{"id":56457,"date":"2018-03-20T13:18:16","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T13:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=56457"},"modified":"2024-05-30T20:56:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T20:56:47","slug":"matra-650-for-tour-auto-optic-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/matra-650-for-tour-auto-optic-2000\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour Auto Optic 2000 (2018) &#8211; Matra 650"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2018 edition of Tour Auto Optic 2000, set for April 23-28 between Paris and Nice \u2014 by way of Besancon, Meg\u00e8ve, Avignon and Aix en Provence \u2014 will revive one of the greatest moments in French motorsports history as a Matra 650 will be taking part in the event, recalling the victory of this extraordinary car in the Tour de France Automobile in 1970 and 1971.<\/p>\n<p>In 1970, Jean-Luc Lagard\u00e8re decided to enter two Matras for the Tour de France Automobile. The Le Mans prototypes were driven by the best French drivers of the era, \u2014 Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Patrick Depailler, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, G\u00e9rard Larrousse and Henri Pescarolo \u2014 and what seemed like a completely crazy gamble came good as all of France thrilled to the glorious sound of the Matra V12 engines as the MS650s won the nine-day event two years in succession.<\/p>\n<p>Almost half-a-century later, a Matra 650 will bring this feat back to life as it takes to the road in the Tour Optic 2000. The open two-seater driven by Mr. John of B will be one of the major attractions along the 2125-kilometer route as well as on the Dijon-Prenois, Bresse, L\u00e9denon and Paul Ricard circuits.<\/p>\n<p>The Matra MS 650 was designed in 1969 to race in the Sports Car World Championship, and was the first open car built by the French manufacturer. It had a tubular chassis, fiberglass bodywork and weighed a total of 861 kilograms, a bit heavier than its rivals of the time, but its 470 bhp V12 engine more than compensated for this handicap. To race on French roads the car underwent a number of modifications including a seat for the co-driver, additional lights and tweaks to the cooling system, suspension and so forth.<\/p>\n<p>For further information please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tourauto.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.tourauto.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2018 edition of Tour Auto Optic 2000, set for April 23-28 between Paris and Nice \u2014 by way of Besancon, Meg\u00e8ve, Avignon and Aix en Provence \u2014 will revive one of the greatest moments in French motorsports history as a Matra 650 will be taking part in the event, recalling the victory of this extraordinary car in the Tour de France Automobile in 1970 and 1971. In 1970, Jean-Luc Lagard\u00e8re decided to enter two Matras for the Tour de [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":595601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260,17564,13063],"tags":[432,15234,11433,17719],"class_list":["post-56457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-events","category-matra","category-vintage-car-racing","tag-events","tag-events-vintage-racing","tag-matra","tag-vintage-race-tour-auto-optic-2000"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Tour Auto Optic 2000 (2018) - Matra 650<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/matra-650-for-tour-auto-optic-2000\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tour Auto Optic 2000 (2018) - Matra 650\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The 2018 edition of Tour Auto Optic 2000, set for April 23-28 between Paris and Nice \u2014 by way of Besancon, Meg\u00e8ve, Avignon and Aix en Provence \u2014 will revive one of the greatest moments in French motorsports history as a Matra 650 will be taking part in the event, recalling the victory of this extraordinary car in the Tour de France Automobile in 1970 and 1971. 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His father worked for famed race car builder Kurtis Kraft, and later as a mechanic at Indianapolis and on the Championship Trail for drivers such as Rex Mays, Ted Horn, and Troy Ruttman. John has written about racing for more than 25 years, first at RACECAR before helping found both On Track and RACER, overseeing the latter for a dozen years. He was also motorsports editor at AutoWeek and editor of SportsCar, and his book The Atlantic Championship celebrates the first 25 years of Formula Atlantic. 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