Thread: "LeMans" w/ Steve McQueen....STILL a kickass racing movie

I've been to Lemans only once, as a little kid years ago...but I'll never forget the pandemonium in the crowd as the cars finally came into view...you'd hear them first, screaming in the distance. And when they go by at speed...it's a sound like no other.

For racers and racers at heart...get this movie. The main star of the movie is the Porsche 917...probably the greatest race car in the history of the world...bar none. Steve McQueen does a good job as a supporting actor




I like what the last youtube commentor said:

"The sound of the Porsche 917 is a mix of everything that is good in life."
iGalactiico 1 week ago .



Here a couple stats on the 917...the winning-est Lemans car of all:

0 - 62 mph = 2.3 secs

0 - 124 mph = 5.9 secs

topspeed = 240 plus mph

This was 1970, btw...and those numbers are based on the versions of 917 having bhp anywhere from 650 to 900 bhp.

They had a special turbocharged unit that dyno'd at 1580 bhp and was MUCH faster than the above numbers....perhaps TOO powerful.

ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM.....

--

Great film.

Always wanted one of the Heuer Moncao watches that McQueen wears in it



What year where you at Le Mans?

Wish I'd been around to see the group 6 and group 4 prototypes. But the 1980's group C and to a lesser extent the WSCs were pretty bad ass. Pre-chicanes Mulsanne ruled too.

PNWBrit: that would have been in the year of our lord 1972, if memory serves...nearly another epoch, as it were.

I must admit that the sounds and the sheer excitement of the day loom larger in my mind then the details, and the absolute gravitas that overtook when the cars nearly crashed.....sights and sounds that became etched in my mind and much later distilled into a love of racing that I still carry.

I' ve only been able to elevate that love of the race into a few years of SCCA racing in in the amateur non-modified class...H Class...but the exhileration that I originally felt that day remained and was combined with the same anticipation at the start of the race as the 'big boys' would have felt in their 917s.

I've always wanted to see the road racing through the town at Monaco...I'm hoping that in the near future I may be able to see the race while at anchor in the harbor.

--