Hello, Kansas City. Welcome back to Bespoke Automotive Refinement Podcast, your number one go-to for all Kansas City car detailing services and all Kansas City car detailing needs. Now, this is part four to our series of Le Mans, breaking down the top 10, 20 best cars of all time driven at Le Mans.
Now, Thomas, have you been surprised by anything on this list so far? Not really. You’ve been like, that’s a horrible car. I, what? No, I just mean, have you felt like that? Oh, you’re like, that’s, I don’t like that.
No. Jaguar is one I, I had forgotten about. I’m surprised I haven’t heard Austin Healey yet.
Austin Healey was a very known race brand or racing team during the 50s at Le Mans. Um, so I’m surprised I haven’t heard anything about the Austin Healey yet. And I’m really surprised I haven’t heard anything about Corvette.
Um, but I’m sure that’s coming. At number 14 on the list is Alpine A442B from 1978. It was, uh, Reynolds and Alpine’s first Le Mans win.
Turbocharged innovation in the late 70s. Um, can you look up that car real quick? Yeah. Renault is a really cool company.
Um, so is Alpine. Alpine makes some really cool stuff. And those are companies you’ve never heard of because they’re not sold in the U.S. Okay.
But, uh, yeah, it’s a GT1 car. Yeah. Um, um, one of my dream cars is an Alpine.
I can’t think of the name of it offhand. I’m blanking on it, but it’s an old car from like the 60s. So beautiful.
Um, so yeah, I hadn’t, I definitely, that’s one that I hadn’t thought of that I’m kind of shocked to hear. Number 15 is a, it’s either Sabre or Sauber Mercedes C9 from 1989. It was Mercedes’ comeback story.
Claimed a dominant win with brutal speed. Clocked 248 miles per hour. In what year? Uh, 1989.
That’s fast in general. That’s crazy fast for the 80s. Really fast.
240? Uh, 250, uh, 248. Holy crap. I mean, that’s fast.
That’s, it took another 25 years before they ever made a car that was street legal that could go that fast. Really? It was the Veyron. The Veyron could do 250, the Veyron Supersport or the, um, not the Veyron Supersport, the Veyron, um, yeah.
Veyron Supersport. I mean, if you look at the first ever cars made in the early 1900s, it’s not that long after they made a car that went 250 miles per hour. The first cars ever made couldn’t go more than like 10 miles an hour.
Yeah. And that was like, that was like revolutionary. Like to today’s standards, the idea of like a car would have been like.
No, it’s fast and like horseback. Yeah. Yeah.
Did you know that Ford actually wasn’t the first company to ever build a car? Really? It’s a total lie. Uh-huh. When they say that America made the first car.
Yeah. Mercedes made the first car. Really? I did not know that.
In the 1890s. Okay. Wow.
Who would have thunk? Who would have thunk? Uh, number 16 is a Rondeau M379 from 1980. Only car to win Le Mans, built and driven by a privateer. Yeah, I’ve never heard of that company.
It says one and only, so. Yeah. GT1 car.
Wow. Who would have thunk? Number 17 is a Porsche 962 from 1986 to 1987. Evolution of the 956.
Highly successful across multiple series. I can’t believe they have not mentioned Corvette yet. And you just give a little kinky, they don’t ever.
You serious? Uh-huh. That’s bad. That could be because of the technical of the GT1.
Yeah, just in case the. The stage, because of how fast they are. Um, I prefer the GT2 Touring series.
Because those are cars that like, they’re factory cars. Like the Ferrari 360 was a, they took the 360 Stradale was literally a factory Ferrari 360 that they gutted the interior, made it, uh, track legal, IMSA legal, and then they ran it. But it’s the same engine that was in a brand new 360.
The C6R is a C6 Z06 with a gutted interior and a wing and a cage to meet IMSA standards. But the engine in that car is the same engine that was in my C6 Z06. So that’s why I like that racing series, the GT2 Touring, because it’s like, those are real cars that you can buy and drive on the street.
