Monday 22nd June 1970

Filming of staged racing sequences for the movie “Le Mans” began. The star of the film, Steve McQueen had intended to actually race a Porsche 917 together with Jackie Stewart, but the #26 entry was not accepted. Instead, in the movie, he was shown starting the race on the blue #20 Gulf-Porsche 917K, which in the real race was driven by Jo Siffert and Brian Redman. The race-leading white #25 Porsche 917 “Long tail” was piloted by Vic Elford and Kurt Ahrens, Jr..The Porsche 908/2 which McQueen had previously co-driven to a second place in the 12 Hours of Sebring was entered by Solar Productions to compete in the race, equipped with heavy movie cameras providing actual racing footage from the track. Additional footage shot after the race used genuine racing cars of the day, mainly Porsche 917 and Ferrari 512 models, painted as real competitors which staged the main rivalry in the 1970 season and the film. According to rules, 25 of each sports car had to be built, so enough were available, compared to few if any of the prototype class. In the crash scenes, cheaper Lola T70 chassis were sacrificed, disguised with bodywork of the Porsche and Ferrari. Despite being depicted as the factory-backed Ferrari team, the 512’s used were borrowed from Belgian Ferrari distributor Jacques Swaters. Enzo Ferrari had been approached to supply the cars but refused official Ferrari participation after reading the script and finding out that the movie ends with a victory for Porsche. Enzo told the producers they could only use the factory 512’s if the script was re-written to have a Ferrari win the race. His request was refused.