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Below is a copy of a post by Simon Kidston on Instagram regarding the LeMans crash some 70 years ago today.
My father was at this race, he only mentioned this to me once.... as a veteran of WW2 in the Pacific as a medic I pretty well understood why we never talked about it. My dad also went to quite a few other races during his travels that summer with his new Beetle, but he really didn't talk much about them. Though he (and my mom) did talk about his visiting his extended family up in Sweden and how he met my mother while picking her up hitchiking one evening in the small town in Sweden that he was visiting... !!!
simonkidston
70 years ago today, at 6.26pm local time, the most tragic event in motorsport history unfolded in a few seconds.
The world’s most famous motor race, the Le Mans 24 Hours, was in the third hour of a titanic battle headlined by Mercedes, Jaguar, Ferrari and Aston Martin. The era’s top drivers were competing, including stars Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio and Mike Hawthorn. Veteran Frenchman Pierre Levegh had been invited to drive one of the favourite Mercedes 300SLRs in the high-profile French event due to his stamina (he’d almost won the 1952 race single-handedly) and perhaps as a diplomatic gesture just ten years after WW2. Passing the pits at an estimated 250km/h, Levegh was suddenly confronted by British driver Lance Macklin’s much slower Austin Healey which, avoiding Hawthorn’s Jaguar D-Type unexpectedly overtaking then braking to enter the pits, skidded left into Levegh’s path. The Mercedes hit the Healey and then the wickerwork fence in front of the earth bank which separated the crowded grandstands from the track. Levegh’s Mercedes was launched airborne into the public, breaking up and hurling the engine and front drivetrain through them.
The race wasn’t stopped as the organisers worried that the exodus of spectators would hamper access for emergency vehicles. Nonetheless the Mercedes board in Stuttgart ordered their cars to withdraw at 1.45am, leaving Hawthorn and co-driver Ivor Bueb to claim a hollow victory. The accident left 84 people dead including Pierre Levegh, and over 180 injured.
Two years ago the original investigators heirs sold his research and report at auction. Coincidentally in the same auction, the only known piece of wreckage from the Mercedes was also offered, the passenger metal tonneau cover recovered by a trackside marshal and preserved by their family (part of the proceeds went to charity). Here for the first time are some images of the bodywork and excerpts from the report, some of which is too sad and harrowing to share. One key detail concludes that the front left spinner of the Mercedes’ wheel caught in the wood of the barrier and launched the car into the air.
A sad anniversary but one which deserves to be respected. 🙏
My father was at this race, he only mentioned this to me once.... as a veteran of WW2 in the Pacific as a medic I pretty well understood why we never talked about it. My dad also went to quite a few other races during his travels that summer with his new Beetle, but he really didn't talk much about them. Though he (and my mom) did talk about his visiting his extended family up in Sweden and how he met my mother while picking her up hitchiking one evening in the small town in Sweden that he was visiting... !!!
simonkidston
70 years ago today, at 6.26pm local time, the most tragic event in motorsport history unfolded in a few seconds.
The world’s most famous motor race, the Le Mans 24 Hours, was in the third hour of a titanic battle headlined by Mercedes, Jaguar, Ferrari and Aston Martin. The era’s top drivers were competing, including stars Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio and Mike Hawthorn. Veteran Frenchman Pierre Levegh had been invited to drive one of the favourite Mercedes 300SLRs in the high-profile French event due to his stamina (he’d almost won the 1952 race single-handedly) and perhaps as a diplomatic gesture just ten years after WW2. Passing the pits at an estimated 250km/h, Levegh was suddenly confronted by British driver Lance Macklin’s much slower Austin Healey which, avoiding Hawthorn’s Jaguar D-Type unexpectedly overtaking then braking to enter the pits, skidded left into Levegh’s path. The Mercedes hit the Healey and then the wickerwork fence in front of the earth bank which separated the crowded grandstands from the track. Levegh’s Mercedes was launched airborne into the public, breaking up and hurling the engine and front drivetrain through them.
The race wasn’t stopped as the organisers worried that the exodus of spectators would hamper access for emergency vehicles. Nonetheless the Mercedes board in Stuttgart ordered their cars to withdraw at 1.45am, leaving Hawthorn and co-driver Ivor Bueb to claim a hollow victory. The accident left 84 people dead including Pierre Levegh, and over 180 injured.
Two years ago the original investigators heirs sold his research and report at auction. Coincidentally in the same auction, the only known piece of wreckage from the Mercedes was also offered, the passenger metal tonneau cover recovered by a trackside marshal and preserved by their family (part of the proceeds went to charity). Here for the first time are some images of the bodywork and excerpts from the report, some of which is too sad and harrowing to share. One key detail concludes that the front left spinner of the Mercedes’ wheel caught in the wood of the barrier and launched the car into the air.
A sad anniversary but one which deserves to be respected. 🙏