So, and I think that’s why the, the GT1 cars take the, kind of take the stage in this list because they win most of the, most of the races and they run the fastest lap times. Yeah, makes sense. Number 18, the Ferrari 330 P4 from 1967.
It says it didn’t win the Le Mans, but is legendary for racing the GT40s. One of the most beautiful and iconic endurance cars. Look that one up.
That’s what Bandini drove. Those are, I don’t even know if anyone like privately owns those. I think those all belong in like Ferrari museums.
Okay. But they are gorgeous. They are gorgeous cars.
Oh yeah. That’s pretty. I mean, it looks super futuristic too.
It did. It did. And I mean, that was, that car was in the sixties.
Wow. Can you imagine the sixties when everyone’s driving around in boxy old boxes and you see that rolling around. It looks future.
It would’ve looked very futuristic for that time. Yeah. Number 19 is a BMW V12 LMR from 1999.
BMW’s only overall win. Sleek, fast, extremely well engineered. Probably also a GT1 car, but it’s got a V12 in it.
I love V12 engines. That’s what the SVJ has. And they just sound when they rev out and they rev through their power band and they just keep getting louder and louder and louder and higher pitched.
Nothing beats that sound. I really wish formula one would have stuck to V12 engines, but now they do, um, they do V10 hybrid engines and supposedly in 2027 or 2028, they’re switching to all electric. Okay.
So the cars won’t make any noise, which is like, that’s kind of part of it. That’s part of racing. Like part of the reason that a guy buys a nineties Ferrari isn’t to be fast because you can go buy a Mercedes SL series and be faster than any Ferrari from the nineties.
Yeah. Part of the thing with a Ferrari is the sound, the clicking when you put it in gear, you know, you don’t buy an old Ferrari to be fast. You buy it for the sound and the experience and the, the, um, the ambiance.
Yeah. So the fact that formula one is switching away from that is just stupid. Last one on the list is a McLaren F1 GTR from 1995.
1995 won Le Mans on its debut as a modified road car. First and only road car to win overall since 1940s. Fun fact about the F1 McLaren F1.
The McLaren F1 was the first road car that McLaren ever made. Like that was their first car that they ever actually manufactured and they built it in the same factory that they built their formula one cars in because McLaren wasn’t a manufacturer like Ferrari or Porsche that built road cars. They were just a race team.
They made the McLaren F1 and it immediately was the fastest car in the world when it came out. It came out in the nineties. It was $800,000.
Um, the guy who played Mr. Bean totaled his twice. Oh no. Uh, Elon Musk.
Bought one totaled it. Um, El Chapo had one totaled it. Oh my gosh.
Those cars. If you look up what the price is today for a McLaren F1, look up McLaren F1 price before you get the answer. What do you think? Uh, 400,000, 20 million, 23 million.
Wow. Skyrocketed. Uh huh.
And they you’re sitting in the middle of the car. So you have a seat here, you have a seat here and you’re driving in the middle of the car. That’s interesting.
It was the most futuristic thing from the nineties ever. Um, they are just, I’ve never seen one. I don’t know anyone.
I know one person who’s ridden in one. Um, but those cars, it, at this point they’re typically owned by like private, uh, museums or like car collector groups where like a bunch of people pool their money together to buy one. There aren’t very many people that own those anymore that like, like a single individual.
Okay. The only people that own those cars are museums. There is a, there is a picture of a guy in, um, somewhere in like the Hamptons and he’s got this garage and it’s like a three car garage.
It’s kind of like a garage that looks like your parents, you know, three car garage. And he’s got these boxes piled up around an F1. Really? And it’s an F1 GTR and F1 GTRs are worth like 35 million.
Oh my gosh. And he’s like got all this stuff piled up around a car that’s worth more than the entire neighborhood. Yeah.
Oh my gosh. That’s wild. Yeah.
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