Johnny Simone

Maserati Tipo 151 with starting number 3. The identical Maserati France Tipo 151 with starting number 4 was painted red and was driven by Maurice Trintignant and Lucien Bianchi in the 1962 Le Mans 24-hour race

Maserati Tipo 153

In 1967, Johnny Simone and his wife had a fatal accident in a Maserati Mistral

Colonel John Orace "Johnny" Simone (born January 2, 1913 in Paris , † August 22, 1967 in Sainte-Magnance ) was a French entrepreneur and racing driver of American descent.

Origin and World War II

Johnny Simone was born in Paris to a US diplomat and a French mother. At the outbreak of World War II he joined as a message - an officer in the United States Air Force and served from December 1941 in France. In coordination with the Resistance , he provided information about the German Army in the run-up to Operation Overlord in 1944.

Johnny Simone had both French and US citizenship and after the end of the war married the French actress Junie Astor ,

Racing career

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Johnny Simone had a brief career as a racing driver. He and his partner Michel Aunaud drove a Deutsch & Bonnet in the 24-hour race of Le Mans in 1950 and competed in the Mille Miglia in 1950 and 1952 .

The first notable success was the eighth overall place in the Jaguar XK 120 in the Tour de France for automobiles in 1951 . In 1952 he finished fourth in the Casablanca 12-hour race and won his first car race at the end of the year with the success of the Coupe du Salon at the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry . The emergency car this time was a Jaguar C-Type . He had his most successful racing years in 1953 and 1954, especially in races in North Africa. He finished second in the 1953 3-hour race in Algeria and the 12-hour race in Hyères and third in the 1954 2-hour race in Dakar .

At the request of his wife, he resigned as a driver at the end of 1954. He broke this obligation twice and drove on the Le Mans test day in 1964 and 1965 in the Maserati Tipo 151 that he had registered himself .

Maserati France

In 1956 Johnny Simone became the French general importer of the Italian sports car manufacturer Maserati . Together with his partner Jean Thépenier , he set up the first Maserati dealer network in France and made the brand known in his home country through involvement in motorsport . Between 1962 and 1965 he tried hard to achieve success with Maserati models at the Le Mans 24-hour race. Together with the American Briggs Cunningham , he took over the works operations for the Tipo 151, Tipo 154 and Tipo 65 models . But he couldn't keep up with the financially strong works teams from Ferrari and Ford . The less experienced racing team could hardly get the technical problems of the racing cars under control, which means that despite the prominent driver pairings, it was not possible to cross the finish line. Maurice Trintignant , Lucien Bianchi , André Simon , Lloyd Casner , Jo Siffert and Jochen Neerpasch drove for Simone.

Deadly accident

Johnny Simone and Junie Astor had a fatal accident on August 22, 1967 at around 11:30 am on Route nationale 6 near Sainte-Magnance on the way to Lyon . At high speed Simone overtook the Peugeot 404 of the Parisian Marcel Fauconnet in a Maserati Mistral on a hill . The Peugeot driver overlooked the fast approaching Maserati and turned left into a driveway. Simone tried to avoid the Peugeot and collided with an oncoming truck. Simone and Astor died on the spot. The driver of the Peugeot and his wife Perrin were just as seriously injured as the truck driver. Junie, the Simones' Yorkshire Terrier , survived the accident completely uninjured.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1950	Automobiles Deutsch et Bonnet	DB	Michel Aunaud	failure	Engine failure

literature

• Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909-413-06-3 .

Web links

• About Johnny Simone (French)
• Johnny Simone, the Colonel (French)
• Johnny Simone at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 1952 Casablanca 12-hour race
2. ^ Coupes du Salon 1952
3. ↑ 3-hour race of Algeria in 1953
4. ↑ 1954 Dakar 2-hour race
5. ↑ About the accident (French)