Genesis, you may suppose, will grow to be the primary South Korean producer to compete on the Le Mans 24 Hours when its forthcoming LMDh takes to the grid in 2026. However you’d be fallacious. Thirty years earlier than the Hyundai model’s supposed arrival there was one other marketing campaign at Circuit de la Sarthe by a automotive maker from the Asian nation.
SsangYong made an assault on the French enduro again in 1996. It was an intriguing one, not least as a result of it was put collectively by an ex-Formulation 1 driver with a Le Mans victory on his CV.
Bertrand Gachot, the winner at Le Mans in 1991 with Mazda who loved (or maybe endured) a nomadic F1 profession with Onyx, Rial, Coloni, Jordan, Larrousse and Pacific, was within the strategy of hanging up his helmet and on the lookout for new profession alternatives when he was recruited by a producer that was simply breaking into Europe. It had began promoting vehicles within the UK in 1994.
“I needed to get out of driving and into enterprise,” says the Belgian, who had raced at Le Mans in 1994 and ’95 with Honda throughout his closing seasons in F1 with Pacific. “I felt that I’d accomplished my bit, had my time.”
To that impact, he travelled to South Korea with Ko Gotoh, who had been a shareholder in Pacific and, says Gachot, “had enterprise pursuits all around the world”. A gathering with SsangYong resulted in a request to take a model that got here into being in 1988 to Le Mans.
“They had been an upcoming model and needed to vary their picture, which had been extra focussed on issues like vans,” recollects Gachot, whose time in F1 will all the time be remembered for the race he didn’t do slightly than any of the 47 he did – Michael Schumacher made his grand prix debut with Jordan at Spa in 1991 when the house driver was incarcerated for assaulting a London automotive driver. “They requested if we may take them to Le Mans and gave us a really small price range. It was a loopy challenge.”
Gachot (left) needed to cease driving after two attempting seasons in F1 with Pacific, however was lured again by new Le Mans challenge
Photograph by: LAT Photographic
Gachot says the deal provided didn’t stretch to seven figures and got here with just one stipulation: no matter automotive was taken to Le Mans bearing SsangYong’s identify needed to be powered by a Mercedes engine. That was as a result of it had a expertise tie-up with the German producer and used its powerplants throughout its vary.
Gachot’s response to SsangYong’s request was to pick the quirky central seat LMP2 chassis constructed by Welter Racing, certainly one of which had claimed outright pole for Le Mans in ’95. Into it he put a Mercedes two-litre four-cylinder engine in turbocharged kind instead of the unique Peugeot unit.
Gachot struck a take care of Nicholson-McLaren Engines within the UK to show the four-pot Mercedes highway engine right into a racing powerplant. “I requested them what they wanted, they usually mentioned, ‘5 blocks however it’s a must to get them from a scrapyard’,” he recollects.
He now had an engine to go along with a WR chassis of 1994 classic – and solely minor revisions to the engine mounts and the bellhousing had been required – however what he didn’t have was a staff
The rationale for the unusual request? Forged iron engine blocks get stronger over time as they undergo warmth cycles. Which is why the most important castings of the BMW turbos that took Nelson Piquet to the F1 world championship in 1983 with Brabham had been removed from model new. Tales of personnel from BMW engine guru Paul Rosche’s division urinating on the blocks to one way or the other speed up the ageing course of could or might not be true.
“Nicholson-McLaren constructed us an excellent engine, very highly effective,” explains Gachot. He now had an engine to go along with a WR chassis of 1994 classic – and solely minor revisions to the engine mounts and the bellhousing had been required – however what he didn’t have was a staff.
“We didn’t personal one screwdriver,” recounts Gachot, who linked up with someday Le Mans entrant Jean Messaoudi to create a construction to run the automotive. “We put collectively a form of digital staff: we rented every little thing and introduced in some mechanics I knew from F1.”
Gachot obtained an entry for the race beneath his personal identify, prefixed by the acronym PGM: it stood for Fairly Good Administration and was the corporate beneath which he operated as a racing driver. His slot from race organiser the Car Membership de l’Ouest, nevertheless, solely received him into what we now name the Check Day. Again then it was a aggressive session, not less than for among the opponents: Gachot must prequalify on the finish of April if SsangYong’s entry was to proceed to race week in June.
Nicholson-McLaren Engines turned the road-going Mercedes engine right into a racing unit for Gachot’s SsangYong WR
Photograph by: John Brooks
It didn’t work out as deliberate. Gachot, the one driver to take to the wheel of the WR-SsangYong in prequalifying, didn’t make the lower. An issue within the afternoon, which this author remembers not being disclosed on the time, stranded the automotive out on monitor, just for it to be hit by one other entrant – one of many works WRs! It wouldn’t make it again out on monitor.
That isn’t the tip of the SsangYong story at Le Mans. Gachot and the automotive had been again on the venue in September for an occasion referred to as the Autumn Cup on the everlasting Bugatti circuit.
What Gachot’s WR may or won’t have proven at this occasion isn’t solely clear, partly as a result of he concedes that his reminiscence of the challenge is a bit shaky 30 years on and since up to date reviews, together with Autosport’s, had been brief and candy. A motley subject didn’t demand vital protection: the entry was restricted, although the four-hour affair was attended by Braveness Competitors with a pair of Porsche-powered LMP prototypes and the works WR squad.
Chatting with Autosport, Gachot was initially satisfied that the looks of his WR on the brief circuit at Le Mans got here previous to the prequalifying day, not afterwards. He remembers a throttle downside, which he’s positive got here on the Bugatti occasion – and insists that the WR-SsangYong LM94 led one of many pair of two-hour heats.
His recall isn’t backed up by Autosport and the historical past books. However the SsangYong-powered P2 Gachot shared with Emmanuel Clerico did set second quickest qualifying time behind the Welter Racing entry, simply over 9 tenths in arrears.
They completed eighth within the first warmth however didn’t see the chequered flag within the second. That will or could not have been a results of the throttle downside of which Gachot talks.
That was the tip of SsangYong’s tentative Le Mans programme. It didn’t renew the take care of Gachot – the next yr the corporate was taken over by Daewoo initially of a peripatetic existence. The model would fall beneath the management of Mahindra and Shanghai Automotive over time and is at this time referred to as KGM, which stands for KG Mobility.
The Belgian continued to do a little bit of racing – in 1997 he contested a handful of All-Japan GT Championship rounds and was again at Le Mans in a buyer Porsche 911 GT1 – however in the identical yr, he began importing the Hype power drink into France. By 2000 he grew to become CEO of the corporate.
Gachot returned to Le Mans one final time with Kremer-run Porsche 911 GT1 in 1997 after the SsangYong challenge concluded
Photograph by: LAT Photographic
However he has good reminiscences, nevertheless blurred, of his time as an entrant with a South Korean automotive maker most individuals had by no means heard of.
“ the story: the older you get, the quicker you had been,” he says. “I hope I’m not becoming a member of that membership, however we had been fast on that little Bugatti circuit in opposition to the massive vehicles.
“I’m positive we led sooner or later earlier than the issue, however I undoubtedly keep in mind leaving the circuit blissful that we’d proved one thing. We had been disillusioned, however we knew we had accomplished properly. Our little bundle was super-fast.”
Regardless of its lack of success, Gachot has fond if hazy reminiscences of the SsangYong WR challenge
Photograph by: John Brooks
On this article
Gary Watkins
Le Mans
Bertrand Gachot
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