Elford began to make his name known in rallying, most notably with Triumph and Ford cars, and later joined Porsche . He won the 1967 European Rally Championship before going on an incredible winning streak in early 1968.
Elford won the Monte Carlo Rally with his co-driver David Stone at the wheel of a 911T and, just a week later, he won the 24 Hours of Daytona alongside four other drivers sharing the victorious 907 longtail.
In May he got a victory that he would later choose as the best race of his life. After losing around 18 minutes due to a lost wheel and a puncture, Elford smashed Targa Florio’s lap record to win, sharing a 907 with Umberto Maglioli .
“They could have blindfolded me, put me in a helicopter and dropped me anywhere on the Targa and I would have known where I was,” Elford said of the 72km Sicilian circuit. “The real tracks like Targa Florio and the Nurburgring Nordschleife were the best.”
Vic Elford, Cooper T86B-BRM
Two months later he took an excellent fourth place on his Formula 1 world championship debut at the French Grand Prix in a Cooper-BRM . Despite doing a good job for the rest of the season with a failing team, Elford’s single-seater run never quite got off the ground. He only contested 13 world championship races and that fourth place was his best result, but Elford was one of the best sports car drivers in the world.
He won the Nurburgring 1000km with Jo Siffert in May 1968. It was the first of three successes in one of the toughest endurance events for Elford, who consistently scored points at the wheel of various versions of the Porsche 908. It was perhaps no surprise that his incredible memory, combined with the experience gained from entering (and winning in 1967) the epic 84-hour Marathon de la Route, made Elford one of the true masters of the Nurburgring.
Gerard Larrousse, Vic Elford, Martini Racing Porsche 917 LH
He also formed a strong relationship with Porsche’s motorsport and development chief Ferdinand Piech , the chief architect behind the historic 917. Elford became a huge fan of the legendary monster, claiming to have loved even the aerodynamically complicated 1969 version, and described it as “the ultimate Le Mans car”.
Elford and Richard Attwood nearly won the 1969 Le Mans 24 Hours against all odds in the 917’s debut. And once the JW Automotive Gulf team took over Porsche’s factory sports car program, Elford proved to be a thorn in the side of the team with the Porsche Salzburg and later with the Martini versions (both supported by Piech).
Elford often used the latest developments that JWA discarded. He took pole position at Le Mans in 1970 in the last longtail car and could have won alongside Kurt Ahrens Jr had it not been for engine failure. It was a sign of Elford’s bad luck, his first win in a 917 didn’t come until the 1971 Sebring 12 Hours alongside Gerard Larrousse.
Although overall victory at Le Mans always eluded him, Elford twice won his class at the 24 Hours, in a Porsche 906 in 1967 and then again in a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 in 1973 before retiring to America. He was also awarded France’s National Order of Merit for his efforts in assisting the drivers involved in the 1972 Le Mans accident that claimed the life of Jo Bonnier .
One of motorsport’s great all-rounders, Elford also won in Trans-Am at the height of the championship in 1970, winning the inaugural rallycross event at Lydden Hill in 1967.
“Of course it hurts, because there were a couple of times I should have,” Elford said of the absence of a Le Mans win on his resume. But he will always be remembered as one of the few pilots able to tame the mighty 917.
A 1971 Martini Racing Porsche 917 Langheck, pilotado por Gerard Larrousse, y Vic Elford
