1932 24 Hours of Le Mans

10th 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race

The 1932 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 10th Grand Prix of Endurance that took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe on 18 and 19 June 1932. A significant year for the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) with the biggest changes to the circuit in the race's history. A new section bypassing Pontlieue suburb was built starting with a long right turn after the pits, going over a hill then down to the Esses, a left right combination, before rejoining the Hunaudières straight at the new right hand corner of Tertre Rouge. This shortened the track by almost 3 km down to
On paper it looked like it would be a race between the seven 2.3 litre supercharged Alfa Romeos and the two similarly powered Bugatti T55 four seaters (backed by the Bugatti factory). But from the start it was the Alfa Romeos that set the pace, led by the two works cars in a furious duel. But a first lap accident by a privateer Bentley at the tricky White House corners caused much disruption for drivers who would not slow down. First Minoia went off at the same place, taking Brisson's Stutz with him, then Marinoni smacked the Bentley trying to make up for an hour lost digging himself out from the Arnage sandbank after another excursion. After the first pit stops around 6pm, the works Alfa of Franco Cortese held the lead. But when that car had to pit around 10pm to get its windscreen fixed, it was the similar car of 1931 winners, Earl Howe and Birkin that took its place. Their chance of a repeat win ended with a blown gasket at 3am, whereupon Raymond Sommer took the lead. He was forced to drive most of the race himself as his co driver, Italian ex pat Luigi Chinetti, had got a fever after working long hours to prepare their short wheelbase Alfa Romeo for the race. Having driven one 3 hour shift Chinetti was unable to do any more. As dawn broke, Cortese/Guidotti were closing on him, but their challenge wilted as they had to make repeated stops to secure loose and broken parts of their car. Their delays allowed the remaining Bugatti of Czaykowski / Friderich, now running third seven laps back, to start chasing them down. That chase came to an end though after midday, when the Bugatti came to a halt on the track having got down to four laps in arrears. This took the pressure off the two Alfa Romeos. Meanwhile, behind the race for outright victory was the quest for winning the Biennial Cup. The initial six eligible cars from the 1931 race had quickly been whittled down to just three: the 3 litre Talbot, versus the smaller 1.5 litre Aston Martin and 1.1 litre Caban. For most of the race, the three cars were running very closely to their designated target distances. Just as one would start building a lead over the others it would be stymied by mechanical delays. As the main race ran down to a predictable finish, it was only on the Sunday afternoon that the Aston Martin of "Bert" Bertelli / Pat Driscoll got enough reliability to pull out a sufficient gap to claim the Biennial Cup. In the end Sommer won by two laps. In a remarkable drive he had been at the wheel for over twenty hours, and during the Sunday, the exhaust pipe had broken that left it pumping its noxious fumes into the cockpit. His distance covered also won the Index of Performance, going over 20% beyond the designated target. Cortese and Guidotti were second in the works Alfa Romeo. After many tribulations, the Talbot of Lewis / Rose Richards had pushed hard enough to finish third, albeit 36 laps behind. Fourth was Odette Siko’s privateer Bugatti entry – still the best overall finish by a female driver at Le Mans.

This was a watershed year for the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) with a number of major changes happening all at once. It saw the end, after nine years, of the partnership with founding sponsor Rudge Whitworth, as money problems drastically affected the British wheel parts company. The Cup was thus renamed the Biennial Cup of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest. The suburban growth of the city of Le Mans caused the second major change: residents’ complaints had already forced the removal of the Pontlieue hairpin in 1929. So, in 1931 the ACO acquired 75 hectares of land beyond the start finish straight and set about constructing a completely new section of track to bypass the transit into the city's southern suburbs. named after the major rise the new track traversed.

