The X---- Porsche cars

[Porschinelle]

The 2nd edition in 1957 was won by an Alfa Romeo Giuletta with a 356 Carrera at the second place

[Porschinelle]

For 1958 Renault is back with a very strong team and made 1-2-3 and 4




Paul Ernst Sthrale enter a car he shared with Marcel Buchet

Unfortunately they had to retire (broken cranck)

[Porschinelle]

a small disgression but linked with Porsche
Paul Ernst Stahle seems to have loved the Tour de Corse
In 1957 he finish 3rd with Wnder
In 1958 as we have seen above he was DNF with Robert Buchet
In 1959 he was 4thy with Herbert Linge
and finally he won in 1960 always with Linge

[Porschinelle]

[356]

Love it porschenelle!

[Porschinelle]

Strange destiny
The 1959 first race that Claude Storez enter was the 8th edition of the Rallye des Routes du Nord
If you have carefully read this topic you all remember that the 1956 (6th edition of this rallye) was one of the first victory of Claude Storez and his friend Robert Buchet,

with a Porsche

[Porschinelle]

Claude Storez and Robert Buchet are still good friends but Robert Buchet celebrity as a good pilot has grew up and now either he race his own cars or share famous pilots cars as he did at the Tour de Corse 1958 with Paul Ernst Strahle
By example he shared the wheel of his Carrera speedster with the famous French formula 1 driver Maurice Trintignant during the 1959 Tour Auto


and won the 1959 Liege Rome Liege on Paul Ernst Strahle Carrera WN V2

[Porschinelle]

The Rallye des Routes du Nord, although an International race
as it attract many pilots from Belgium, is not a very important rallye
It start and finish in Lillo (North of France only 100 kilometers from Bruxelles)
The Routes du Nord are a regularity rallye : a fix average speed to be respected at 1 second near and very narrow campaign roads, and some special stages as hill climbs or a few laps on the Reims circuit in order to determine a winner
Being raced in February in the North of France snow and ice are frequent
For 1959 Claude Storez choose to race with Tremble a friend with which he already won the Mont Blanc rallye in 1958

[Porschinelle]

The below pic extracted for a period newpaper, show Claude Storez and Tremble in the Zagato Porsche at the start of the rallye Friday February 6th
The journalist present them as the great favorits of the rallye and insit on the fact they have choosen an open car to attend this very cold race

[Porschinelle]

At that point of the story its time to make a disgression on the Reims race track
We have seen in the previous posts that Claude Storez did like Reims as on the contrary of Le Mans that he never succeed to finish in 5 off attempts, he did very well in the Reims 12 hours in 1956/1957 and 1958
Furthermore the Reims race track was used in many other events as the Tour Auto or the Rallye des Routes du Nord
In September 1958 Claude Storez already raced with the Zagato Porsche on that race track as a stage of the Tour Auto
He even finish second of the race behind the Ferrari 250 GT of Olivier Gendebien
The Reims race track : Lenght 7.826 km

What left of the Reims race track to day

[Porschinelle]

The last car race was in 1966 and the last motorbyke race in 1972 before the definitive shut down of this site
From 1972 to around 2000 what left of the race track was partially destroyed
In 2000 a non profit association called : Les Amis du circuit de Gueux (Friends of the Gueux race track)
has started to save what possible of what was left
Gueux is a small village close to the race track who was originally part of the race track until 1923
The official name of the race track was Reims-Gueux
The Reims race track was using 2 National roads (who still exist to day) join by an access road who had been destroyed
Therefore it is impossible to organise historical races but the Stands and the pits are used to organise static meetings
By example this site was used to celebrate















the 911 2.7 RS 40th anniversary

[JTR70]

The white speedster in action







Congratulations after the efforts

Gerard, I had always suspected that the platform for Storez's Abarth roadster was his White GT Speedster but you're saying that the factory supplied the coachbuilder a fresh/bare chassis to build on? I've learned more than I ever thought I'd know about racing history all thanks to you! Great stuff!
Justin

[Porschinelle]

Hi Justin

Thanks for the encouragements
When I started to dig out some stuff for this topic I found a story saying that indeed they were not one but 2 off Zagato Porsche built by Zagato (of course in 195
At first I thought it was a stupidity as if it is possible that the the one raced by Claude Storez as disapeared (but I have a supposition on that disparition that I will tell when we arrive at the fatal accident) if they had been 2 at least one should be left somewhere
Indeed I recently found a German book with that story
The Porsche plant sent a rolling 356 A Chassis to Zagato
The body was already pre assembled and the complete car sent back to Zuffenhausen only a few weeks after for the finition end of June 1958


When the car was ready a Porsche mecanic took it on the motorway to try it had had a serious accident destroying the car
A second car had to be assembled during the July August months the one we see on the pics

[Porschinelle]

Sorry
I have been away sailing these last fews days
We are Thursday February 7th and the 1959 Routes du Nord competitors have reached the Reims race track
Claude as you all know love this race track where he had several wins
You also know that Claude raced his new Zagato Porsche on this track in September 1958 for the Tour Auto
Remembering that he found his Zagato instable at high speed he decide to fit larger wheels as seen on this pic

[Porschinelle]

another pic of the wheels change