Hervé Poulain

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Hervé Poulain as auctioneer in 2014
The first BMW Art Car , the BMW 3.0 CSL designed by Alexander Calder
The BMW 320i painted by Roy Lichtenstein , driven by Hervé Poulain and Marcel Mignot at the 1977 Le Mans 24-hour race

Hervé Poulain (born December 16, 1940 in Avranches ) is a French entrepreneur, auctioneer and former racing driver .

Auctioneer and entrepreneur

Hervé Poulain studied law at the University of Caen in the late 1950s and early 1960s and then worked as a lawyer for several years . In 1969 he started working as an auctioneer for the renowned auction house Hôtel Drouot, founded in 1852 . He quickly became one of the company's leading auctioneers and ran some of the house's major auctions in the early 1970s. In 1973 he organized one of the first auctions of vintage cars in France.

In 2002 he and partners founded the Artcurial auction house , which specialized in the auctioning of historic vehicles. On February 5, 2016, a Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti from the collection of Pierre Bardinon was auctioned under his management for the international record price of 32,100,000 million euros . With the 0674 chassis, Mike Hawthorn and Luigi finished second overall in the 1957 Caracas 1000 km race and fourth in the 1957 1000 km race in Kristianstad , both races of that year 's World Sports Car Championship .

Racing career

Hervé Poulain came into contact with motorsport through his brother, who ran a Renault contract workshop in their home town of Avranches . In 1968 he began to drive car races. He had his first international assignment at the Coupes de Vitesse in 1971 , at the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry , where he was 13th in the final ranking on an Alpine A110 .

Hervé Poulain was the initiator of the BMW Art Cars at the 24 Hours of Le Mans . In 1975 he asked the American sculptor Alexander Calder whether he was ready to optically design a silhouette racing car . Calder, who died a year later, agreed and painted a BMW 3.0 CSL . The car was driven by Jean Guichet , the 1964 Le Mans winner (together with Nino Vaccarella in the Ferrari 275P ), Sam Posey and Poulain himself. The race ended after 73 laps because of a broken constant velocity joint.

The second Art Car that Poulain drove at Le Mans was the 1977 BMW 320i designed by Roy Lichtenstein . This time Marcel Mignot was the team partner with whom he reached 9th place in the overall ranking. In 1979 he drove a BMW M1 painted by Andy Warhol together with Mignot and Manfred Winkelhock . It took Warhol just 28 minutes to paint the racing car. The trio placed the M1 in sixth place overall.

Hervé Poulain competed ten times in the 24-hour race in western France. He entered the race for the last time in 1998 with Éric Graham and Jean-Luc Maury-Laribière in a Porsche 911 GT2 , finishing in 20th place overall.

The best place outside of the Le Mans race was 12th in the 1994 Zhuhai 3-hour race .

statistics

Le Mans results

year team vehicle Teammate Teammate Teammate placement Failure reason
1975 FranceFrance Hervé Poulain BMW 3.0 CSL FranceFrance Jean Guichet United StatesUnited States Sam Posey failure Constant velocity joint
1977 United StatesUnited States Marcel Mignot BMW 320i FranceFrance Marcel Mignot Rank 9
1978 FranceFrance Hervé Poulain Porsche 934 GermanyGermany Gerhard Holup GermanyGermany Edgar Dören LuxembourgLuxembourg Romain Feitler failure Gearbox damage
1979 United StatesUnited States Hervé Poulain BMW M1 FranceFrance Marcel Mignot GermanyGermany Manfred Winkelhock Rank 6
1980 FranceFrance Hervé Poulain Porsche 935 FranceFrance Dany Snobeck FranceFrance Pierre Destic Rank 20
1981 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Claude Haldi Porsche 935 United KingdomUnited Kingdom Mark Thatcher SwitzerlandSwitzerland Claude Haldi failure accident
1982 FranceFrance Jacky Haran Rondeau M379C IrelandIreland Vivian Candy FranceFrance Jacky Haran failure Engine failure
1994 FranceFrance BBA Compétition Venturi 600LM FranceFrance Bernard Chauvin FranceFrance Jean-Luc Maury-Laribière not classified
1995 FranceFrance BBA Compétition McLaren F1 GTR FranceFrance Marc Sourd FranceFrance Jean-Luc Maury-Laribière Rank 13
1998 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Eleven Haberthur Racing Porsche 911 GT2 FranceFrance Eric Graham FranceFrance Jean-Luc Maury-Laribière Rank 20

literature

  • Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909413-06-3 .

Web links

Commons : Hervé Poulain  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article about Hervé Poulain in Figaro (French)
  2. ↑ Caracas 1000 km race in 1957
  3. ^ 1957 Kristianstad 1000 km race
  4. ^ The auction of the Ferrari 335S from the Bardinon collection
  5. ^ Coupes de Vitesse 1971
  6. ↑ Zhuhai 3-hour race in 1994
personal data
SURNAME Poulain, Hervé
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French entrepreneur and racing car driver
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Avranches