The global economic recession meant a dearth of big engined cars was being produced, and the six cars entered over 4 litres were all 1920s vintage and showing their age. The team to beat was undoubtedly Alfa Romeo, currently dominating Grand Prix racing, and the marque was the best represented in the entry list with 7 cars. Bugatti was their main opposition, supporting entries made by its works team drivers. Both manufacturers fielded straight 8 supercharged cars of about 2.3 litres (equal to 3 litres with the 1.33 equivalency factor). The only other works team present came from Aston Martin with the remaining entries coming from privateer teams and “gentleman drivers”. After the record low number of finishers in the 1931 race there were only six cars eligible for the Biennial Cup (although when the Mercedes Benz entry did not arrive this became five). Category Entries Classes Large sized engines 14 / 10 over 3 litre Medium sized engines 17 / 15 1.0 to 3 litre Small sized engines 2 / 1 up to 1.0 litre Total entrants 33 / 26
Note: The first number is the number of entries, the second the number who started. Alfa Romeo's dominance in the racing year had started with victory in the Mille Miglia for the works team, and then in the Targa Florio for the works supported Scuderia Ferrari. The 8C 2300 Monza was modified for Le Mans with a 4 seater lungo (long) touring body styled by Carrozzeria Touring. Five were prepared for the works drivers as well as three customer entries. The two works cars had a finer tuning with exclusive engine parts to increase their output and supercharger power. Their drivers were Franco Cortese/Giovanni Battista Guidotti and "Nando" Minoia/Carlo Canavesi. The Alfa test driver, Attilio Marinoni, was seconded to the customer car of Georgian exile Prince Dmitri Djordjadze, with Mille Miglia specialist Angelo Guatta as his co driver. Earl Francis Howe, winner in the previous year's race, had one of the brand new cars, once again running it with former Bentley Boy, Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin. The wealthy Parisian bankers, Pierre Louis Dreyfus and Antoine Schumann, traded their Bugatti this year for the fifth lungo car. Raymond Sommer, rising star of French motor racing, had spied a short wheelbase Mille Miglia corto 8C on display at the Paris Salon. He bought the car and asked Luigi Chinetti, an Italian émigré running the Alfa Romeo agency in Paris, about converting it to a four door for touring car racing. The car was fitted with two small rear seats, an oversize fueltank, streamlined fairings and an externally mounted exhaust (to reduce engine temperatures). It was also the only Alfa Romeo running on Englebert tyres, while the others ran on Dunlop. The shorter wheelbase gave better handling as well as being 100 kg lighter. Sommer also engaged Chinetti as his co driver. After a tragic race the year before, Ettore Bugatti was very wary about any bad press to the company if a similar accident were to happen again. No works team officially arrived however two cars were entered under the drivers’ names with strong works’ backing. They were run by Guy Bouriat with Louis Chiron, and Russian émigré Count Stanisław Czaykowski with French veteran Ernest Friderich (who had won the voiturette race here in 1920 for Bugatti). There were also two other privateer entries. Jean Sébilleau returned with his 1.5 litre Type 37 that he had raced the year before, while Charles Druck had a Type 40 tourer with its supercharged 1.5 litre engine. The biggest cars in the race were veterans of the 1920s. Three Mercedes Benz SSKs were entered though only that of Henri Stoffel (who had finished second the previous year) actually turned up. This year, rather than drive, he entered it for Marseille brothers Marcel and Paul Foucret. Édouard Brisson brought his Stutz back for a fifth time, paired again with Parisian luxury car dealer Joseph Cattaneo. Jean Trévoux had bought the supercharged “Blower” Bentley run by Dudley Benjafield and Giulio Ramponi in the 1930 race. It got prepared for the race by Tim Birkin's race tuning business in London, Birkin and Couper Ltd.

Aston Martin had now gone into production of its Mark 2 International model. Three two door ‘Le Mans’ variants were prepared for the race. Technical Director and designer "Bert" Bertelli ran the Biennial Cup entry with Pat Driscoll, while Ken Peacock/Jack Besant and Sammy Newsome/Henken Widengren ran the other two cars. The team was managed by Sammy Davis, experienced Le Mans winner for Bentley in 1927. Wealthy gentleman racer Henri de la Sayette entered the first Citroën to race at Le Mans. His C4 model was fitted with a standard open top touring body. But its 1554cc engine put it in the 2 litre category with the supercharged Alfa Romeo against which it was badly under powered. Curiously, for its engine size it was given a lower target distance (147 laps) than the smaller 1490cc Aston Martins (148 laps). (See the photograph of the scoreboard below for evidence of car #19)

Yves Giraud Cabantous and Roger Labric came back this year to contest the Biennial Cup in their small voiturettes. They hoped the easing of their required laps would prove a decisive advantage against the bigger cars. Once again, the two of them shared the driving in the Caban, while Duverne / Boréal ran Labric's other entry, a BNC 527 Sport. Unlike the Caban, the latter car had its reliable Ruby engine replaced with an affiliated Lombard one. Salmson had been a strong force in voiturette racing in the 1920s with Émile Petit's innovative twin cam engines. It returned to Le Mans for the first time in four years. The Grand Sport Spéciale was an upgraded derivative with a double overhead cam engine and four speed gearbox. This year Just Émile Vernet/Fernand Vallon swapped the Caban Salmson for a second hand GSS of 1926 vintage. Their perennial competition during that time was Amilcar. However, with the financial depression its new owners had pulled the company out of motor racing. The MCO models were sold to José Scaron who raced them very successfully. The remainder went to its Parisian distributor, Clément Auguste Martin, who modified them slightly and prepared them for amateur racers. For Le Mans, Martin entered a 1926 vintage CO model with a normally aspirated 1.1 litre engine putting out 44 bhp. Despite having a breakout season in 1931 with the C type Midget, only a single MG arrived at Le Mans. Sir Francis Samuelson returned, this time with the supercharged version. Two other small engine manufacturers made their debut this year. Automobiles Rally had been founded in 1921, initially licence assembly of Harley Davidson cyclecars before building their own cars, popular in racing. The new N series had a 1.3 litre DOHC Salmson engine and four speed gearbox. The NCP (court puissée meaning ‘short powerful’) was a short wheelbase racing version. Alta was a new English company set up by Geoffrey Taylor. The 1.1 litre Alta Sports entered had been bought by John Ford, and was fitted with aluminium and magnesium cast engine components to reduce weight.

