Gulf Oil racing colors will adorn a pair of Aston Martin DBR9’s for the famous 24hr Le Mans race in 2008. Gulf Oil’s first Le Mans winning car, the powder blue and orange painted Ford GT40 driven by Pedro Rodriguez and Lucien Bianchi, took the win back in 1968. A car very few of us forget, and even more of us dream about. Since then Gulf has sponsored many other Le Mans contenders such as the Porsche 917, and  in 2001 the Audi Sport UK R8.

The 2008 running of Le Mans marks the 40th anniversary of Gulf Oils first victory. To help celebrate the occasion and, more importantly sponsor the winning team in the world famous endurance race, Gulf teamed up with Aston Martin to field what both parties hope to be the cars that will beat Team Corvette Racing and defend Aston Martins GT1 crown. I think this is one of the sexiest cars i have seen run at Le Mans since the GT 40 and with Gulf’s long racing heritage and Aston Martins ability to produce exceptional racing machines. This friendship smells of victory.

Aston Martin will have 2 DBR9’s running with the Gulf livery in the June event,  #007 and #009. Gulf Oil vice president Alain Dujean said: “This is arguably the most important year ever for Gulf in motorsport. The famous Gulf racing colours first tasted victory at Le Mans in 1968, so 2008 already had great significance for us, but for Gulf to have joined up with Aston Martin Racing for this year is fantastic – the coming together of two great automotive names, for what I hope will be a long and fruitful partnership.”  Aston Martin hopes to keep Corvette Racing at bay in the 08 running of Le Mans, but thats not all they need to worry about. Saleen, Ferrari, and Viper all will be fielding cars that are certainly capable of giving the Astons a run for their money. But I would love to see a Gulf livery Aston take the trophy, especialy in such a big year for Gulf.

Tags: Aston Martin, DBR9, GT1, Gulf, Le Mans

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Aston Martin, Auto News, Automakers, Racing/Motorsports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.