The 1962 24 Hours of Le Mans was a motor race for Experimental cars and Grand Touring cars, staged at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France on 23 and 24 June 1962. It was the 30th Grand Prix of Endurance and the eighth round of the 1962 International Championship of Manufacturers.
The race was won by Olivier Gendebien and Phil Hill driving a Ferrari 330 TRI/LM. It would be the last overall win for a front-engined GT-style car, and it made Ferrari the most successful marque at Le Mans, with six wins at the time, a streak that would be continued with V12 mid-engine Ferrari Prototypes until 1965.
Regulations
The CSI (Commission Sportive Internationale - the FIA’s regulations body) initiated its new championship aimed specifically for GT cars. The International Championship of Manufacturers was expanded to 15 races, including endurance and short races and hill-climbs, open to all or some of the eligible classes.
However the Le Mans organisers, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), realised the public popularity of the Sports Car category and formulated their own development of the existing rules. The aim was to encourage prototypes of potential future GT designs. The maximum engine size for those cars (now called ‘Experimental’) was lifted from 3 to 4 litres. This approach was adopted by the four major endurance events (Sebring, Targa Florio, Nürburgring and Le Mans) who combined to create the Challenge Mondial de Vitesse et Endurance (Speed World Challenge) within the FIA championship that lasted to 1974.Spurring 2010, p.78Moity 1974, p.92
Entries The ACO's ideas had the desired effect and there were 79 applications for the race to be reduced to 60 cars to practice for the 55 starting places.
Aside from Ferrari and Maserati, a number of companies arrived with new prototypes including Aston Martin, Tojeiro, TVR, Abarth and OSCA. The CSI windscreen rules were influencing design, favouring closed-cars, and only 6 of the 55 starters were open-top.Spurring 2010, p.79
There were 28 ‘works’ entries. Four-car teams came from Ferrari, Abarth and Panhard et Levassor. Most other works and privateer teams brought 3-car teams.Spurring 2010, p.78
Category Classes ExperimentalEntries GTEntries TotalEntries Large-engines 5.0+, 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.5L1512 (+3 reserves)27 Medium-engines 2.0, 1.6, 1.3L7 (+3 reserves)10 (+4 reserves)17 Small-engines 1.15, 1.0, 0.85L11 (+4 reserves)011 Total Cars 33 (+7 reserves)22 (+7 reserves)55 (+14 reserves)
Again, Ferrari was the dominant marque in the race with 18 entries – the biggest representation from any marque at a Le Mans. Sports-car specialist Abarth was next with 9 cars.
SEFAC Ferrari had bounced back from the chaos at the end of 1961, when top designer Carlo Chiti led a walkout of key staff from the company. His last design, the new 330 TRI/LM was finished by Mauro Forghieri. This last front-engined Ferrari sports car had a 4-litre V12 developing a mighty 390 bhp. It was given to Ferrari's best endurance pair, Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien.Spurring 2010, p.80 The same engine was also fitted into an updated version of the 250 GTO (Chassis No. 3765), the 330 LMB to be driven by Mike Parkes and Lorenzo Bandini. Ferrari also arrived with two variations of its successful mid-engine cars, the 246 SP V6 for the fan-favourite Rodriguez brothers, and the 268 SP V8 for Ludovico Scarfiotti / Giancarlo Baghetti.Spurring 2010, p.83
The previous year's TRI/61 cars were sold, one each, to the two Ferrari customer teams: the North American Racing Team (NART) who also had a non-standard 250 GT that had to enter the ‘Experimental’ category. The other went to Italian Count Giovanni Volpi’s Scuderia Serenissima team. However, the count had incurred Enzo Ferrari’s wrath by hiring Chiti and his fellows and could no longer buy Ferrari cars. He therefore got Chiti to redesign a 250 GT with large aerodynamic back end. Nicknamed the ‘breadvan’ its low profile made it very fast, and it was given to Carlo Maria Abate and Colin Davis.Spurring 2010, p.95
Bucking the trend of moving toward mid-engined cars, the new Maserati T151 was a front-engined 3.9-litre V8 generating 360 bhp and an aerodynamic Kamm tail. Four were entered, including two for Briggs Cunningham and the new Maserati France team.Spurring 2010, p.87 They proved to be the fastest cars on the straights, reaching 287 kp/h (180 mph).Moity 1974, p.92 However they lost time to the better-handling Ferraris through the curves.
