Victory By Design holds a very, very special place in my heart. It was perhaps the single largest inspiration in me starting The Chicane.. Watching the passion and emotion that Alain brought to the presentation of these machines helped make that passion well up within me and made me want to share that passion with others.
Let’s whip around Modena with Moss and Collins for some test time.
Is there anything better than old 16mm home movie cans making on their way onto the web? Possibly this professionally produced in-period 16mm film can making its way onto the web.
Hillclimbs and circuits and pit footage, oh my!
This is an unusual picture. It shows an Austin Healey at rest; and that is one thing this magnificent sports car rarely is. For when you think of an Austin Healey, you think of beauty in action. You think of an immensely powerful sports car going ahead like streak lightning. You think of a speedometer that goes 70… 80… 90…. 100 and more. You think of the sheer excitement and exhilaration of being at the wheel of a record-breaker.
But the Austin Healey is not only beautiful to watch and beautiful to drive. The car itself isa beautiful engineering and design job. Its surging power comes from a superb 2.5 litre O.H.V. engine. Its wonderfully finished body is build on aerodynamic lines for speed. Its controls (one of the results of racing experience) are handily placed for sports driving. Its boot is particularly large for this kind of car. One final word. The upholstery is real leather, the carpeting is luxurious, the accessories are part and parcel of the standard equipment. Considering all this and the class of the car, the price of the Austin Healey is remarkably reasonable: £806 plus £401.
Austin Healey
The Austin Motor Company Limited. Longbridge, Birmingham.
There have been a few running and driving sharknose Ferrari 156 replicas built. And while they’ve received a warm welcome from the vintage community they’re still well outside of my skillset—but even I think I might be able to make this one!
I think I’ll always be a 550 man but the subtler 356 Carrera 2 might be the better package for the 547 powerplant. It may not be as race-winning, but if you pull into town for dinner with this Carrera 2 you might be seen as charming, perhaps even old-fashioned.. and you’ll still have that 4-cam monster ready for the twisties on the way home. These are the little fantasies I concoct for myself.
Someone was able to make that fantasy a reality in the March Open Roads online auction hosted by RM Sotheby’s—where she sold for less than the estimate for €355,000. What a lovely way to start the summer.
Now I just need the delightful pink house to go with it.
Dream-car performance… a rarin’ reality with ACs!
When advance engineers give the nod to a spark plug for their experimental babies it has to be the best. ACs are standard equipment on the experimental Shark. The same AC Fire-Ring Spark Plugs can soup up your starts and straightaways. One reason: AC’s tapered insulator tip — it heats faster, cools faster, cleans itself—no conking out due to fouling deposits. Regardless of what type of car you drive, ask for ACtion…ask for AC.
The XP-755 Chevrolet Corvette Shark: 102.1″ wheelbase, 192.2″ overall, 327 cubic-inch displacement, V-8 engine featuring Roots-type supercharger, 4 side-draft carburetors and developing over 400 horsepower.
That double-bubble roof on this ‘Vette concept is dead sexy.
This illustration showing the various views and benefits of the Zink Formula Vee is perhaps my favorite of Werner Bührer’s that we’ve featured on The Chicane.
It might be because of how much time I’ve spent in the pits with the Vintage Vees group where Zinks make up a good third or more of the field. Really though, I just think it’s amazing to me how I could see this same composition as photography and give it little more than a passing look but with this illustrative approach I’m compelled to gaze at each little detail.
Do they still teach drafting in high schools? What a loss it would be to not be fostering the talents of the next Werner Bührer.
Not great for a report card.. Absolutely astounding in this photo of Jack Douglas in the #54 Jaguar D-Type and Carlyle Blackwell in the #18 C-Type. Love the staged shot mimicking a hairy corner and the dramatic pilot underlighting from undoubtedly hot lamps placed in the cockpits.
Thanks to Graham Smith and Aaron Barker on the North American Sportscar Racing Facebook group.
These snaps from the Cobra “assembly line” have been bouncing around Tumblr this week and I couldn’t be more pleased to add them to our gallery of sports and racing factories, workshops, raceshops, and garages.
via T-Top Coupe
Bonus, Steve McQueen picking his Windsor block Cobra from the man himself.
