With six ‘plateaux’ or grids for different eras of racing, from 1923 through to 1979, concentrating in the ’60s and ’70s, we snapped some of the most exciting racing cars there have ever been. Ferrari P3 and 512, Lola T70s, Porsche 917 and 936, stunning. Our mission was to cover the event for three Porsche mags – 911 & Porsche World, Classic Porsche and Porsche Post, and BMW Car which kept us plenty busy. It was 40 years since Porsche first won Le Mans and there wasa 40-car parade of Porsches to celebrate, with Vic Elford and Gerard Larrousse among the heroes giving them an airing. Our mission was to interview 1970’s winning drivers Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood, who we caught in the Porsche pavilion before the racing started. We stayed late at the track on the Saturday night, and ended Sunday afternoon at Arnage. A really fantastic weekend. Check out my photos on this website!

Check out part of my bedside interview with Sir Stirling for the Lotus magazine when he’s convalescing after breaking both his ankles in the lift-shaft accident. Lotus Cars have brought him a captioned photo of his lap of honour at Monaco in 1960, having won the F1 Grand Prix in Rob Walker’s Lotus 18, and the presentation is by Clive Chapman of Classic Team Lotus.

www.lotusfiles.com/sirstirlingmoss/

Took the afternoon off on Saturday to go up to Penshurst to Conrad Birch’s ROARR classic car garden party to interview Rick Wakeman who is a top petrolhead and great bloke.

