Categories
Video

On-Board a Formula Vee at Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival

For the first time in a long time I missed last year’s Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival. I must subconsciously still be kicking myself over it since I found myself wandering through YouTube clips from the 2011 event. Thankfully, Jeffrey uploaded this clip from the Group 10 (Formula Vee and Fords—among others) session to help get me through the winter.

Jeffrey says: “This was my second race weekend in my 1969 Lynx B. I qualified 11th on the grid (7th in the Formula Vee class) and finished 8th (4th in the FV class).”
Not bad. Not bad at all.

Categories
Track Maps of the Past

Central Park Vintage GP: Too Good an Idea to Not Happen

I often romanticize the city-street road races of the 1950s and have occasionally wondered why it was only small towns that played host to these magnificent race weekends. After all, many of the racers made their way to Watkins Glen or Bridgehampton or Elkhart Lake did so from New York or Boston or Chicago. Why didn’t larger cities host any of these events?

Then it occurred to me; naturally it’s easier to shut down a little town’s roads for a few days than it would be to gridlock Manhattan for a race weekend. Alas, the oft linked Shell/Ferrari ad has shown us what a magnificent cocktail vintage racing cars and city streets can make. Automobiliac’s recent post entitled Vintage Racing in Central Park, Why Not? has rekindled my desire for this mix of urban vistas and vintage iron. It’s a perfectly good question, “What about Central Park?” Can you think of a more perfect set of roads winding around the beautiful and iconic landscapes that were so marvelously architected by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

Can’t you just imagine it? Sitting on a bench by the Reservoir or at the rooftop sculpture garden at the MoMA while a Cooper-Climax T53 or Bandini Siluro or Ferrari Monza accelerates through one of the sweeping bends of the Central Park Loop.

Bradley does a great job of pointing out the potential difficulties (“closing down Central Park Loop—are you crazy?!”), and addresses them in kind (well, they do it for bike races or for filming movies). It works for the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. Doesn’t New York deserve a world-class vintage racing event? Just look at the map above from race promoter Alec Ulmann’s 1965 proposal of a Monaco-style race in NY and realize that this event needs to happen—simply must happen.

The Chicane emphatically endorses this brilliant idea. Dear Reader, how can we make this happen?

Categories
Restoration Video

A Berkeley Reborn

It’s never surprising when a new no-expenses-spared restoration of a Ferrari is unveiled. Or a Gullwing Merc. Or a Barracuda. What I love so much about Ohio restoration shop Pete’s Custom Coachbuilding is that they often lavish the same level of affection on lesser known and quirkier models. Their restorations of Issetas and a Lambretta Lambro trike and a King Midget are enough to let you rest easy that these marvelous jewels are in good hands.

Their recent restoration of a Berkeley SE492 is no exception. The level of care in reconditioning parts that aren’t available or ensuring that every fastener was period-appropriate is admirable. It’s details like this that usually puts this type of restoration in the realm of not financially viable. But let’s face it, we didn’t get into vintage racing cars because we’re sane people. It always makes me glad to see there’s other crazies out there.

More photos of the restoration at Pete’s site. Oh—and check out the Gurney Eagle Pete’s did as well!

Categories
Vintage Racing Advertising

For People Who Must Drive a Winner

Daytona. Datsun sweeps the field.
Talk about domination—the Datsun Track Star swamped the field at Daytona.
Seven out of the first 8 spots in Class D Production at the 1969 American Road Race of Champions (ARRC).
Just what you might expect from a real sports car.
Because the stock 2000 has real sports car handling. Real sports car power from a 135 HP “OHC” engine for a 124 MPH top and 0-60 in 9.3 seconds. Real sports car response from an all-synchro 5-speed that Stirling Moss rates… “Really good—the speed with which one could change gears was only limited by the speed of one’s hand.”
Add classic lines. Body-fit buckets. vinyl upholstery, carpets, locking console… even a radio among $300 in no-charge extras. You’ve got a luxury GT that blasts backroads and breezes freeways.
The ARRC champ 2000—and its little brother—Datsun 1600. Real sports cars for people who must drive a winner. Driva a Datsun… then decide.
Datsun
Sedans · Wagon · Pickup · Sports cars

Categories
Racing Ephemera Vintage Racing Advertising

Fantastic, Super-Sonic Stereo Sounds!

