Monaco Grand Prix 1936-37

Most of the prewar footage of Grands Prix that I come across are very short; a minute or two. The days of endlessly long recording time were still quite a ways off, particularly for cameras small enough to report trackside. As a result, we have precious little footage of Nuvolari or Caracciola. By these standards this wonderful clip is an epic film at 2 minutes and change.

It’s in clips like that that the legend of Monaco really shines. If this were any other track (except maybe Indianapolis) it would be so marred by change that this footage would be unrecognizable. Thankfully, the shots of the tunnel or Station Hairpin have meaning to us today. These aren’t simply clips of brave men careening through city streets, they’re the pioneers that allowed Jenson and Hamilton to round these same corners today. If not for these early GP giants, Monaco would have long since been replaced.