For a Le Mans winner, showstopper and Reunion regular, life wasn’t always so fabulous.

Mitch McCullough’s 1964 Alpine M64 gets around.

It summered in France and then jetted to Los Angeles. The car runs in the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion before taking part in the scene at Pebble Beach’s Concours d’Elegance.

Once that wraps, the vintage racing machine departs once again for Europe, where it will grace the Chantilly Concours.

The life of a retired race car can be glamorous. At Le Mans in June, crowds surrounded the Alpine as it rested in the shade. A photographer approached McCullough, displaying a dozen images snapped when the vehicle was in its racing prime.

“There was massive interest in the car,” McCullough says.

McCullough and his wife Kim are regulars at the Reunion. They venture – he refers to it as a “pilgrimage” – five days each way from coast to coast, hauling a selection of classic vehicles. He’s bringing along a 1964 Lotus 22 Formula Junior car to run at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, and Kim’s 1932 Ford hot rod for judging at the Concours d’Elegance.

“Both of us have been into cars since we were kids,” McCullough explains. “One of our first dates was at the Historics [now the Reunion].”

Among their collection is a 1970 Alpine A110 rally car and a ’57 Alpine A106. McCullough began running the M64 soon after receiving it. At the 2018 Reunion it developed an engine problem and he retired the car. But the weekend was not a loss. Carted over to The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, the car won an award.

“We had to push it to the stage,” McCullough recalls with a chuckle. Transported to Florida, it earned a blue ribbon from judges at the Amelia Island concours.

In June, McCullough and the prized Alpine took part in the Le Mans classic. Le Mans is a different beast than Laguna Seca. Here he gears down. “At Le Mans it wasn’t so much the speed, it was how long you’re in top gear,” McCullough says. “It’s kind of serene – until you’re shaken back to reality.”

As a form of competition, vintage racing occupies an unusual space. No one wants to damage valued treasures.

“Some of it is the romance, the thrill of experiencing what it was like,” McCullough says of vintage racing. “You’re driving as hard as you can, but staying within your limits.”

His M64 is a rare and special car, the last of three M64 prototypes Alpine constructed. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1964, it finished first in its class. A few weeks later it claimed first in class again, this time at the Reims 12-hour event. When the McCulloughs learned that it would be on the auction block, the New Jersey couple dropped everything, flew to Paris and outbid all who were interested.

Yet the Alpine M64 was not always considered so desirable.

The attrition rate for outdated race cars was high. Those that outlived the racetrack were either pieced out for parts or left to rot once they became obsolete. The M64 competed in the 1965 Le Mans 24 Hour race, but suffered mechanical problems. A month later it was pulled from duty.

Alpine mechanics used it as a template for the next model, dressing it with rear body panels destined for the A210 for testing purposes. After that, the car was stowed away, likely to decay and be forgotten.

According to the RM Sotheby’s catalog description of the Alpine when it was consigned to their 2014 auction in Monaco, the racer was in tired condition when it was sold to a French Alpine enthusiast named J.L. Marnat after several years of silence.

Again it was tucked away. In 1977, Marnat sold the car to Jacques Ohana, a collector who intended – and started – a restoration to its 1960s glory. Unfortunately, the new owner could find little time for the project.

When Ohana died, his family consigned the car to auction. The new owner – unnamed in the Artcurial Automobiles sur les Champs catalog – brought it back to its 1965 condition and placed it for auction in Paris in October of 2016.

Then the McCullough gave it a new life.