Drama followed the Talbot team driving from England to the event. The car carrying the crew crashed encountering unmarked roadworks, putting several in hospital with minor injuries. Arthur Fox was also one of several managers unhappy with only evening practices that would not allow teams to tune their cars to hot daytime temperatures. The Alfas were dragged through a gate into a field, while the Bentley was just tipped over into the roadside ditch. Next to fall was the Foucret's Mercedes, out with a seized piston soon after 7pm. The little Caban kept circulating reliably while its bigger competitors stuttered and stalled. Bertelli's Aston had developed a water leak and its front fenders worked loose, while the Talbot lost more time in the afternoon replacing a valve spring. His pace was sufficient to also win the Index of Performance. After their delays Cortese and Guidotti come home only two laps in arrears. The Talbot started its final, and target, lap with just eight minutes to spare and finished third, a distant 36 laps (nearly 500 km) further back. Class Winners are in Bold text. Class Team Drivers Chassis Engine Tyre Targetdistance* 1 5.0** 8 R. Sommer(private entrant) Raymond Sommer Luigi Chinetti Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 MM Alfa Romeo 2.34L S8supercharged 181 218 2 5.0 ** 11 S. A. Alfa Romeo Franco Cortese Giovanni Battista Guidotti Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 LM Alfa Romeo 2.34L S8supercharged 181 216 3 3.0 6 Arthur W. Fox Brian Lewis, Baron Essendon Tim Rose Richards Talbot AV105 Talbot 3.0L S6 180 [B] 180 4 2.0 18 O. Siko(private entrant) Odette Siko "Sabipa" (Louis Charavel) Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 SS Alfa Romeo 1746cc S8supercharged 167 179 5 1.5 20 Aston Martin Ltd Sammy Newsome Henken Widengren Aston Martin 1½ Le Mans Aston Martin 1495cc S4 148 174 6 1.5 23 J. Sébilleau(private entrant) Jean Sébilleau Georges Delaroche Bugatti Type 37 Bugatti 1496cc S4 149 172 7 1.5 21 Aston Martin Ltd. Augustus "Bert" Bertelli Pat Driscoll Aston Martin 1½ Le Mans Aston Martin 1495cc S4 148 [B] 168 8 1.5 29 Équipe de l'Ours Clément Auguste Martin Auguste Bodoignet Amilcar CO Spéciale Martin Amilcar 1092cc S6 133 151 9 1.5 26 Roger Labric Roger Labric Yves Giraud Cabantous Caban Spéciale Ruby 1098cc S4 133 [B] 146

