The Matra MS640-01 crashed and burned – on its first outing. But after being written off as a failed project, the car was recreated – 30 years later. No wonder, says Neil Lyndon. It's a work of art driven by science
The car was travelling at around 300km when it took off. Flying like a plane a few feet above the ground, it crashed into trees beside the track, caught fire and was smashed to pieces. Debris was strewn for hundreds of metres.
Miraculously, the driver was pulled out of the inferno still alive. His injuries took six months to heal. Resurrecting the car was to be a longer and considerably more complex undertaking.
In April 1969, Henri Pescarolo had been driving the Matra MS640-01 on the Le Mans circuit in a private testing session. At full speed on the final Hunaudieres section before the Mulsanne corner, the car lifted off the Tarmac.
The MS640-01 was a prototype of the car Matra intended to enter in the Le Mans race in June of that year. It had been created to succeed the MS630 which the company had run successfully in the 1968 race, holding second place for many laps before being forced to retire.
A work of art driven by science: a post-mortem on the car revealed that defective door seals had allowed air to enter the cockpit, which threw its aerodynamics awry
Designed by Robert Choulet, a young aerodynamicist, the MS640-01 had an unprecedented appearance which had thrilled the French public, arousing hopes of a Le Mans win for a French company for the first time since 1950. In the hope of national glory, its development had been subsidised with massive handouts from De Gaulle’s government.
Wearing his famous viper green helmet, Henri Pescarolo himself gave the reborn car its first triumphant run in April 2006, achieving nearly 300 km/h
In keeping with the spirit of an age when unprecedented innovations sprang to life every year in music, fashion and art, nobody had ever seen anything quite like Choulet’s MS650-01. A work of art driven by science, it looked, on first sight, more like a weapon than a racing car. Never in the history of automotive design had form been more perfectly determined by function.
From the front, its tiny cockpit, surmounted by a bubble roof, looked like nothing so much as a jet fighter – an impression complemented by its elongated tail and twin fins. Its partially covered rear wheels emphasised its aerodynamic purpose.
"A work of art driven by science, it looked more like a weapon than a racing car"
Robert Choulet was a pioneer of racing car aerodynamics, which was then a science in its infancy, more like a cottage industry than the cutting-edge undertaking it has become today. The principles of generating downforce and reverse lift (the opposite effect of an aircraft wing) to enhance a car’s grip on the track were broadly understood in theory. However, with wind-tunnels an expensive rarity and computerised data analysis a decade away, those principles were being developed in practice on the track on a hit-or-miss basis.
Choulet’s MS640-01 was effectively a testbed for his theories. It turned out to be both a miss and a hit.
With a tubular trellis frame that followed Maserati’s immortal “Birdcage” of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the MS640-01was powered by Matra’s Sports V12 engine. Designed by Georges Martin who had created the revolutionary Poissy engine at Simca, this V12 displaced 2993cc and developed 450 bhp with an orgasmic howl that could awaken the dead. That engine would go on to provide Matra with a succession of triumphs in years to come, as would Henri Pescarolo himself.
Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2005: The phoenix-like MS640-02 raises from the charred remains of MS640-01
Pescarolo wasn’t sure what had caused the crash of the MS640-01 but excused himself by saying that the car might have struck an irregularity on the surface of the track. Choulet was unimpressed by this account. He argued that if Pescarolo had increased speed gradually, lap after lap, instead of going off at full speed from the start, he might have given the team time to make adjustments to the car’s aerodynamics which would have averted lift-off. Neither of them seems to have been entirely right. A post-mortem on the car revealed that defective door seals had allowed air to enter the cockpit, which threw Choulet’s aerodynamics all awry.
Reasonably enough, the company cancelled the MS640-01 project. Choulet promptly left Matra to join Porsche where he applied his theories and his expertise to the 917 Longtail which would actually win Le Mans in 1970 and 1971.
Pescarolo, astonishingly, returned to racing with Matra during that same 1969 season and was appointed the team’s lead driver for F1 in 1970. In 1972, he triumphantly partnered Graham Hill and Gerard Larrousse at the wheel of the dismayingly ugly MS670 that won Le Mans and was in the winning Matra teams for the next two years.
The MS640 was to be forgotten for more than 30 years.
"Never in the history of automotive design had form been more perfectly determined by function"
In the early 2000s, however, somebody remembered that, in the course of the original project in 1969, Matra had created a second chassis for the MS640. They asked Matra’s historic division if that chassis was still in their possession. Not only that, Matra replied, but the original mould still existed, along with Choulet’s plans and the engine and five-speed gearbox that had been salvaged from the wreck of MS640-O1.
Thus a plan emerged to raise MS640-02, Phoenix-like, from the charred remains of 01.
The task was entrusted to a team of Matra competition specialists at EPAF (Entretien du Patrimoine Automobile Français which means French Automotive Heritage Maintenance) in Romorantin, which is also the home of the Matra factory and museum.
With a budget of at least €1m, the team worked for years to assemble MS640-02. Robert Choulet contributed advice and guidance, as did Henri Pescarolo.
In April 2006, wearing his famous viper green helmet, Henri Pescarolo himself gave the reborn car its first triumphant run, safely achieving nearly 300 km/h. This time, they had made sure the seals on the door were airtight.
This time, the car st
ayed on the ground. In February, it will complete its resurrection when it is offered in Paris at Bonhams' Les Grandes Marques du Monde.
Journalist and author, Neil Lyndon, has written about motoring and cars for publications such as The Sunday Times and the Telegraph.
Les Grandes Marques du Monde
Grand Palais | 6 February, Paris
Text & Image: Bonhams
