Michel Vaillant (film)
2003 film by Louis-Pascal Couvelaire
Michel Vaillant (also released as Need for Speed) is a 2003 French film starring Sagamore Stévenin and Diane Kruger. It depicts events around the 24 hours of Le Mans race, based largely on a comic about the Michel Vaillant character. The racing sequences were shot during the 2002 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Plot
For decades, Vaillante, run by the Vaillant family, has had a long history of success in various motor racing disciplines. Their most famous driver is Michel Vaillant, son of the team's founder and owner, Henri, and younger brother of the team's manager, Jean-Pierre. One night, Michel's mother Élisabeth has a nightmare of her son's death in an accident at the 24 Hours of Le Mans involving a car bearing the number 13 operated by Leader, a team with which Vaillante had a historic rivalry for more than a quarter of a century. Henri comforts her, assuring that the Vaillante team is not planning to race at Le Mans, that Leader has quit racing for 5 years, and that no one will bother using the number 13 at the race.
Meanwhile, in Canada, Michel and his best friend and teammate, Steve Warson, are both competing in a WRC race. Michel wins the race, which spikes the wrath of Bob Cramer, a ruthless rival driver who was blocked by him during the race. Cramer confronts Michel's co-pilot, David Wood, over the matter.
“Michel Vaillant (film)” enters the record as 2003 film by Louis-Pascal Couvelaire. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Michel, Vaillant and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1748143. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2003 and 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michel Vaillant (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.