Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #608403 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

Customer Reviews

The Car is the Star
This is a book about a flawed man in a fundamentally flawed film. A classic era for sportscar racing was the late sixties. The classic car of that time was the Porsche 917 (rated the best racing car ever in a recent poll of racing enthusiasts) and Le Mans was (and remains) the classic race.

The story of the Steve McQueen film "Le Mans", based on the 1970 race, is a story of ego winning over common sense. In the Sixties McQueen was "cool".

He raised the finance to make a feature film based upon the Le Mans race.Ironically his producers and, more likely, their insurers refused to let him actually drive in the race.

The story line puts McQueen in a Gulf Porsche 917 against the Scuderia Ferrari 512's. The inspiration was the close finish of the 1969 race. The strap line on the poster said "Steve McQueen goes for a drive in the country. The country is France and the drive is at 200 mph." At the end of the day the car was the star and that car was a Gulf Porsche 917.

The story of how the film came together and was completed is more interesting than the film itself. No script and the need to recreate racing sequences following the bad weather during the actual race caused production to halt and a new director was appointed to bring the film in on time and in budget.

Whilst this was going on McQueen crashed a hire car putting both himself and a co-star, with whom he was having an affair, through the windscreen. He was said to be high on cocaine at the time. His wife and children later appeared on the set but this did little to stop his extra matrimonial activities.

That said the book of the film of the man is a superb "snap shot" of a fascinating event at a fascinating time. The many candid photographs and personal recollections from drivers and film crew involved are revealing but anything that features Porsche 917's and Ferrari 512's at close quarters is worth viewing.

One of the best motor racing books ever written
Most motor racing books are excellent reference works but lack literary style and page-turning ability. This is different - and how - a simply brilliantly told saga of the background to and filming of the real and staged 1970 Le Mans 24 hour race. When I received the book I simply could not put it down. The next task is to watch the film again, which I luckily have on video. Buy this book, which is now the joint best book ever written about motor racing, along with Mon Ami Mate by Chris Nixon - the style of writing of which is quite similar.