Description
Author: Quentin Spurring, Hardbound, 336 Pages, ISBN: 9781910505083
1st Edition,October 2015
- THIS IS THE OFFICIAL ACCOUNT F THE LE MANS 24 HOURS DURING ITS FIRST DECADE, WHEN THE ACO'S NEW ENDURANCE CHALLENGE FOR PRODUCTION CARS EVOLVED RAPIDLY INTO THE WORLD'S GREATEST MOTOR RACE, FOUGHT
BY THE BIGGEST MARQUES AND THE MOST HEROIC DRIVERS OF THE DAY -
This book, the latest in the officially sanctioned, decade-by-decade series about the history of the Le Mans 24 Hours, explores the formative years of the world's greatest motor race. This was the era in which Bentley came to the forefront, winning in 1924 with a sabotaged car, in 1927 with a damaged car, in 1928 with a broken car, and in 1929 with a car that set an entirely new standard for Le Mans racers. Woolf Barnato, the man whose wealth kept the company solvent, won twice, while Dudley Benjafield, 'Tim' Birkin, Frank Clement, Sammy Davis, John Duff and Bernard Rubin were the other 'Bentley Boys' who tasted success.
The victors in the other three years were French marques, Chenard-Walcker (in 1923) and Lorraine-Dietrich (in 1925 and 1926), and indeed French drivers and cars predominated in these early years, accounting for 220 of the 287 drivers and 38 of the 54 manufacturers that took part during the decade. Amazingly, only five of the competing manufacturers — Aston Martin, Bentley, Bugatti, Chrysler and Peugeot — still exist.
The 24-hour event conceived by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (AGO) was originally called the 'Grand Prix de l'Endurance' and run as an endurance trial for series-production cars rather than as a motor race. But the teams went racing anyway and the event quickly matured into a unique challenge that fostered many advances in automotive engineering and technology — just as it still does today.
Aerodynamic bodies, front-wheel drive, air-cooled engines and four-wheel hydraulic brakes were tried and proven at Le Mans in this decade. Such was the pace of change that the fastest average speed jumped from 57.21mph (92.06kph) in 1923 to 73.63mph (118.49kph) by 1929.
The rapid evolution of the cars is seen vividly in this book's photographs, which also show year by year how the crowds grew, how the circuit infrastructure expanded and even how the track surfaces improved.
The opening phase of the history of the Le Mans 24 Hours has never been this thoroughly researched. Supported by 360 period photographs, many not published before, Quentin Spurring's authoritative text relates all manner of adventures and describes the events in fact-packed depth, including a prologue devoted to previous races at Le Mans, starting with the Grand Prix de l'ACF of 1906.
This is a fascinating and richly detailed portrayal of the birth of the world's greatest motor race.
Quentin Spurring has reported the Le Mans 24 hours on 26 occasions. He has been the editor of the British magazines Competition Car, Autosport, Racecar Engineering and The Paddock, the press officer of Graham Hill's Formula 1 team, the founder of Q.ED (a motorsport specialist publisher) and, for over 30 years, European Motorsports Correspondent of the American magazine, Autoweek.
Besides six volumes in this decade-by-decade Le Mans series, he has written six other books, including Grand Prix: Rare Images of the First 100 Years, which won an award from the American Publishers Association.
