On the 80th birthday of Jochen Neerpasch
03/28/2019
Jochen Neerpasch, who was born in Krefeld on March 23, 1939, turned 80 last Saturday. Our warmest congratulations.
He began his motorsport career in 1958 with a Borgward and quickly established himself as one of the great touring car and sports car drivers. He mastered the difficult-to-drive Cobra like no other.
He later drove a Ford GT40 and then joined the Porsche works team. He won a total of five rounds of the one-make world championship and stood on the podium 18 times.
His career as a racing driver was not really that important to him, as he aspired to the position of race director early on. In 1968, he set up Ford's racing department and enjoyed great success with the Capris in the European Touring Car Championship and the Escort in the World Rally Championship.
From 1972 to 1980, he was at the helm of BMW, where he built up the M-GmbH. With the three BMW Juniors, Marc Surer, Manfred Winkelhock and Eddie Cheever, he attracted a lot of attention.
Neerpasch also became the father of BMW's "Art Cars" and launched the legendary ProCar series (1979/80) with the company's own beautiful M1 sports car. Later came Group C with Sauber-Mercedes from 1988 to 1991, when he was Head of Sport at Mercedes-Benz. He won Le Mans in 1989 with the Sauber-Mercedes C9.
Few people have achieved as much in their lives as Jochen Neerpsch.
Today, the always calm and level-headed motorsport professional is enjoying his well-earned retirement on Lake Constance with his partner Jessica and their two dogs.
We have previously published a detailed article about Jochen Neerpasch by Rainer Braun .
