Just four Australians have taken victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Vern Schuppan was the second in 1983.
It’s been 40 years since the South Australian took victory alongside Al Holbert and Hurley Haywood for the factory Porsche squad, which was in the midst of a dominant era at La Sarthe.
Having reached the sport’s pinnacle of Formula 1, been a factory driver at Le Mans and raced at Indy, Schuppan attracted the attention of Porsche as it welcomed him into its program in 1981.
His engineering ingenuity came to the fore in 1981, before bad luck struck the next year as Schuppan’s determination to win the legendary race.
It proved third time lucky for the Porsche and Schuppan relationship.
“It would have been a shock for us to lose,” Schuppan recalled regarding 1983.
“The year before in 1982, driving with Jochen (Mass) we had a few things go wrong, we had to change a clutch master cylinder so we lost a couple of laps with that.
“In 1983, Al, Hurley and I, we had a very, very good relationship in terms of talking about strategy, how fast we planned to go, how long we wanted our stints.
“I had stressed to both Hurley and Al that we need to drive it as hard as we can and bear in mind we were limited by the fuel. But there were ways of driving fast by changing your driving.
“I just said we should go right from the get go. I really think we can win the race with this car.
“It was the same car I drove the previous year with Jochen, chassis 002, so I had a really good feeling about it.
“And that’s what we did. We built up a two-lap lead and led for more than 19 hours.”
However, much like Bathurst, the French classic provided one last curve ball for the trio prior to the finish.
“I came in half an hour from the end to handover to Al and I told him about the water temperature,” said Schuppan.
“Al was a really good bloke to have in the car, he understood that side of it very well having built his own cars and ran his own team.
“The organisers normally get the drivers running in first, second and third and take them to the podium 15-20 minutes before the end of the race. On most occasions it’s pretty unusual for the leading car to breakdown at Le Mans at the last hurdle.
“Hurley and I were standing there on the podium looking at a TV monitor, and we suddenly thought ‘christ! Our car is smoking!’
“We’re looking at each other thinking ‘blimey, if we don’t win this now at the finish, we’re going to jump off the podium!’
“We were so on tender hooks that Al wasn’t going to make it back. The engine actually seized on Al at Arnage, but he managed to drop the clutch and he had enough momentum when that happened during the last quarter of a lap.
“He made it across the line before it seized up completely!”