As a trans-continental express, my Porsche 964, the Peppermint Pig, proved peerless on new Spanish and Portuguese motorways, even when obliged to wear a top-box. It was also treated to new brakes while in Porto by Porsche main dealer, FozCar.
Norwich to Porto is 2,514kms (1,562 miles). We’ve done it often, sometimes by Ryanair, sometimes by Ka, Saab 9000 or Defender: six hours versus three or four days. Now it’s the turn of the Peppermint Pig, which could speed things up a bit. But there’s a new dog in the frame so we elect to take the 24-hour Brittany ferry that spears from Plymouth to Santander in northern Spain, rather than slog down through France. Percy tolerates the on-board kennels and a turn around the deck better than being cooped up in the car for days on end.
The journey begins three-up, daughter Zoe electing to come part of the way, as far as a Devon cliff-top family bolt-hole, accompanied by a ton of uni revision books. How to spread the load as evenly as possible across the 964 chassis? The Peppermint Pig’s predecessor, a 3.2 Carrera, was also driven to Portugal around eight years ago, four-up, when the kids were a great deal smaller, and cargo was carried in a Thule top box. So for this latest trip I foraged in the jungle at the bottom of the garden and rediscovered Thule’s streamlined module, shooed out spiders and snails and fitted it atop the Pep Pig. That, in a way, is an advantage of the old 911 roof gutters, that you can safely clip roof bars onto the seams and they do stay resolutely in place.
Next issue is how to accommodate offspring and canine in the back of the cabin. A system of cushions, blanket and dog-bed proves acceptable and, with case up front and other luggage in the top-box, off we set.
The first thing you notice with a lot of weight in the nose is the understeer, which I address with much more throttle on, throttle off to make the nose tuck in or out. Otherwise, no real issues. When we journeyed to Portugal in the 3.2 Carrera with the top-box on I noticed the engine temperature was running higher than normal and I supposed that the airflow to the engine lid intakes was compromised by the overhead module. My trepidation was unfounded as this time it appeared not to have any effect on cooling, and even subjected to buffeting winds on the northern Spanish mountain passes the car itself didn’t flinch, suggesting that the aerodymanics aren’t too badly compromised. The Porsche’s ability to sustain high cruising speeds doesn’t seem at all affected by it, and I wonder if it even has a beneficial effect on downforce.
Volcanic ash clouds mean the vast Pont Aven cruise liner-cum-ferry is full of Spanish students who couldn’t fly home, so with bikers and other dog owners there’s plenty of people watching potential on the long voyage. There are no nasty ramps to catch out the Pep Pig’s low-slung overhangs when boarding, and there’s even reasonable door opening space between rows of vehicles once on board. Percy ensconsed in deck 9 kennels, we opt for the self-service café rather than the posh restaurant on the basis that the grub comes from the same kitchen yet is a third the price. It’s a calm night – the Bay of Biscay has pared us its worst. As I walk the dog at daybreak I spy a pair of whales spouting, and closer to Santander dolphins provide breakfast entertainment as they race the ship. The entrance to Santander harbour is a plethora of sun-kissed sandbanks, yachts, fishing boats, kayaks, windsurfers, beaches, cliffs, lighthouse and castle, ornate hotels and palms, with the snowcapped Picos de Europa as backdrop. The ship docks and we savour the take-off; just as well as we choose the wrong queue and end up plumb last out of the harbour gates.
Santander is relatively straightforward to exit, and the A67 autovia strikes south to Torrelavega, aiming towards Palencia and Valladolid. A fab new stretch of motorway over hills and plains has opened just this year, so new the TomTom doesn’t recognise it and it knocks 35 minutes off the predicted journey time. Not that that means a lot because our 100mph cruising speed is scything right through it. At the other end of the scale, pilgrims walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, timeless, isolated figures in a scorched, empty landscape.
At Osorno we go right on the A231 west towards León and, south of the city we join the equally modern A52 that goes south and then swings west near Benavente, traversing the remote Sierra de la Culebra. We pause at Puebla de Sanabria with its hilltop castle for a fortifying jámon serrano sandwich and expresso. Forsaking the autovia, we plunge south on a swirling B-road, the ZA925, and the Peppermint Pig comes alive. It’s just been getting on with the job till now, but here are some proper mountain hairpins and curves that test the hunkered down suspension to the full. A great deal of throttle on- off- under- and oversteer and plenty of arms and elbows working away at the wheel. It’s mostly done in 2nd and 3rd gear, though 4th is occasionally useful. And nothing but a single truck as we ease up to the unmanned border crossing between Calabor and Portello, eternal villages both. Possibly shorter in distance, it’s not as quick as sticking with the motorway and making the descent into Portugal via Verin and Chaves, which is fast indeed. But the pleasure of the drive through the Parc Natural de Montesinho with the heather and white gum cystus in bloom is worth the effort. Then the hard work really begins – the arduous IP4/E82 two- and three-laner from Braganza to Vila Real is a killer, fraught with local traffic, potholes and speed traps, and you remember why the new autovia is the route of choice.
Our 160kph requires constant vigilance, and it’s when you take your eye off the ball that trouble quickly looms. The second of two similar cop dramas unfolds near Mirandela when we happen on a pair of cops zapping cars from just over the brow of a fast uphill straight. As I anchor up, the loose change in the cavity by the gearlever shoots forward like so much shrapnel. It’s clear from our sudden deceleration that their presence has been well and truly noted, and they wave us on with a gesture of impatience. I spend the next few kilometres picking euros up from between my feet: the hoarded coins are redundant in any case as there are no tolls on our route.
The charge from Vila Real (once a round of the European sportscar championship and now in revival mode) to Régua on the A24/IP3 is two-, sometimes three-lane dual-carriageway bliss, towering on stilts as it strides across the Serra do Alvão, very fast up and downhill bends most of the time, and the Pig sweeps from apex to apex across all of them. There’s more fast, newly tarmac’d wiggly road between bustling Regua riverfront esplanade and our holiday home at Aregos beside the mighty Rio Douro, and locals seemingly bent on suicide do their darndest to keep up – though never quite having the bottle to overtake because it’s a Porsche; they would otherwise. There’s been a quantum leap in car ownership in the Douro region – from third world to ubiquitous hatchbacks in two decades.
By the time the Douro river has reached Aregos it’s already 500 miles long (with a source near Valladolid in Spain) with 60 or so to go before its estuary at elegant Foz on the Atlantic coast, downstream from Porto. The centre of the Port wine trade is just up river from us at Regua, while we’re in Vinho Verde demarcated territory, a refreshing dry white. Assorted tripper boats, Olympic rowing 8s and racing hydroplanes variously ply the broad, deep Douro (nine hydroelectric dams since 1975) on our stretch, and the railway line tracks the river all the way to the Spanish border. It’s very steep, craggy country, hence a Land Rover in the past as genuine off-roading is available on remote tracks high on the bouldered hilltops. Now, though, the pitted local roads and cobbled ex-mule tracks conspire to give the Pig an unwelcome shake-up.
I’d become suspicious that the 964’s brakes weren’t all they should be, so I arrange for our friend Carlos Felipe Santos who owns FozCar, the main Porsche dealership in Oporto to check them out while I jet off to cover the Monaco Historic Grand Prix, followed by a Lotus drive story in Provence with snapper Fraser. When I come back, sure enough, they’ve found the front discs extremely worn, one of them cracked, and they’ve replaced the discs and all four sets of pads. Boy does it stand on its nose now!
Carlos has something else to show me: a trio of identical 911 rally cars, for all the world 934s fresh out of the box, but actually newly built for him and two friends to go historic rallying. So before heading back out to our Aregos holiday home I spend a day with them, majoring on the orange juicer.
Maybe I’ve become a little overconfident. On a portion of fast, upwards winding A-road out in the sticks near Marco de Canaveses I’m happily powering flat through the turns when, all of a sudden the back end breaks away. Instinctively correcting, my mind computes a diesel spill. But then I see it’s been raining – though I’m in bright sunshine. At any rate, that dampens our ardour and we’re in caution mode the rest of the way to Aregos. Ten days later, a similar thing happens on our way back up to Santander. We’ve checked out early, making a 6.30am start to make the afternoon sailing, and pounded up the autovia system at a steady 105mph most of the way. Then, almost on the last stretch before Santander the Pig begins twitching and, sure enough, it has been raining. I shouldn’t be surprised – there are plenty of clouds up ahead towards the Picos and the Pyrennees. But it wasn’t actually raining, the road looked dry, and I wondered about diesel spills or if the asphalt surface had warped. Whatever, it was time to reluctantly haul on the reins and, woops, here comes the rain again. Tell you what, though, the tyre pressures undoubtedly played a part. I’d equalised the Bridgestone Potenzas before setting off, 2.5-Bar, 36-psi all round, but checking them at Santander, they were all way adrift. Once rectified the handling came back to me and the car felt different again. It’s surprising what you get used to, though in truth we hadn’t come that far, 500 miles maybe.
Lessons learned? Don’t neglect the brakes, and check tyre pressures every week or more often on a long run. Cos it really does handle so well when they are right.