The legend of Gilles Villeneuve nonetheless holds an outsized place within the minds of Canadian auto racing followers, greater than 40 years after the Quebec-born Components One star died at age 32 in a crash throughout qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix in 1982.
Now, his widow and two kids — together with former F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve — are taking motion to get again his possessions from a museum that bears his title, citing issues over the establishment’s skill to safeguard each the bodily gadgets and the racing star’s legacy.
Mélanie Villeneuve says the theft late final yr of a big bronze statue of her father from exterior the Gilles Villeneuve Museum in Berthierville, Que., was the “level of no return” that cemented the household’s lack of confidence within the establishment.
“I feel (the theft) damages the picture and I feel for us, after we discuss it within the household, we determined that maybe we don’t essentially belief within the safety measures that the museum has put in place to guard our heritage and legacy and the gadgets that we’ve lent to the museum,” she mentioned Wednesday in a video interview.
The statue was created in 1984 as a tribute to Villeneuve, who participated in 67 Components One races from 1977 to 1982, successful six. Thieves sawed off and made away with the five-foot-three-inch tall likeness, forsaking a pair of metallic boots and a podium, in what provincial police mentioned was seemingly a plan to soften the statue right down to promote the metallic.
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Mélanie Villeneuve mentioned that whereas the “weird” theft was the catalyst for the household’s choice to retrieve her father’s gadgets, issues with the museum about 70 kilometres northeast of Montreal started earlier. In recent times, she mentioned, they’ve seen examples of her father’s picture being “misappropriated,” together with getting used with out permission on beer and wine labels.
“For fairly a while we’ve been nervous about how his picture is being diluted by this use, and I don’t wish to be tremendous damaging, as a result of I don’t assume folks did it with the unsuitable intentions,” she mentioned. “However I feel that now we’re able to possibly flip the web page open a brand new chapter and possibly take possession of his legacy.”
Villeneuve mentioned the household, together with her brother and her mom, Joann, have began a course of to recuperate a few of her father’s gadgets which might be on the museum, which opened in 1988. She mentioned that may embrace authorized motion, described in a information launch as a pre-judgment seizure, scheduled to be filed by Thursday.
The household is in search of gadgets together with private possessions in addition to trophies and memorabilia, some relationship again to Villeneuve’s early days of racing on Quebec’s snowmobile circuit and the Components Atlantic league. Villeneuve mentioned all of the memorabilia being sought was on mortgage from the household, and they aren’t making an attempt to stake a declare to gadgets donated by different events.
“We’re simply going to take again what belongs to us, principally,” she mentioned.
In an announcement, the museum mentioned it was pleased with its position in selling Gilles Villeneuve’s historical past and would proceed doing so.
“The museum regrets that the household perceives the state of affairs negatively,” a consultant wrote in an announcement. “Though (the household) shouldn’t be concerned within the administration of the museum, it has certainly lent a number of artifacts representing lower than 5 per cent of your entire museum assortment.”
The museum declined to remark additional because of the authorized motion being taken by the household.
Villeneuve mentioned that whereas she doesn’t wish to begin a struggle, her household doesn’t have an “energetic relationship” with the administration of the museum and that emails she despatched final summer time had been by no means returned. She mentioned she didn’t inform the museum path of the household’s intention to take authorized motion.
She described the hassle to retrieve the gadgets as a part of the household’s greater plan to advertise her father’s legacy in new methods, together with by media initiatives and on-line. She mentioned her father’s legend has continued to develop, which she mentioned is a testomony to his unimaginable expertise and likewise the energy of character that took him from snowmobile races in rural Quebec to Components One in a number of years’ time.
“The quantity of labor that he put into his profession is mind-boggling and he was a single-minded, passionate particular person that will by no means take no for a solution,” she mentioned. On these smaller snowmobile circuits, solely winners took dwelling prize cash, she mentioned, which fostered a win-at-all-costs mentality for a person with a spouse and two younger kids to help.
“He needed to make great sacrifices and ensure that he would win,” she mentioned. “That individual drive of nature is one thing that I’d prefer to share and I’d like to have the ability to current.”
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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