I’d forgotten how dismissive of the Autosport Guide CA was, FYI, it came out a week later than usual so too late for those heading for the track in time for FP1.

Thanks for the updates on Spotters Guide availability, Club members.  On a similar theme; what’s the news on the annual Autosport Preview Guide, please, anyone know?  While the shops seemed to be shut for some unaccountable reason yesterday on the usual Thursday it’s published, the cover shown on the website doesn’t have the usual “Ultimate Guide to…” banner.

As you were: according to their website there's a 52 page Le Mans Guide in today's issue.  Pity my nearest W H Smiths is 15 miles away and British Eurosport live coverage is just about to kick off!

Looking back on the Autosport Magazine website, they didn't do a 2020 British GP Guide either, so you're obviously right.  God bless Andy Blackmore and his Spotters' Guide, then.

Have I missed something or is this the first time in 40 years that Autosport hasn't done their Le Mans Guide ten days before?  The latest issue barely recognises that the race is on.

I know this is an old post, Bonio, and you may have heard this already but there is no English language yearbook for 1994 which is why the French one commands higher prices than for other years.  I have the French one because I bought it that year at the published price (sadly not for sale though: I, like you, buy the yearbook when I go but the video/dvd every year).  I was told (probably by Chaters, I would think) that the previous English translator and publisher had gone out of business and a new one was not found before the French completed the publication process.

Don't think this has been flagged up on the site yet but to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its release, a remastered Le Mans the movie comes out in the UK on 13 June.  Finally it has a Making of documentary.  Sadly it is not the original full Nikita Katz "Le Mans, the Race, the Movie" but the later "Filming at Speed" introduced by Chad McQueen and previously only available as an NTSC VHS cassette.  Looks like the average prices will be £12.99 for Blue-ray and £7.99 for DVD.  My order is already in to Play,com (free delivery) but then Steve McQueen did try to run me and my brother over at Le Mans in 1970 and I have been trying to spot our faces in the crowd at Tetre Rouge on the opening lap for forty years.

Apparently there will be a showing of the film on a big screen on the pit straight on Tuesday night of Le Mans week at 10pm: http://www.lemans.org/en/races/24h/update/A-film-show-unique-in-the-world-_3750.html

Delboy,
Sorry for delay, away from home excessively. Internet payment just made - should be self evident it's mine if Abbey include the payment reference right but it'll be from my alter ego: Finance Owl Services Limited.
Thanks, good luck with production and purchase price collection.
Rorie
(postal details by email)

Absolutely brilliant, again.  It must be why Autosport have given up on theirs after 26 years (or did its creators move to evo).

Oops! Just read other thread - not given up just deferred a week.

Thanks a bunch, what an amazing piece of work.  I went for the first time in 1970 with Steve McQueen (well, he tried to run me over) and there's stuff I didn't know in here.  4 more pages than Autosport and TRMG decided not to do theirs because the ACO wouldn't let them sell it inside the circuit.  You should clean up.

Steve McQueen intended to drive in the 1970 race (rumoured with Jackie Stewart) having come second at Sebring in a 908 with Peter Revson.  Opinions differ as to how much McQueen actually drove there: Andretti (who won having swapped Ferraris after his broke) claimed Revson did >90% of the driving but he has no time for McQueen as a driver so would not like to be thought to have had a close finish with him.

Anyhow, Solar Productions insurers and investors banned McQueen from driving at Le Mans as he was their only asset (no other big name stars in the film).  So his Sebring 908 was converted to carry cameras front and rear and entered in the race.  Where it outperformed most of the field in the hands of Jonathan Williams.

After the race was over, Solar Productions took over the circuit, borrowed and bought representative cars (Jo Siffert made a fortune out of this) and played racing for months.  So much so that the leaves started to turn brown and the story goes that the film crew had to paint them green to fix continuity.  As is always the way when a film-maker gets carried away, the studio took the film away from him and it was finished by others.  So some of it is perfect (they say McQueen personally supervised the placement of bugs on the windshields) and some of it is rushed (the last couple of laps).

The definitive study of the film is Michael Keyser and Jonathan Williams' wonderful book "A French Kiss With Death" (details on Keyser's "Autosportltd" website).  There's a 30minute NTSC video that you can get from the States for about $15 with interviews with some of the survivors including McQueen's son's description of being taken by his father to the crash site where David Piper lost his leg.

It's one of my alltime favourite films, but it's probably not art or on Barry Norman's top 100 million films list.

Not a documentary or you'd actually SEE the cars that came in first, second and third for more than a fraction of a second!  The best racing film by a country mile, though, and I was there, soaking wet, nearly run over by Steve in the sawn off GT40 camera car.  (Continuing a tradition I'd begun at Zandvoort in '66 where they were filming "Grand Prix").

Sad there's no extras on the DVD.  There was a good "Making of...." (including Derek Bell's fire, etc) at the time which has not been seen for years.  You can get the video of Chad McQueen's Speedvision documentary on the film (NTSC format) which is quite good but doesn't give you the warts and all view you get from the excellent Keyser/Williams book.

I must admit that I've always thought the McQueen crash is the weakest part of the film as the 917 body is too wide for the Lola's track, you can see the bottom of the yellow bodywork with number 11 on it, and it doesn't move right, somehow.  (That and the fact that the last two laps are run in the wrong order in terms of the sequence of corners with the 22 car getting clean, then dirty, then clean again - tragic after all the obsessive trouble McQueen had taken over the rest of the film).

But what the hell, the start sequence and the racing sequences are just awesome.

Understood.
Speak to you Thursday evening unless already sold.

htbast
do you want to give me a mobile number and a time to ring on Thursday, if I've not sold by then?

htbast
Mine is 0776 216 9877 but can be iffy abroad.  If so try 0781 683 1554 and tell Philip you want his uncle's spare seat!  Otherwise the tent in Expo with a blue Mondeo Estate with roofbox next to it.  Either way enjoy the race.