Guy Ligier Dies

[Quiet One 15]

http://www.speedcafe.com/2015/08/24/former-f1-team-owner-guy-ligier-dies/

It was the 70s. An age so modern that people walked every other week on the moon, now we only get to see that in sci-fi movies. So modern that popular music was as complex as classical music, now "Blurred Lines" is praised for its "harmonic complexity". An age so modern they didn't have puny tablets that can only play stupid games, the had badass mainframes that filled entire floors in universities, and could only play stupid games.

I was a little kid by then. My golden locks cascading below my waist. My family (grandad, uncles, father) always watched F1 on sundays. I went to grandpa's every other sunday and played with my toys while watching those cars on the big black and white screen. They loved Lauda, they loved Emmo, they argued and screamed at the screen. They told me about those red cars, that it was actually fun watching cars running endlessly in circles for hours. But I immediately fell in love with one car. One. Car. It was ugly as fukc, a distorted pic taken with some big lens of a regular f1 car. It had more in common with the Titanic than with the Ferraris 312T.

Of course, I am talking about the Ligier JS5.

And yes, 26 was always the number. Jacques Lafitte, my first hero (well, perhaps my second after Emmo and no, I never warmed up to Reutemann)

Ugly as it was it had personality. Aftewards it got much better, their next car was already one of the most beautiful ever, and they continued to produce cars that were closer to works of art, even if not always succesful.

When I grew older and decided that I was stupid enough to start smoking I bought Gitanes, and stuck to them until I quitted (some Marlboros as well, but Senna didn't have anything to do with that, just that I could not find Gitanes here). If branding and all that BS ever worked with me, that was the time. I was not lighting up a Gitane cigarette, I was lighting up a Ligier, I was not coughing with the awful smell from tobacco, it was a Ligier's exhaust fumes. I was not blowing smoke, by the way, I was blowing Jacques Lafitte.

No, wait...

Anyways, this Guy Ligier was responsible for my first love for F1. He was also one crazy mother****er. The kind that, had he be around nowadays would be called an obnoxious b#####d but, with as with other b#####ds (Hunt comes to mind) is remembered as a "colorful personality"

Bon voyage, Guy.

[BradSpeedMan 6]

That first pic with the raised air vent... what an ugly montrosity! Then the follow-ups probably the most beautiful f1 cars ever seen

[Quiet One 15]

That first pic with the raised air vent... what an ugly montrosity! Then the follow-ups probably the most beautiful f1 cars ever seen

Not uglier than your avatar pic, my friend

[Jem of the Shire 0]

Nice post/tribute! Was well before my time but it's always interesting to read a bit of history, or anecdotes, or to see old pics

[BradSpeedMan 6]

Not uglier than your avatar pic, my friend

How that thing made it to the grid defies logic!!! Even if it was in the seventies!

Anyway, may the great man (great for making the later ones ) RIP

[Delivery_Driver 0]

I miss Ligier cars, always had the best paint jobs. The 1995 Ligier is by far my favourite, so sleek n sexy, beta ex rugby player, turned car racer turned team owner, he did it all, and may he be remembered R.I.P, isn't Ligier still around in the American LeMans Series?

[jimclark 0]

isn't Ligier still around in the American LeMans Series?

'''

"American LeMans Series?"

What's that??? (As in, the American LeMans Series is also gone...)