1975 Le Mans

1975 — Sports car racing was the canary in the world economy’s mineshaft in 1975. The once mighty Can-Am was gone. The world economy was sick and the so-called fuel crisis was at the root of it. The A.C.O. reread its history and composed a new selection of fuel-based rules that required 20 laps between fuel stops and smaller tanks.

The CSI reacted to this by excluding the '75 24 Hours from the World Championship for Makes. There was some precedent in it. Le Mans was excluded from the World Sports Car Championship in '56 after track renovations and rules changes in the wake of the '55 disaster made the FIA blink. A quarter of a century later, the CSI’s decision now seems either meaningless or political: Formula 1 had become the anointed world class road racing series while Le Mans remained the single most important automobile race, regardless of championship affiliation or exclusion. Likewise the record books have no asterisk for the '75 race.

Cooler heads realized that record books seldom list anything beyond the results, and a win at Le Mans is worth more – and can cost more – than an entire season of Formula 1; Matra was a prime witness. John Wyer saw his chance lying dormant in the language of the new rules and plotted accordingly. Aerodynamics and careful fuel management were just two of his chief weapons. The venerable Cosworth DFV in enduro trim yielded 6.1mpg through '74 and an 8000rpm limit for '75 yielded a modest but economical 380hp.

Wyer had at his disposal the considerable resources of Gulf Research in the modest Pennsylvania borough of Harmarville. The tiny town is little more than a convenient suburban exit on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, except for the skunk works research going on in the blond brick buildings on the bluff above the Allegheny River’s Lock & Dam #3. The Gulf chemists and other assorted petroleum wizards helped Wyer get his Le Mans sums just right. He needed 7.1mpg from his enduro DFVs. They gave him 7.25. Done.

Wyer also had a not-so-secret weapon in Jacky Ickx, who is so incredibly light on the car that the new rules seemed made for the new Wyer Le Mans econo-package.

Besides the lead Ickx/Derek Bell GR8 and the twin Vern Schuppan and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud Gulf, three more cars wore DFV engines: two Ligiers DFV-powered coupes with ample francs and dark blue livery from tobacco giant Gitanes. There was a very new and very aerodynamic-looking Lola T380 Cosworth for Alain de Cadenet and Chris Craft – the man who, five years earlier, showed Alain the way through the Mulsanne kink flat in the fearsome Ferrari 512S. Ultimate numbers from the big end of Mulsanne said the brand new Lola perhaps needed a few more aero-tweaks: the T380 would have been hard pressed to stay with the '61-vintage Birdcage Maseratis and Testa Rossas at the end of Mulsanne.

Porsche was as savvy as Mr. Wyer but less active. They lent a trio of ex-works 908/3s all the assistance they could want. The Porsche marque made up the single largest chunk of the 55-car field, with 29 Carreras plus the four 908 prototypes wearing menacing 917 Can-Am-flavored tails.

No matter. The new regulations fattened lap speeds of the few marquee players by nearly 15sec, and the Wyer twins settled into a four-minute race pace from the start. Schuppan passed his No. 11 teammate on the first lap and led until pitting on Lap 21: one lap, five percent better than the rules mandated. The Wyer twins were in cruise mode, confirming the fears of the nay-sayers and amateur critics who have made careers of either underestimating or ignoring the importance of the name Le Mans.

Near the quarter-distance mark, Schuppan pitted well out of sequence with a misfire. Two blind diagnoses failed to remedy the situation. But, third time’s the charm, and the alternator was finally identified as the root cause. The whole process consumed nearly a half-hour: Schuppan and Jaussaud went six laps down to teammates Ickx and Bell.

A string of ever-increasingly-profound events ended any chance the Ligier coupes might have had around the eight-hour mark. The de Cadenet Lola was already in arrears because of a broken exhaust. Near midnight the No. 4 Lola was belting along the Mulsanne Straight in third position, when it shed its entire rear bodywork! Alain didn’t notice at first, but Francois Migault hit it at full stride in the Ligier. After nearly an hour of fussing with repairs, the blue coupe retired. Astonishingly de Cadenet carried on; the engine cover had missed the rear wing completely on it acrobatic departure.

Through the night and the swarm of Porsches, Ickx and Bell led, haunted by a vibration in the driveline. It was especially pronounced through right handers. The odd frequency finally succeeded in breaking the port side exhaust. Not long after 2:30 p.m. Sunday with just 90min to race, Ickx pitted to repair the cracked and leaking exhaust. He and Bell had built an economical five-lap lead over the Jean-Louis Lafosse/Guy Chasseuil Ligier JS2 Ford. That cushion now began to erode, as the GR8 had to be practically disassembled to expose the damage.

The repairs were completed as the Ligier entered the lead lap. The crowd may have been smaller than previous years when Matra carried the tricolor, but it was as noisy as ever now that a French victory again seemed possible. The Ligier had already come out best in a reliability battle for second with the Schuppan/Jaussaud GR8, sister ship of the leader. Was it possible for French cars to win a four straight Le Mans? No. The crowd had not followed the pit sequence and when the Ligier made its scheduled stop there was an audible group sigh from over 80,000 fans.

Bell took over the leading GR8 and won by a lap. It was Bell’s first win on the Sarthe, Ickx’s second, Wyer’s fourth and the first Le Mans victory for Cosworth’s extraordinary eight-year-old DFV V8.

Ligier was a fine second and Reinhold Joest, Jurgen Barth and Mario Casoni were the moral victors, third overall in an aged Porsche 908/3. It was time and money well spent for Porsche who seemed to have found a use for all their old 917 bits and pieces. Once again, Le Mans was the major topic of discussion in and around Stuttgart the following Monday morning.