In a mid-90s issue of Car, there was a wonderful article by Colin Goodwin about his drive in a 250 GTO SWB that had interesting competition history -- it was raced by Graham Hill at Le Mans in the mid-60s, and by several other top names since.
Apparently the private GTO was driven from the UK to Le Mans by a mechanic, and 'prepared' for the race by chucking the mechanic's bags out of the boot and pumping the tyres up a bit :-D
Hill's team had it running in the top 10 until after 12 hours, the cooling fan (which actually needn't have been fitted at all) broke up, severing a coolant hose and seizing the engine.
The article started with the owner telling Goodwin: "Colin, please promise me one thing. Don't baby the car, it was built for competition so don't insult it's history by being soft on it."
Wouldn't that be nice, eh?
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