Photo : DR - artcurial.com

The first great interest in the 2010 Le Mans Classic will be the Artcurial sale. Hervé Poulain will auction the McLaren F1 GTR he drove to 13th position at the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours. This car was painted by the French sculptor César.

What will be your state of mind when auctioning this car?
Hervé Poulain: I will auction the McLaren F1 GTR myself at the Le Mans Classic auction sale, and this will be a very emotional moment with a lot of memories, the first being my friendship with César, a man with a great sense of humour. This will also be the opportunity to give life again to this McLaren, which will not be a car in a museum anymore.

What were the liveries that impressed you among the cars you did not drive at the Le Mans 24 Hours?
These would be the cars combining speed, popularity and race achievement. The Martini team's psychedelic Porsche 917 which finished second at the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hours could be the perfect example of this. I have very strong memories of this car, which impressed everybody at the time. It  was an anonymous livery, but the artists concerned were very famous.

Do you think that everyone could imagine a story of their own with your Art Cars, apart from the very famous artists like Andy Warhol, César and Jeff Koons?
With the Art Cars, my message to the public was to tell them to imagine the cars themselves. Cars often are grey and black, and these are not "funny" colours at all. But everyone can make up a story of their own with the Art Cars, like they do when looking at a painting in a museum. You could imagine yourself at the wheel of Andy Warhol’s BMW or César’s McLaren F1 on the Hunaudières straight, and who knows!

Jean-Philippe Doret