Happy Birthday Guy Ligier!
- Published on Jul 12th, 2010 by Riccardo Monza
Photo credit: Unknown but sourced from classic-days.fr
Happy Birthday to Guy Ligier, founder of the Equipe Ligier F1 team, who's 80 today! Guy was born in Vichy, France on 12th July 1930. Originally his sporting interest lay in rugby, in which he did rather well playing for the French national team, but then decided he was more of a racer, first on two wheels then soon enough on four. Guy initially raced sports cars before giving F1 a go during the 1960's, but after two years without much success, he decided he was more suited to life outside the cockpit and so set about building a car and a team to go with it.
The Ligier car debuted in the shape of a Cosworth powered sports car in the early 70's, coming second at Le Mans, before a bit of a chassis reworking and entering F1 in 1976. With a powerful V12 Matra engine bolted on the rear and Jacques Laffite at the controls, Guy's team scored their first win in Sweden in 1977. This was one for the history books, in that this was the first time that a French car, with a French engine, with French Sponsorship, driven by a French driver had won an F1 Grand Prix. It's just a shame that it wasn't in France! Also, it was a shame that Guy didn't attend the race and taste the French champagne!
Guy is looking rather comfortable in the driving seat in the picture above, taken at the end of the 1978 season, surrounded by team folk and drivers Jacques Laffite (casual on the left) and Patrick Depailler (smart on the right). More wins followed in 1979 and a runner up spot in the Constructor's Championship in 1980 was the team's finest hour, despite sticking a non-French Ford V8 on the back! Laffite came close to the driver's title in 1981, just being squeezed out by Nelson Piquet Snr in the final race.
Over the years, Guy formed a business alliance with politicians François Mitterrand and Pierre Bérégovoy, and together they sought to bring the French GP to Magny-Cours, and build the Ligier HQ nearby, which was very handy. Then after a lull in results towards the late eighties and early nineties, Guy decided to sell the team to Cyril De Rouvre. Oddly enough, things soon picked up for Equipe Ligier, and with Olivier Panis at the wheel in 1996, he gave the team something to smile about in their final season by winning at Monaco. Heavy rain had washed most of the competitors away, and thankfully there were three drivers left to receive the trophies, one of them being for Panis! The team was soon sold to fellow Frenchman Alain Prost.
In 2000, the Ligier marque resurrected itself with a micro car, before returning to the race track in 2005, in the forms of an F3 car and a sports car. Aside from racing, Guy has built a construction empire with his friends in politics, and made a fortune in selling natural fertiliser! But he'll always be remembered for those shiny blue racing cars that we know and love. Happy Birthday Guy!
Surprisingly Ligier's venture into Microcar's wasn't just in 2000, they've been doing it since the 1984 JS-4. They beat the Smart car by 10 years!
Don't think much of their stylists though... http://www.ligier.nl/v1/history.asp
And no, i didn't know this until 5 minutes ago!
My earliest memories of Ligier were having a JS11 Scalextric car which the rear wing always used to fall off of. Which wasn't very realistic since the majority of the 1979 car's retirements were due to engine and gearbox failures.
The most recent memory i have is the fuss that was made over their 1996 car being that it was a dead-ringer for the 1995 Benetton. Then everyone started worrying that eventually all the cars would look the same.
It's not a team that i associate with winning, but happy birthday anyway!
Two pertinent facts worth adding to this story. Guy Ligier ran a Ford Sports dealership in Paris with his good friend, driver Jo Schlesser, hence they raced the Ford GT40 and AC Cobra coupé frequently. Guy was distraught when Schlesser was killed in the early stages of the French Grand Prix at Rouen in the fateful year 1968 and it was in memory of his friend that all Ligier cars were given a JSxx number
Many thanks to Dave and Kev for their comments. For me the sight of the two JS11 Ligiers on the front row of the Argentine Grand Prix for the first race in 1979, will always be a lasting memory. They were stunning looking cars, and surprised everyone with their pace! A few races later, Ferrari and Williams had caught them up and their championship bid slid away. Driver Patrick Depailler who broke his legs in a hang-gliding accident half way through the season didn't help the team's cause either. Sadly a year later, the talented Patrick (who'd moved to Alfa Romeo) was killed in testing at Hockenheim.
Kev, giving the cars the JS number after Jo Schlesser was definately a nice touch.
Yep, I too Dave, am a proud owner of the JS11 Scalextric car! It last had a run out at Christmas. Years ago, after a heavy shunt, one of the front wings sheared off, so rather than attempting to glue it back on (it never works), I cut the other one off to match -the real car often raced without front wings, so there was an element of realism there! Also, a small peice of sellotape keeps its rear wing in place. Sorted!
Of the three Scalextric cars i had, the Ligier is the only one still in it's original form. The FW07 having lost half the front wing a similar way (i didn't snap the other off), and i burnt the engine out on the Brabham BT49.
It was a bit annoying because the Ligier was always the slowest of the three.