IT’S JUST A ROAD, a highway between two French towns. Along its length are a garden-supply center, a crematorium, an RV dealer, a KFC—the typical trappings of life … and death. The pavement is a bit crowned and rutted, and it’s only a smidge more than 40 feet wide. The road is designated D338. The French name, la ligne droite des Hunaudières, may sound a bit romantic to a native English speaker, but disappointingly, it literally translates, in part, to “straight line.”
It may be a commuter road, but the 3.7-mile chunk of D338 between Le Mans and Mulsanne, better known in English as the Mulsanne straight, is the spawning ground of more fantastical automotive oddities than any other place on earth.
This one straight makes up just over 40 percent of…
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Road & Track (Digital) - 1 Issue, December/January 2025