The last Aston Martin to lead Le Mans was powered by Pink Floyd

“We drove home and stopped for a meal in a pub, and there and then Steve decided he’d like to build his own car.”

The original svelte EMKA 83/1 form was penned by designer Len Bailey, who was known for optimising the Ford GT40 for its Le Mans assault in the ‘60s, taking on Eric Broadley’s original concept.

In the back was the Tickford-tuned 5.3-litre, with 530bhp. Though 120 horses off the 952s, the hope was that better fuel consumption would at least help the EMKA gain a bit of ground back.

“Maurice Gomm built the tub and Protoco did the body work, but we put together the whole car really,” says Cane.

“It was just like my Ensign F1 experience – three men in a workshop building a car out of tin aluminium!” laughs Needell, who also remembers player/manager O’Rourke as “very laidback – very Pink Floyd!”

Donning the livery of music industry sponsor Virgin Records, the bright red car made its debut at the 1983 Silverstone 1000Kms – qualifying over 11sec off Stefan Bellof’s 1min 13.150sec pole time in the Rothmans Porsche 962, but only 1.7sec away from the works Aston Nimrod.

The EMKA, with O’Rourke and Jeff Allam joining Needell, fared better in the race before a wheel-bearing issue put it out after 165 laps.

“It was always a fun, simple car to drive,” says Needell. “No ground effect, though it pretended to have some.

“But it didn’t go down the straights…”

This became brutally apparent on Le Mans’ formidable Mulsanne. Already down on power, the EMKA found itself being almost-literally blow away by Group C rivals when it showed up for 1983’s biggest sports car race.

Nick Faure was brought in to replace Allam for that event, and related the experience to Motor Sport in 2015.

“The car got up to 180mph and just stopped,” he said. “That would be pretty inconvenient anywhere, but at Le Mans without the chicanes? It was completely hopeless. Porsches were pinging past us going 50mph faster, and more…”

Its 3min 42sec qualifying lap was a stonking 26sec off the pole set by the Ickx/Bell 956, but the car made what was a trying race home, finishing 17th out of 20 remaining cars – also being awarded The Motor Trophy for the best finish by a British machine.

The EMKA gang regrouped during 1984 for another crack at Le Mans in ’85, but big changes needed to be made.

Designer Richard Owen, known for the Shrike 2000, was brought in to re-fettle the car – and find more power.

“We had this awful drag, it was dog slow,” says Needell. “That was what ruined Len Bailey’s original design – though it was a lovely sleek shape, the air was going past it instead of getting to the Tickford.”

“I had a look and saw pretty quickly that the problem was the intake into the engine: it was simply being starved of air,” Owen said in 2015. “So I did a new rear wing for it, and new suspension for some reason or other, but the big difference was redesigning the air intake in the tail.”

Owen’s EMKA C84/1 rejig, now in Dow Corning colours, proved a revelation: “We went along in 1985 and had quite a good Le Mans,” Cane now recalls with some understatement.

In Needell’s hands, the car went 9sec faster in qualifying than it had two years previously, putting it 13th on the grid.

“It was lovely,” he remembers. “The happiest thing for me was that we out-qualified the two Group 44 works Jaguars.

“There was so much fuss, money and budget around them – and they wouldn’t employ me to drive!”

With Tiff having already got one over on Bob Tullius’s Big Cats in qualifying, he then stormed through the field upon the race start.

With the thirsty 956s and LC2s either fuel-saving or pitting to top up, Needell stormed through the field, and soon found himself in an incredible, yet genuine, third place 40min into the race.

The EMKA squad then cooked up a plan to grab some headlines and have its moment in the sun at Le Mans ’85.

“I had a guy working for me who was called Alan Charles, who very experienced,” says Cane. “He and I realised that if we only did half a fuel stop, we’d save about 40 seconds – just a spur of the moment idea.

“So Tiff went back out, and all the Porsches had to come in for their stops, so he ended up in the lead.

“The only annoying thing was we wanted to be top of the printed sheet which showed the race positions after each hour, but David Hobbs in his 956 managed to stay out just long enough to be shown as first. However after he came in we were leading!”

The EMKA stayed in amongst it until clutch problems early Sunday morning and then a loose fuel pipe – alarmingly spewing fuel out on a pitstop – saw the plucky team finish a still-impressive 11th behind the better-funded 956s and LC2s

“I think we were more pleased because we beat the Group 44 Jaguars that had come over from America – they were making a big noise and getting all rather American about it,” says Cane.

Needell meanwhile took the reliability issues in his stride: “I was always in cars that were breaking down or trying to kill me,” cheerfully noting he has a souvenir EMKA piston which managed both races.

While the EMKA Group C project would run out of money, O’Rourke and Cane would return for more goes down the Mulsanne, finishing fourth in 1998 in a fairly outdated McLaren F1 GTR amongst much faster GT1 competition.

“I used to manage the Williams F1 team in ‘89 and ’90,” says Cane. “I didn’t really enjoy it. I like to have a small team. That’s my preferred way of operating – and I just always had this love affair with Le Mans.”

The ’85 EMKA probably stands out as their most ‘far out’ effort though. 40 years on, it remains the last Aston-powered car to lead at Le Mans. Unless the Cosworth-pushed Valkyrie gets into first this weekend, the EMKA will also continue to be the last car in any way associated with the brand to head the field at La Sarthe.

Not bad for an afternoon pub session.