Aston Martin returned to Le Mans with a new prototype based on its DB4 – the Project 212. John Wyer, the team manager and mastermind behind their 1959 Le Mans win was now the company's CEO. The 4-litre Straight-6 engine developed 330 bhp and pushed the car to 270 kp/h (170 mph) down the Mulsanne straight. The car would be raced by Masten Gregory and Graham Hill.Spurring 2010, p.91
Le Mans regulars, the Ecurie Ecosse team, got John Tojeiro to build them a pair of coupés, utilising a mid-mounted 2.5-litre Coventry Climax F1 engine.Moity 1974, p.89 The chassis were barely finished in time, and were dispatched to Le Mans unpainted. When the transporter had a traffic accident in Kent en route, it damaged the ready car, so the team chose to scratch the unassembled car.Spurring 2010, p.97
In the middle-sized engine classes, there was only a single entry from TVR, the small British sports-car manufacturer, in the 2-litre class. A similar British company, Marcos, was in the 1.6-litre class against a pair of OSCA 1600GTs. The 1300cc class was solely contested by five Abarth coupés, now powered by 125 bhp SIMCA engines.
In the smallest classes there was a remarkable change to the entry list from the previous years. Abarth augmented their larger cars with standard 700cc Fiat-engined cars. After the break-up of the Deutsch et Bonnet partnership, Panhard and Bonnet arrived with new cars. Charles Deutsch stayed with Panhard power for the returning works team, while René Bonnet presented his new Djet with Renault engines.
At the recent race at a wet Nürburgring, Colin Chapman’s Lotus 23 driven by Jim Clark had led the whole field. He entered two such cars for Index honours, but was stymied at scrutineering because the front and rear wheels had different numbers of wheel studs. The officials said the compulsory spare wheel therefore could not be universally applied. Chapman pulled the entries and swore he would never return to Le Mans – and never did.Spurring 2010, p.84Clarke 2009, p.91: Autosport Jun29 1962Clarke 2009, p.100: Road & Track Sep 1962
As with previous years, the GT division was dominated by Ferrari cars. As well as three of the 250 GT, there were five of the stunning new 250 GTO entered by customer teams. It carried the 3-litre engine from the Testarossa sports car.Spurring 2010, p.89 Although the GT regulations stipulated that 100 examples had to have been built, Ferrari was able to convince the authorities that it was actually a derivation of an existing model - the 250 GT. Permitted under the rules loophole, it could use that production record to get homologation (the ‘O’ in ‘GTO’).Laban 2001, p.139
The previous year's Jaguar E2A prototype had now been homologated as the ‘E-type’ and there were three such cars entered, including Briggs Cunningham’s team again. Cunningham was co-driven by Le Mans race-winner Roy Salvadori because he could not fit into Brigg's Maserati cars.Spurring 2010, p.90 As well as an Austin-Healey 3000, there were also a pair of Aston Martin DB4s including a return from Frenchman Jean Kerguen.
