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Unseen 50s Racing Footage: Torrey Pines Oct. 1955

Here’s another installment from the McClure archives. This time it’s the 6th running of the Torrey Pines Road Races held on October 22-23, 1955. Some wonderful footage from the pits starts off the clip with shots of a Siata 208 Coupe alongside a Paul Berry’s Arnolt-Bristol, Lotus IX, MGAs and Austin-Healeys, and is that Lance Reventlow climbing into the Mercedes 300 he shared with Bruce Kessler before crashing out in the 6 Hours? The LeMans-style running start of which is captured here as well.

A fantastic field for the race with cars such as Jack McAfee’s 550 Spyder, Pearce Woods’ C-Type Jag, The O’Shea/Hill Mercedes, and the Ives Cad-Allard.
An excellent race!

0 replies on “Unseen 50s Racing Footage: Torrey Pines Oct. 1955”

Have you got any footage of Pebble Beach from 1953? I just drove the Eyerly Special H-Mod in a Vintage race at the 50th Anniversary of the Rose Cup in Portland, Oregon over the weekend. This car competed in the first Rose Cp Race back in 1961 with Harry Eyerly driving. And its still around today and still a ball to drive!

It looks like Kessler climbing in the Merc. Note that the Ives Allard was second fastest at Agoura, the next clip shown here. The battle between Miles’ R2 and J-P Kunstle’s battered 550 is terrific! Woods won the enduro.

Wow, I hope that poor fella didn’t perish in that roll over. What was that black batmobile looking car with the side pipes in the 9 minute range of the clip?

Edmund–You are referring to #50? Ken Miles’ MG Spl R2 (dark green actually)–he won the semi.

Sorry–I forgot to mention that Jim Tomlinson suffered only minor injuries rolling his MG TC in turn one. MJ

Hi, im really enjoying watching these old films. Is it Ken Miles in the red MGA sharing with Cy Yedor?

Wow, that race brings back old memories. I was a member of the flag team for that race and was a turn marshal. During the six hour race Pete Woods (a friend and leading the race with his C Jaguar) came to my corner, stopped and asked me to get him a coke then off he went. I ran to the nearest snack booth, got a large coke and ran back to the corner. Pete came up, stopped, I handed him his coke, and off he went! He won the race handily.

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