Mats Fit for a Legend: 43rd Anniversary of Le Mans

Racing Steve McQueen is a surreal memory of my teenager years in the 70s. I used to ride my CZ Motorcross bike with friends at Indian Dunes in Valencia, California, where we ran into McQueen riding his Husqvarna on the course. We raced him around part of the track, receiving a head nod and thumbs up in return. It’s hard to believe how long ago that was: right around the same time as McQueen’s film Le Mans was released in the US, 43 years ago (June 23, 1971).

Decades later, I still revere McQueen as the legend he was. Our Company CocoMats has sold sets for two of McQueen’s movie cars. The first was a Black and White set of cocomats for the 4th owner of the 911S, driven by McQueen in La Mans. And the second a Black and Yellow set to the current owner of the canary yellow Porsche 356C Cabriolet, driven by the beautiful Jacqueline Bisset in Bullitt.

The Le Mans Porsche 911S now rests in the Peterson Museum, in Los Angeles, California. But before that, the car had a line of owners unaware of its true value. A good customer of ours, Jesse, bought the 911S almost by accident from a friend. His friend had owned the car for about 30 years, and Jesse paid the market value at the time. The car’s registration card proved its status, reading “Solar Production”, McQueen’s Production Company. Once it got out that Jesse owned the famous car, offers started to come in. Frank, another good customer of ours, made an offer and bought the car off of Jesse for much more than what he originally paid.

Once Frank had the 911S, he ordered a set of Black and White cocomats for the car, a great period correct set to add to its vintage appeal. In a short amount of time, RM Auction advised Frank of the true value of the car, and off it went to Monterey where it sold at auction for 1.375 Million to the Peterson Museum. While the 911 rests on display, the museum chose to use the original black sisal mats that were used when McQueen had the car, but we’d like to think McQueen would have loved the cocomats even more. Here at CocoMats we pride ourselves on creating car floor mats for vintage cars; our mats hold a timeless feel that fit into any car.

-Jeff Allwine
Creator of CocoMats