Classic Ads: BFGoodrich – Le Mans 1982

For the 1982 24 Hours of Le Mans, the then American owned BFGoodrich tyre company backed a two car campaign on the legendary French race. Both Goodrich entries would compete shod with the high performance BFGoodrich Comp T/A Radial street tyre.

This was the 50th running of the Grand Prix of Endurance, and the BFGoodrich, Jim Busby, Doc Bundy piloted 924 Carrera GTR would ultimately claim IMSA GTO class honours. In winning its class, the number 87 Goodrich Porsche finished 16th outright, covering 273 laps – over 2700 kilometers. Incredibly the 924 utilised just five of the Comp T/A road tyres for the duration of the 24 hour event.

The sister entry of Pat Bedard, Paul Miller and Manfred Schurti failed to finish, their GTR dropping out with gearbox failure after 11 hours.

1982 was the last appearance of the 924 at Le Mans. The 924 Carrera GTR was an evolution of the original 1980 Carrera GT Le Mans model. Pumping out a claimed 375HP (280kW) the GTR was essentially a customer competition model, built at Porsche’s Weissach motorsport division.

This BFGoodrich produced documentary narrated by Jim Busby, provides an interesting insight into Le Mans from the class competitors perspective. It would appear the documentary takes some inspiration from Steve McQueen’s iconic Le Mans film; some of the imagery and editing looks quite familiar.