Pos Class No Team Drivers Chassis Engine Tyre Targetdistance* Laps Reason DNF 3.0 16 S. Czaykowski(private entrant) Count Stanisław Czaykowski Ernest Friderich Bugatti Type 40/55 Bugatti 2.26L S8supercharged 180 180 engine(21 hr) DNF 1.5 28 J. É. Vernet(private entrant) Just Émile Vernet Fernand Vallon Salmson GS Spéciale Salmson 1092cc S4 133 111 clutch (~19hr) DNF 5.0 ** 9 Earl Howe(private entrant) Francis Curzon, Earl Howe Sir Henry Birkin Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 LM Alfa Romeo 2.34L S8supercharged 181 [B] 110 engine(~13 hr) DNF 2.0** 24 C. Druck(private entrant) Charles Druck Lucien Virlouvet Bugatti Type 40 Bugatti 1496cc S4 supercharged 160 98 accident(~14 hr) DNF 1.0** 32 F. Samuelson(private entrant) Sir Francis Samuelson Norman Black MG C type Midget MG 746cc S4 129 57 fuel tank (9 hr) DNF 1.5 22 Aston Martin Ltd. Kenneth Peacock Jack Bezzant Aston Martin 1½ Le Mans Aston Martin 1495cc S4 148 53 engine(18 hr) DNF 5.0 ** 12 P. L. Dreyfus(private entrant) Pierre Louis Dreyfus Antoine Schumann Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 LM Alfa Romeo 2.34L S8supercharged 181 25 accident(3 hr) DNF 3.0 15 G. Bouriat(private entrant) Guy Bouriat Louis Chiron Bugatti Type 40/55 Bugatti 2.26L S8supercharged 180 23 fuel tank(3 hr) DNF 5.0 ** 10 S. A. Alfa Romeo Ferdinando Minoia Carlo Canavesi Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 LM Alfa Romeo 2.34L S8supercharged 180 22 accident(2 hr) DNF 8.0 1 H. Stoffel(private entrant) Marcel Foucret Paul Foucret Mercedes Benz SSK Mercedes Benz 7.1L S6 supercharged 192 22 engine(4 hr) DNF 8.0 3 É. Brisson(private entrant) Édouard Brisson Joseph Cattaneo Stutz Model M Blackhawk Stutz 5.3L S8 192 19 accident(2 hr) DNF 5.0 ** 14 Prince DimitriDjordjadze (private entrant) Attilio Marinoni Angelo Guatta Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 MM Alfa Romeo 2.34L S8supercharged 181 14 accident(3 hr) DNF 1.5 27 Roger Labric Gustave Duverne Georges Boréal BNC Type 527 Sport Ruby 1093cc S4 133 [B] 9 engine(1 hr) DNF 1.5 30 J. L. Ford(private entrant) John Ludovic Ford Maurice Baumer Alta Sports Alta 1074cc S4 132 6 clutch(2 hr) DNF 1.5 25 J. Danne(private entrant) Jean Danne Jacques Gergaud Rally NCP Salmson 1362cc S4 144 6 electrics(1 hr) DNF 2.0 19 H. de la Sayette(private entrant) Henri de la Sayette Charles Wolf Citroën Type C4 Spéciale Citroën 1539cc S4 147? 3 electrics(1 hr) DNF 8.0** 5 J. Trévoux(private entrant) Jean Trévoux "Mary" (Jean Brousselet) Bentley 4½ "Blower" Bentley 4.4L S6 supercharged 193 1 accident(1 hr)Sources:

Pos Class No Team Drivers Chassis Engine Reason DNA 8.0 2 V. Tatarinoff(private entrant) Mercedes Benz SSK Mercedes Benz 7.1L S6 supercharged Did not arrive DNA 8.0 Prince DimitriDjordjadze (private entrant) Mercedes Benz SSK Mercedes Benz 7.1L S6 supercharged Did not arrive DNA 5.0 4 R. Sommer(private entrant) Chrysler CD Eight Chrysler 4.9L S8 Did not arrive DNA 5.0 Lebas Ford Model B Ford 3.3L S4 Did not arrive DNA 3.0 7 Robert I. Nicholl Talbot AV105 Talbot 3.0L S6 Did not arrive DNA 750 31 Hon. Mrs J. Chetwynd(private entrant) Hon. Joan Chetwynd MG Midget C type MG 746cc S4 Did not arrive DNA 1.0 33 A. de Choquese GAR 750 GAR 745cc S4 supercharged Did not arrive

Pos 1931 32Biennial Cup Class Team Drivers Chassis IndexResult 1 5.0 8 R. Sommer(private entrant) Raymond Sommer Luigi Chinetti Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 MM 1.210 2 5.0 11 S. A. Alfa Romeo Franco Cortese Giovanni Battista Guidotti Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 LM 1.201 3 1.5 20 Aston Martin Ltd Sammy Newsome Henken Widengren Aston Martin 1½ Le Mans 1.177 4 1.5 23 J. Sébilleau(private entrant) Jean Sébilleau Georges Delaroche Bugatti Type 37 1.164 5 1.1 29 Équipe de l'Ours Clément Auguste Martin Auguste Bodoignet Amilcar CO Spéciale Martin 1.146 6 1st 1.5 21 Aston Martin Ltd Augustus "Bert" Bertelli Pat Driscoll Aston Martin 1½ Le Mans 1.137 7 2nd 1.1 26 Roger Labric Roger Labric Yves Giraud Cabantous Caban Spéciale 1.109 8 2.0 18 O. Siko(private entrant) Odette Siko "Sabipa" (Louis Charavel) Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 SS 1.079 9 3rd 3.0 6 Arthur W. Fox Brian Lewis, Baron Essendon Tim Rose Richards Talbot AV105 1.010
Note: A score of 1.00 means meeting the minimum distance for the car, and a higher score is exceeding the nominal target distance.

Class Winning Car Winning Drivers Over 5 litre no finishers 3 to 5 litre #8 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 MM Sommer / Chinetti 2 to 3 litre #6 Talbot AV105 Lewis / Rose Richards 1500 to 2000cc #18 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 SS Siko / "Sabipa" * 1000 to 1500cc #20 Aston Martin 1½ Le Mans Newsome / Widengren * Up to 1000cc no finishersNote *: setting a new class distance record.