Lunch with... Alain de Cadenet

Countless schoolboys have fantasised about winning Le Mans, perhaps in a car painted in patriotic dark green; perhaps – even better – in a self-built car carrying their own name. But the Briton who came closest to turning that fantasy into fact knew nothing of cars when he was a boy. In his boarding-school youth Alain de Cadenet was more interested in collecting stamps. It was only after losing a girlfriend to a racing driver that it occurred to him to take an interest.

“This gorgeous girl was pulled off me by a man who said he was a racing driver. So I phoned up Autosport to ask how you became one of those. The phone was answered by the office junior, some fellow called Simon Taylor.”

That was in 1966, when Alain was 21, and I remember the conversation well. The confident young man at the end of the phone seemed destined for a rather brief racing career. He and a friend had bought a pair of 2.6 AC Aces, which they equipped with flared wheel arches, wide wheels, and Blue Star remould taxi tyres “because if you blow them up really hard they slide nicely.”

“I knew nothing about racing. I just thought it would be a good way to pick up girls”

“I knew nothing about motor racing. I just thought it would be a good way to pick up girls. And it was. In the paddock at my first race at Brands, a girl invited me back to her flat in Baron’s Court that evening. I got there a few minutes early, and the door opened and Mike Hailwood came out. ‘You’re next’, he said. She used to race a bit, too. Very good with calming advice for the novice driver. You remember her too, but we’d better not mention her name.”

We are lunching in Bibendum, the fine London restaurant that Conran created out of the Edwardian tile-clad Michelin depot in the Fulham Road. It’s a frequent watering-hole for Alain, whose mews house isn’t far away. He chooses a hot smoked salmon soufflé, followed by roast sea bream. It’s helped along by a half-bottle of premier cru Vosne Romanée.

“I raced the AC for a couple of years, learned a bit about what was going on, and then got involved with a mid-engined thing called the Diva Valkyr. I tried to put a Martin V8 in it. Horrible failure. Then I bought a Porsche 904. Michael Pearson (now Lord Cowdray) had a house in Elystan Street which was the hang-out for our gang, so we pushed his new Ferrari into the street and prepared the Porsche in his garage. I drove it to races on the road. We didn’t bother with overalls then – I raced in shirt-sleeves.”

The 904 gave way to a Dino 206S, and then a Porsche 908. “I’d noticed Chris Craft carving hell out of the bigger cars in his little Chevron, so we shared my 908 in a few races, and it was the start of a long friendship.” Under the banner of Ecurie Evergreen, a team he’d set up with the American David Weir, Alain commissioned a Cosworth DFV-powered McLaren M8C for Group 6. “Bruce worked out the rear end, and shook it down for me at Goodwood.”

By now Alain had realised that Le Mans was something a chap had to do. In 1971 he made his Sarthe debut in nothing less than an Ecurie Francorchamps Ferrari 512M, with Hughes de Fierlandt. They were in seventh place on Sunday morning when the transmission broke. Meanwhile Ecurie Evergreen was running a full-house Can-Am M8E, and in July Craft won the Interserie race at the Norisring. But this was the tragic day when Pedro Rodriguez was killed.

“Next day’s papers said Pedro had been killed in a minor race somewhere in Germany. I said to Chris, ‘After all the hard work, all the money, all the massaging, it says we’re just minor racers. So let’s get into the big time, let’s go F1.’

“I went down to the Brabham factory. Jack Brabham had just packed up, and his BT33 was sitting there doing nothing, so I did a fairly convoluted deal with Ron Tauranac. But I was married by then, and the bread knife put her foot down at the thought of me driving in F1. I thought, best put Chris in the car, he’ll do it more justice than I will.”

So, with the unflappable Keith Greene as team manager (“a bullet-proof bloke”, says Alain), Ecurie Evergreen went F1. In the Oulton Park Gold Cup, Craft was fifth. Then the BT33 was packed off to North America for the Canadian and American GPs. At Mosport the engine blew in practice, and at Watkins Glen a chunking tyre broke the rear cross member. “Having thought F1 might be the thing to do, I saw how even Frank Williams was having a nightmare keeping going. I didn’t have his connections, or his determination.”

“Unbeknownst to everyone then, Gordon turned out to be a genius”

Keen to return to Le Mans, Alain wanted one of Ferrari’s new 312Ps. “Ferrari wouldn’t sell me one. It was a two-seater version of their flat-12 F1 car, and they said it was too complex for a private owner. That upset me a bit. By now Bernard had taken over Brabham” – Alain always refers to Bernie Ecclestone as Bernard – “ and I went down there to rummage out some bits. I got chatting with a young South African in the drawing office. I asked him if we could do a 312P out of our BT33. He said, ‘Well, we probably could.’

“That, of course, was Gordon Murray. He’d work at Brabham all day, and then go home and work nearly all night on my car. Grand Prix Metalcraft built the tub, and we put it all together in six weeks. The Brabham’s engine was shot, but McLaren had a little Kiwi dude called Jon Nicholson who’d been building their Can-Am engines. To try him out on their DFVs, they got him to rebuild the four-year-old engine that Bruce used to win the Belgian GP in 1968. Then they sold it to me for £1500. I went to Colnbrook and collected it, squeezed it onto the back seat of my Mini.

“Of course, unbeknownst to everyone then, Gordon turned out to be a genius. The car was fast straight out of the box. Duckhams gave us £500 to paint it like a yellow oil can, and we called it the Duckhams-Ford.  At Le Mans Chris and I had it in fourth place with two hours to go. Then he ran into his own personal downpour when he was on slicks, and hit the barrier. He got it back to the pits, and we repaired it. But Jo Bonnier had been killed that morning: he’d hit the back of a Daytona and flown into the trees. Everybody was a bit edgy, and they wouldn’t let me out almost until the end. So we ended up 12th.

Today Alain still races historic cars, and has a busy career as a TV presenter for the American Speed channel. For his Victory by Design series he’s sampled some wonderful machinery, from Auto Union to Vanwall. Currently in his own garage are two low-chassis Invictas, a Porsche 356, and his beloved 1931 Alfa 8C, which he’s owned for 35 years. All of them get used for ordinary motoring: he doesn’t possess a modern car. He also has a collection of classic motorcycles, from early veterans via Vincents and Brough Superiors to Ducatis, and a Boeing Stearman aeroplane.

These days, sadly, you can’t be a front-runner at Le Mans by towing your own car to the circuit behind a Speed Six Bentley. It wasn’t meant to be possible when Alain de Cadenet did it. But he’s one of a dying breed, a true motor racing character. Tim Birkin, Woolf Barnato, Glen Kidston and the rest would all have approved.