap.

Just before 11:00 a.m., Pescarolo was stranded on Mulsanne in the leading Matra with a gearbox full of neutrals. It took him a few minutes to find that third gear was still available, and he coaxed the leading Matra back to the pits amidst much exhaust howling and painful clutch slipping.

Finally, the somnambulant race awoke!

The Matra gearbox problem was relatively simply to repair, but the diagnosis consumed 30min. By the time Pescarolo returned to the course, he had lost 45min to the Turbo Porsche, which had finally gotten onto the lead lap with the now-healthy Matra.

Just for spite and art’s sake, it rained during the final hour. Pescarolo worked up a six-lap lead over the Porsche by the end and even had time for a final stop for appropriate rubber and to give the photogs something to shoot featuring tire-sponsor Goodyear.

It was Matra’s and Pescarolo's third consecutive Le Mans win. Porsche’s new turbo 911 got second from the third place MS670B of Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Francois Migault. It meant that Matra didn’t get its one-two photo finish, but they had proved their point. John Wyer’s men were a fighting-fourth and the Pozzi-entered Ferrari 365GTB was fifth overall and first in GT, again.

Matra went on to win all the remaining rounds of the '74 Makes Championship and left the sport with their sports car successes overshadowing their main business as a missile manufacturer. Mission accomplished.