Vehicle Background

N.A.R.T. called 1965 for Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with chassis 5893. The N.A.R.T. 250 LM outperformed the basically faster Ferrari and Ford prototypes and won the race. In 1970 the vehicle was acquired by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, where it has been on display ever since.
Jochen Rindt was at the start of the Indy 500, and he won Monaco in 1970 in legendary fashion in the last corner. But his breakthrough came with victory at Le Mans in 1965.
In the short term, Rindt had the opportunity to drive for the North American Racing Team.
This was a kind of semi-works team from Ferrari. The team owner: Luigi Chinetti, who competed in all Le Mans races between 1932 and 1953 and won three times. Chinetti had very good relations with Maranello. After receiving US citizenship in 1946, he developed over the years into the most important Ferrari dealer in the growing US market.
Rindt, who only received approval two days before the race because he had a BP contract but ran the car on Shell fuel, was by no means a co-favorite at the Sarthe. His Ferrari 250 LM was considered to have no chance. And the partner at the time was Masten Gregory, known as ‘Catastrophy Gregory’ because he had previously jumped out of moving racing cars five times due to brake defects.
At 7 p.m., Rindt and Gregory were at the back after numerous defects in the early stages. Rindt was about to give up and had already changed clothes to go home, but veteran Gregory persuaded the debutant to continue. But he set one condition: “I’ll just give it full throttle.”
Three Fords had already said goodbye in the first two hours, and the disc brakes on the factory Ferraris caused unexpected problems. At midnight, Rindt and Gregory were already in 13th place.
Rindt drove completely unrestrained in the dark and caught up position after position – a sensational race to catch up that hardly anyone had thought possible, aided by the failures of all the factory Fords and Ferraris.
At dawn the Rindt-Ferrari took the lead for the first time – and Rindt held the top position before, as agreed, he let Gregory take the wheel for the final turn. The Ferrari 250 LM, which was thoroughly abused by the ‘full throttle’ Rindt, didn’t make it easy for him, but it held on until the checkered flag. The gearbox only went on strike on the run-off lap. “It’s good that Masten finished the race,” said winner Rindt later. “I would have continued to drive at full throttle. Then it might have torn everything apart.”