Jacques Grelley

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Street version of the DB HBR5

Jacques Grelley (* 1936 in Villers-Bocage ; † August 31, 2014 in Dallas ) was a French entrepreneur and racing car driver .

Entrepreneur

Jacques Grelley could look back on an eventful life. During the Second World War , as a child, he worked as a bicycle courier for the Resistance without knowing it . His grandfather owned a farm on the Normandy coast . He sent him to Bayeux, 25 kilometers away, several times for different reasons . The Resistance documents hidden in the bike were never discovered by the Wehrmacht guards . His grandfather's estate was within sight of Omaha Beach , the stretch of coast near Colleville-sur-Mer where the US Corps landed as part of Operation Neptune . On the morning of D-Day , his grandfather woke him up and Grelley experienced the impacts of heavy artillery on the coast in a horse-drawn cart until the family escaped .

In 1949 he was a spectator at the first Le Mans 24-hour race after the end of the Second World War. Also in 1955 he was on the facility as it the disaster of Le Mans came.

In 1962 he came to the United States and opened a restaurant in Chicago with partners. Later he was manager of a night club and representative of an importer of French wine. He came to Dallas in the early 1980s and opened a motorsport company - Memorabila . He sold both original and reproduced posters of past racing events.

Racing career

Jacques Grelley competed twice in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Both times he drove a DB HBR5 from Deutsch & Bonnet . In 1960 he was together with Robert Bouharde 19th and 1961 with André Guilhaudin 20th in the overall ranking.

Grelley was in contact with many pilots of his generation. He was on friendly terms with Carroll Shelby , Stirling Moss , Juan Manuel Fangio and Maurice Trintignant, among others . In 2007 he drove with a Citroën 2CV and a friend as a passenger in 73 days from Paris to Beijing and back again. In 2009 he drove from Beijing via Tibet to Mumbai and in 2011 from Lima to Buenos Aires . He made his last big long-distance trip in 2013 when he was traveling to China , Cambodia , Laos , Vietnam and Thailand .

statistics

Le Mans results

year team vehicle Teammate placement Failure reason
1960 FranceFrance Automobiles Deutsch et Bonnet DB HBR5 FranceFrance Robert Bouharde Rank 19
1961 FranceFrance Automobiles Deutsch et Bonnet DB HBR5 FranceFrance André Guilhaudin Rank 20

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season team race car 1 2 3 4th 5 6th 7th 8th 9 10 11 12 13 14th 15th 16 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 22nd
1960 German & Bonnet DB HBR5 ArgentinaArgentina BUA United StatesUnited States SEB ItalyItaly TAR GermanyGermany ONLY FranceFrance LEM
19th
1961 German & Bonnet DB HBR5 United StatesUnited States SEB ItalyItaly TAR GermanyGermany ONLY FranceFrance LEM ItalyItaly PES
20th

literature

  • Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissedre: 24 hours of mans . 1923-1992. 2 volumes. Édition d'Art JB Barthelemy, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909-413-06-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jacques Grelley and the D-Day
personal data
SURNAME Grelley, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French racing car driver and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Villers-Bocage
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 2014
Place of death Dallas