On the famous motor race track at Le Mans, France, sleek-bonneted speedsters screeched around the turns and thundered down the straightways in the most grueling sport-car endurance race on the speedway calendar. Plugging along at 70 m.p.h. and letting other models slip past at better speedswas a 1948 British Aston-Martin coupe. Its two-man crew, a couple of middle-aged English amateurs, were there just to prove that "any British family man who drives with care . . . can give these continental chaps a run for their money."
It was the first race for both Rob Lawrie (46) and Dr. Dick Parker...