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Ford GT40s dominate Le Mans Legend

18 June, 2015

The spectacle that is the 24 Hours of Le Mans has been stealing all the headlines this week, but just as exciting — if not even more so, dare we say it — was the biannual ‘support’ race that is the Le Mans Legend.

This amazing warm-up to the real deal 24 Hours of Le Mans recently had the rules changed, allowing entry of iconic racing vehicles from between 1949 and 1968 — with a line-up including such elegant machinery as the Ford GT40, Porsche’s 908 and 910 race cars, and Jaguar C-types, all alongside the characterful vehicles of the era that made Le Mans what it is, the racing would always be great.

Image: Jakob Ebrey Photography

And great it was, with a field of 61 entrants racing cars as diverse as an Alpine A220, Shelby Cobra, and Alfa Romeo TZ1. Ultimately, the podium would be taken over by the blue oval, with a pair of Ford GT40s taking pole and second — a fitting flashback to the cars’ dominance at Le Mans 50 years ago, especially considering both cars had competed at La Sarthe in the 1960s.

Bernard Thuner took pole behind the wheel of Claude Nahum’s GT40, with Andrew Smith and James Cottingham in hot pursuit, to claim second. Ludovic Caron took third in a Shelby Cobra, with David Hart finishing in fourth behind the wheel of the AC Cobra. The GT40s’ dominance didn’t end on the podium either, with Richard Meins’ GT40 coming across the line in fifth, and Philip Walker and Miles Griffiths’ GT40 right behind.

There’s a reason Le Mans is still considered the world’s premier motorsport event, and its rich history — still showcased in such an awesome manner — is why. What a race!

Janspeed recreates the Jaguar sports car

29 September, 2026

Thankfully, a few of these cars made it to New Zealand, the odd one being imported from the UK over the years. However, the 1988 British Racing Green example owned by Bill Slater in Upper Hutt was originally sold as a standard car but converted using the full Janspeed kit by the first owner within a couple of years of buying it.
Bill has owned a few other Jaguars. In fact, after he sold his Jaguar XJ12 in 2018, he found himself pining for another and, when the XJ-S came up for sale, he could not resist it. Having just sold the V12, he was not expecting much from the six-cylinder car other than more reliability and it being cheaper to keep on the road. Naturally, he had heard of the influence Janspeed had on the marque, but it was not until he took the car for a test drive that he became aware of just how superior it was to the car he had just sold. The price of a second-hand Janspeed XJ-S and that of a standard 3.6 XJ-S is quite comparable, making the Janspeed version an incredible bargain, even more so in comparison with other performance classic cars — or even modern cars, for that matter — which cost far more bucks for the bang.

The writing on the wall

25 September, 2026

Deven, a digital content producer in his 20s, says it was the rear-drive Nissan and Toyota drift cars that fired his imagination in his not-so-distant youth and soon had him wanting one of his own. However, like most of us, he had to start in something less glamorous – in his case, a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. After that, he bought a four-litre V8 1991 Toyota Soarer, a big change from the Mitsubishi.
“It was my daily driver, and it wasn’t that bad to run back when petrol was affordable,” he says.
When he got fed up with filling it up, Deven bought a 1989 Ford Laser sedan, a 1.3-litre five-speed manual, to be his daily driver. It’s in very good condition, bought from a careful older driver, and he still runs it – although he will occasionally also drive the latest in a series of Nissan Laurel sedans. His current one, from 1993, has done the lowest number of kilometres yet, at 183,000. It has the single-cam version of the engine in his Skyline.
“I’ve had four different versions of that car. It was just a car I always liked. It’s really comfortable, quite luxurious. I bought it from a 90-year-old in Hamilton. It’s in mint condition, and everything is standard.”