Steve McQueen had just parted with his first new car—a 1958 Porsche 356 Speedster—when he moved to Solar Drive in the Hollywood Hills in 1959. A string of Ferraris followed, but by November 1968, he took delivery of the car that would define his aesthetic: a Slate Grey Porsche 911S, registered to his film company, Solar Productions. He kept the options list lean but functional, famously having the rev counter rotated so the redline sat dead-center through the steering wheel spokes.
McQueen drove his machines with a racer’s aggression, haunting Mulholland Drive late at night. His 911 featured a custom dash switch to kill the rear lights—a tactical retreat from “police interest.” His affinity for the model was absolute; in August 1969, he bought a second Slate Grey 911, an E model registered to him personally, which he kept until his death in November 1980.
Two weeks before the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans, Solar purchased another 1970 911S. It was identical to McQueen’s personal car, right down to the U.S.-spec headlights. “The car was driven directly to Le Mans by our people for use by Steve and the Solar crew,” Porsche later confirmed. While buying a new car was easier than shipping his own from California, it was clear McQueen would accept no other on-screen double for his character, Michael Delaney. This “film car” featured factory air-conditioning, an upgraded interior, and the amber fog lenses that were then mandatory in France. The invoice to Solar totaled $8,338.61 ($72,088.17 in 2026 dollars).
In June 1970, Solar rented the 12th-century Château du Viré, 50 km (31 miles) west of Le Mans, for McQueen and his family. Struggling with the French pronunciation, McQueen simply renamed it “Château Lornay.” While the crew stayed in nearby Loué, McQueen retreated to this rural pocket of farmland and forest.
During the summer of 1970, McQueen made this château in Viré-en-Champagne his home, renting the estate for three months while filming his endurance-racing epic.
Used to the canyons of California, McQueen must have found the French D-roads—equivalent to country roads in America—an absolute playground. While the direct route to the circuit was an arrow-straight run from Angers, the more evocative path snaked through hamlets along the Sarthe River. It is this scenic route that provides the backdrop for the film’s iconic opening three minutes.
In 1970, a flat-six, 180 hp 911S was an alien craft among the sea of Citroën 2CVs and Renault 4s. Local legend persists that McQueen was a blur on the landscape. Gilles Guichemer, the current owner of the Château, notes: “At the time, there was no speed limit. Steve McQueen set a quarter of an hour to travel between Le Mans and Viré.” An average of 120 mph on those 1970s backroads is staggering. We won’t be attempting to break his record, but we have a new 992.2 Carrera to retrace his tire marks.
As Michael Legrand’s score swells, Delaney crosses a bridge on the wrong side of the road to clip a racing apex. Today, that bridge near Brûlon remains, complete with the same characteristic dip seen in the film. The road snakes through Chevillé toward La Suze-sur-Sarthe—fast, open, and virtually empty.
Our 992.2 Carrera is impeccable in town, but on these D-roads we engage Sport Plus. Where McQueen’s 911S required a delicate dance of weight transfer and mechanical sympathy, the 992.2 offers a clinical, almost supernatural competence. The car is clinical, surefooted, and urgency-driven. While 911s can feel “asleep” at legal speeds, the 992.2 remains alert. We mind the shifting 80/90 kph (50/55 mph) speed limits, though McQueen, facing far fewer hamlets and no speed cameras, surely carried a much higher velocity.
Maison Blanche corner on the pre-1972 circuit. While the house still stands today, the iconic “MARTINI” signage on the roof is long gone.
Why the standard Carrera? It best represents the basic, no frills 911s McQueen preferred. Equipped with a few options, including 18-way adjustable sports seats and GT Silver paint over Fuchs-style wheels, it is the perfect spiritual successor to the Slate Grey original.
Heading east to Fillé, the rural population has grown by 40 percent since 1970, turning once-quiet hamlets into bustling zones. In Fillé, where Delaney drives past a local restaurant, the church and weir remain unchanged. However, the connection to history is fading; a local at the Bar L’Accord had no idea his village was cinematic hallowed ground, nor did he know the name Steve McQueen.
In Le Mans city center, the Place des Jacobins—once a grit-and-oil car park—is now a pedestrianized sea of gray concrete. The route Delaney took is gone. At the circuit itself, the changes are even more jarring. The public road through Maison Blanche was bypassed after 1971 for the Porsche Curves. The crossroads where Delaney joined the track is now a roundabout, and the once-agricultural fields are hidden behind heavy security fencing and campsites.
Maison Blanche, the “white house,” still stands, but it is no longer white, and the “MARTINI” tiles are gone. The spot where Delaney inspected the Armco is now buried behind a Porsche Center, which ironically houses a 1970 917LH just meters from where its sister car crashed during the race.
Could McQueen really have done this drive in 15 minutes? In a 1970 911S, it seems a tall tale—unless he treated the public road as an extension of the Mulsanne Straight. He certainly tried; one of his 911s returned to Porsche for major repairs, and another was pulled from a ditch by the crew. As his wife Neile wrote, “As soon as Steve pulled out of the driveway, it was clear that this was an accident waiting to happen.”
As the production of Le Mans spiraled out of his control, the commute was the only time McQueen was truly the master of his universe. The Slate Grey 911 came home with him when the cameras stopped rolling, shipping it back to California—a permanent piece of the film he’d claimed as his own.