The biggest car in the field was the private American-entry Chevrolet Corvette, virtually stock with its 327 cu in (5.4-litre) Stingray engine modified to produce 360 bhp.Spurring 2010, p.96
In the 2-litre GT class, the Morgan Plus 4 works car was entered again after being rejected in the previous year for looking too old-fashioned.Clarke 2009, p.72: Autocar Jun16 1961Laban 2001, p.142 The Super Sport version had an uprated Triumph engine produce 115 bhp and capable of .Spurring 2010, p.98
The 1.6-litre class was to be a battle between three Porsche-Abarths (Porsche 356 B Carrera GTL Abarth, also referred to as Porsche 695 GS Abarth) and three works Sunbeams. Porsche had decided not to enter their new 2.0 Flat-8 Type 771/1 in the Experimental class.Spurring 2010, p.93Clarke 2009, p.92: Autosport Jun29 1962 In the 1.3-litre class it was between the Elites of Team Lotus and the Alfa Romeo Giuliettas of the Scuderia St Ambroeus.
Practice Once again, the public roads were closed to allow a test weekend on 7–8 April, which 33 entrants availed themselves of. Fastest time was put down by Willy Mairesse in the Ferrari 250 GT SWB, doing a 4:07.1, quicker than his time in the new GTO of 4:10.8.Spurring 2010, p.103
On race-week, in the Wednesday evening practice Phil Hill, Ferrari's F1 world champion, broke Mike Hawthorn’s longstanding lap record from 1957 by over two seconds (3:55.1). Mike Parkes in the GTO prototype was second fastest (3:58.6), then came Thompson in the Cunningham Maserati (3:59.1), the Aston Martin of Graham Hill (3:59.8), McLaren’s Maserati (4:01.3) and Pedro Rodriguez in the Ferrari (4:02.2).
By contrast the Bianchi’s new Abarth-Simca recorded a 4:34.3. The only serious incident was when Robert Bouharde crashed his small Bonnet Djet at Maison Blanche, destroying the car. He was taken to hospital with a knee injury.Spurring 2010, p.77
Race Start Saturday was fine and sunny. This year Maurice Baumgartner, new President of the CSI, was the honorary starter. Graham Hill was the first under the Dunlop Bridge but got into a drag race down the long straight with Parkes in the GTO prototype. With both cars braking late, the Aston Martin punted the Ferrari off into the sandtrap at Mulsanne corner, immediately costing him many laps.Spurring 2010, p.83 On the second lap Gendebien managed to pass Hill cleanly on the straight. On the third lap the TVR became the first retirement when Peter Bolton pitted with all his water gone, long before any replenishment was permitted.Clarke 2009, p.93: Autosport Jun29 1962
So for the first hour the big Ferrari led Hill from the three Maseratis of Kimberley, Trintignant and McLaren. Pedro Rodriguez had initially got up to third before slipping back to sixth. Then came the Ferraris of Gurney, Baghetti, Abate’s ‘breadvan’ and Guichet's GTO leading the GT division in tenth. But the better handling and fuel economy of the Ferrari got the Mexican brothers back to second as the pit stops rotated. Pushing Phil Hill hard (he broke Hawthorn's 1957 race lap record in the third hourClarke 2009, p.90: Autosport Jun29 1962) they hit the front in the third hour.Spurring 2010, p.79 The other Ferrari of Scarfiotti/Baghetti slotted into a secure third place.
Count Volpi's ‘breadvan’ Ferrari had been running 7th, leading the other GTOs when it was stopped by a broken propshaft in the 3rd hour.Spurring 2010, p.95 After running in fourth for the first three hours, a faulty dynamo on the Aston Martin necessitated a number of pit-stops, taking it out of the running and it finally retired before midnight.Spurring 2010, p.91 The three Maseratis stayed in contact, taking the lead briefly on fuel-stop strategies.
Night Dick Thompson was the first Maserati to falter (about 8.30pm) when he spun at the Esses with new brake pads, swiping the rear and rupturing his oil-tank.Spurring 2010, p.87 McLaren's Maserati had got into second but threw a tyre-tread that dropped it a number of places.Clarke 2009, p.102: Road & Track Sep 1962 Mike Parkes’ trip to the sandtrap eventually killed the 330 LMB's radiator and they were retired after 10pm.Spurring 2010, p.83