Alain De Cadenet, Racer, Reporter, Raconteur, Has Died

Alain de Cadenet, who found success as an amateur sports car racer and went on to fame as a television host in several series about great old race cars, has passed away at 77.

De Cadenet raced sports cars from the 1960s to early ‘80s.

“I was invited to Brands Hatch by a friend of mine who was racing there, and I had never been to a motor race in my life,” he told Classic Driver. “I had a rather cracking model girlfriend, so I took her down with me. She disappeared—apparently she went off with some guy who was a racing driver, so I thought I’d better go motor racing. Although I got into it because I thought it would be a great way to get with women, I started to rather enjoy the racing.”

So he started racing sports cars. It was at a time when innovative privateers still stood a chance of beating the increasingly well-funded factory teams. He was one of the few drivers from any era who built and raced their own cars. De Cadenet drove at Le Mans numerous times, finishing as high as third in 1976 in his own De Cadenet-Lola T380 Ford-Cosworth. He raced that car in the 24 Hours of Le Mans from ‘75 to ‘79 then switched to another De Cadenet, a Lola LM Ford-Cosworth. He also piloted two Cougars and a Porsche 956 at Le Sarthe. He drove a car listed as a Duckhams LM 72—with sponsorship from Duckhams Oil—to a 12th-place finish at Le Mans in 1972 after getting Gordon Murray to design the car. In 1980 he and co-driver Desiré Wilson, one of only five women to have ever raced in F1, won two rounds of the World Sports Car Championship, beating several factory teams at the Monza 1000 Kilometers and the Silverstone 6 Hours.