Porsche return to Le Mans in 2014

[Porschinelle]

11th and 12 th June 1955

[Porschinelle]

For the majority the 1955 Le Mans edition will remain as the year of the worst ever catastrophic accident in a car race
For the Porsche fans 1955 was a fabulous year with : 5 out of 6 starting cars finishing amongst the only 21 arrivals cars and 3 cars 4th, 5th and 6th overall ahead of much more powerful cars

[Porschinelle]

Porsche KG entered 3 cars
550 046 1.5 liter race number 37 driven by Richard Von Frankenberg/Helmut Polensky
550 048 1.1 liter race number 49 driven by Auguste Veuillet/Zora Arkus Duntov
550 047 1.5 liter race car 62 driven by Helmut Glockler/Jaroslav Juhan
3 more 550 were entered by private teams
550 031 1.5 liter race number 38 owned and driven by Walter Ringgenberg/Jorg Jilomen (Switzerland)
550 016 1.5 liter car owned and driven by Gonzague Olivier/Josef Jeiser
550 015 1.5 liter Ecurie Nationale Belge driven by Olivier Gendebien/Wolfgang Seidel

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

Now a very interesting video
For the ones who won't have the time to Watch this long video I recommend to only watch the 6/7 last minutes (the first part refer to a race on the Nurburing in Germany and a race in England (Silvertone ?)
The last part of this video sart with

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

Before to see our 550 during the race a parenthesis on the Mercedes crash
Today we have problems to understand after this terrible accident arrived only after 2 hours of race killing over 80 spectators, the race was not stopped
The organizers claimed stopping the race will have created a panic amongst the over 300.000 spectators and desorganize the assistance to the large number of injured spectators (of course cell phones did not exist and the large majority of the spectators only learned about the accideent several hours after the end of the race
Again 2 videos :

www.dailymotion.com/video/xitj1_le-mans-24h-1955-accider

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEK85gKJN6K

[MMW]

Thank you for posting all of this. Very interesting stuff. I am following along as I have time.

[Porschinelle]

one of the videos did not post try this one

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWUrLgP5Wro

[Porschinelle]

After having seen how the Mercedes in Magnesium burn in a few seconds it is difficult to understand why Porsche decided to built their "Mickey Mouse" in the same material
For the one who do not remember Richard Von Frankenberg had a terrible accident on the Avus race track with this car who also burn in a few seconds
Back to the race now

[Porschinelle]

Sart of the race

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

[Porschinelle]

Now some numbers
60 cars started at 4PM Saturday June 11th
21 cars arrived Sunday June 12th
Amongst these 21 cars 5 550 spyders
Richard Von Frankenberg/Helmut Polensky 550 046 finish 4th overall and 1st in the 1.5 liter class, having covered 284 laps ( 3919 kilometers ) ie nearly 1000 km more than the first spyder in 1954
Auguste Veuillet/Zora Arkus Duntov 550 048 finish 13 th overall and first of the 1.1 liter class having covered 245 laps (3405 kilometers)

To close 1955 a pic of Richard Von frankenberg car with the winning Jaguar

[Porschinelle]

Helmut Polensky is shaking hand with Mike Hawthorne the Jaguar pilot
also a pic of 550 016 to day