Jager's 'Do I Really Need This One?' 2023 Additions

As noted above, Courage arrived at Le Mans in 1992 with three Cougar C28’s powered by Porsche’s 3.0-litre Type 935 6-cylinder turbocharged engine. The lead car was the #54 entry for Bob Wollek, Henri Pescarolo and Jean-Louis Ricci which qualified in 13th position. It was differentiated from the other Cougars by the green panel on the engine cover and glasshouse sunscreen.



The fastest of the three Cougars showed strong early pace, breaking into the top 10 in the first hour and rising to 6th place by the fourth hour, running behind the newer C1 class Peugeots and Toyotas. Over the next 20 hours, the #54 Courage then held its own, occasionally dropping a couple of places like the 9th hour when it slipped to 8th position, and at other times running higher in 5th place like the 18th to 22nd hour.

However, in the final two hours, it was caught and passed by #35 Toyota 92C-V which eventually finished a lap ahead of the #54 Courage that scored a very respectable 6th place.





Car : 1992 #54 Cougar C28S
Team : Courage Compétition
Drivers : Bob Wollek (F)/ Henri Pescarolo (F)/ Jean-Louis Ricci (F)
Qualifying : 13th
Result : 6th
Model : Spark (S3543)

I’d go as far as to say that the green makes that even more attractive

That answered that question. As excellent as the last one

When Paul showed this Tecnomodels Ferrari 312P a few weeks ago, I decided I had to have one for my collection. Even though the model has a number of decal detail and placement errors as Jerry noted, it's still a lovely finished model and was a 'Top 10' finisher in 1970 so I decided I'll overlook its shortcomings. So, here's a bit of background...

Ferrari left little doubt that it was serious about winning the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans when in arrived with eleven new 512S’s, four factory entries and seven entries for its trusted customer teams of NART, Ecurie Francorchamps, Gelo Racing Team, Scuderia Filipinetti and others. Almost as an afterthought, NART also arrived with two Ferrari 312P’s, the two chassis entered by the works team the previous year.

One of the 312P’s was the #39 entry entered for Tony Adamowicz and Chuck Parsons, who were also cross entered in the #57 312P shown here. Ultimately, the #39 entry was not used and Adamowicz and Parsons raced with the #57 car.

The #57 Ferrari was the same 312P chassis that had retired on the first lap of Le Mans in 1969 when it was engulfed in the fireball from the disintegrating Porsche 917 of John Woolfe. After being rebuilt, NART took over car and entered it at Daytona in 1970 where it finished 4th. This was followed by a 6th placed finish at the 12 Hours of Sebring.

At Le Mans, the 3.0 Litre 312P had no chance of matching the 5.0 Litre 512S’ in qualifying. Not surpringly then, the #57 Ferarri qualified in 28th position, about 14 seconds a lap slower than the last of the 512S’.

Come race day, heavy rain drenched the La Sarthe circuit, negating much of the speed advantage of the more powerful 512’s (and Porsche 917's). In addition, the new 512’s suffered from a combination of accidents and woeful reliability. In the first 100 laps, four of the Ferraris were eliminated in accidents and two others retired with mechanical issues. By the end of the race, just two of the 11 Ferrari 512S’ were still circulating.

With the many retirements, the #57 Ferrari was able to make good progress in the difficult conditions.



Adamowicz and Parsons had the #57 Ferrari up to 20th position after 3 hours and by the end of the 6th hour it was running 13th. By the mid-point of the race, it was running 8th, a position it held for five hours before moving up to 6th position. Unfortunately, the extremely wet weather saw water get into the coupe, playing havoc with the electrics. This saw it drop four places in the final three hours and ultimately the #57 Ferrari did not cover a sufficient distance to be officially qualified even though they were running 10th on track when the chequered flag dropped.

This was not the end of the story and in 1971, NART modified the car significantly to turn it into an open spyder. In this configuration it finished 5th at Daytona and 8th at Sebring. It then came back for one final appearance at Le Mans in 1974 where it finished 9th, an impressive result for a well used chassis that by this time was six years old.





Car : 1970 #57 Ferrari 312 P
Team : North American Racing Team
Drivers : Tony Adamowicz (USA) / Chuck Parsons (USA)
Qualifying : 28th
Result : 10th
Model : Tecnomodel (TEC43005F)

Fantastic.