Henri Greder (1929-2012)

French racing driver Henri Greder, who focused his career around the 24 Hours of Le Mans, has died at the age of 83. Greder first attended the 24 Hours in 1952 and rejoined the festivities each year as a spectator until racing there for the first time in 1967, when he shared a Ford of France GT40 with Pierre Dumay. He would enter the race in each of the following eight years as well, the first two in a Scuderia Filipinetti Corvette before acquiring his own Corvette for 1970. Greder ran that same car, gradually updating it and regularly repainting it, for the next six years, so that it shares—with the Filipinetti Corvette he raced in ’68 and ’69 that was subsequently entered four more times—the record for the longest tenure of any individual car ever to race at Le Mans.

Greder’s best finish at Le Mans came in 1970 when he and Jean-Pierre Rouget claimed 8th overall and 1st in GT with his then new Corvette after a niggling rules dispute was resolved in their favor. Greder had received the car from Corvette guru Zora Arkus-Duntov just weeks prior to the race and rushed to have it ready in time. He raced the next four years at Le Mans with Marie-Claude Beaumont as his co-driver, and for his and his car’s final appearance in 1975 he was paired with Alain Cudini.