Dan Gurney and his world of racing now on record.
Great, interesting, commentary by Dan! Fantastic, super-sonic stereo sounds!
Featuring: The Motor Trend 5000, The Times Grand Prix
Plus… Brabham-Climax, Lotus-Ford Indy Car, Ford GT, Daytona Coupe, Dragon Snake
There’s more! Only $4.98 (plus tax)
Order today and receive this free bonus!
If you order now, and autographed 8 by 10 photo of Dan suitable for framing will be enclosed with your album free of charge.
Mail your order to: Mobile Fidelity Records, P.O. Box 336, Burbank Calif. 91503

So who’s got a digitized copy of this for me?

Categories
Historic Racing Photos

Jim Miner’s 1960 Nurburgring 1000km

These photos shot by Jim Miner at the 1960 running of the Nuburgring 1000km caused quite a sensation when his daughter, Kat Miner, uploaded them to her Flickr. There was a tremendous outpouring of interest from the vintage racing community, and it’s easy to see why.

Even in today’s Hipstamatic and Instagram faux-vintage photo effects, there’s something noticeably otherworldly and atmospheric about these shots captured by the young serviceman stationed in Frankfurt. The colors are somehow both vivid and lush, but also cold and chillingly dramatic. The blue tones are amplified, making the greens so vibrant, but also giving everything a foreboding mood. They are haunting.

Even though there’s only these few photos from the day, they hint at a wonderful story. Partly, I think that the fact that there’s so few is what captures my imagination about the event. There’s no shortage of photos from any modern event. Everyone has a camera in their pocket and many spectators spend the bulk of the race looking at the action through their phone’s screen while they snap away hundreds or thousands of images.
These photos though—and I readily acknowledge I’m reading more into this than I should—seem considered and carefully shot. After all, film and processing was never cheap enough to click away with the fury of a digital photographer.

Whatever the case, let’s at least sit back and appreciate how marvelous these photos are… And keep scanning those old slides and negatives, people!

Categories
Racing Ephemera

Fastest Paperboy in Town

Categories
Porsche

Siffert & Redman at the 1970 Nurburgring 1000km


Sadly, 1970 wasn’t the year for Jo Siffert and Brian Redman. After taking pole, a drop in oil pressure on the 22nd lap forced the Porsche 908/3 they shared out of contention. But damn if they didn’t look good doing it.

Categories
Vintage Racing Advertising

World Champion is an Understatement

We won the world, together.
Congratulations, Graham.
We at STP have seen, firsthand, your courage and control behind the wheel. And calling you World Champion is an understatement.
Your win is a milestone for us, too.
STP Oil Treatment has been cutting friction and wear for winning drivers at Indy year after year. Now, thanks to your skill, STP, once again, is on the side of a Grand Prix Champion.
The racer’s edge. Another successfully tested product of the STP Corporation.

Categories
Restoration

Me and My ASP Pt. 3: Restoration

Fast forward to today. I’ve had the vee apart and back together 20 times since Garrett helped me rebuild it in 2004 but usually just long enough to fix or freshen between seasons. The list of things I would do to the car if I ever completely restored it was just getting longer so I decided now was the time to address everything.

After years of racing the the old girl and my more recent love affair with Formula Fords I have become a far better mechanic and I’ve learned many guarded speed secrets from Garret, my good friend Frank Newton and others. So this time around I wanted to give the 3 time Mexican national champ the love it deserved. I wanted to take the car back to as original as possible. After 40 some years a lot of terrible things can happen to a racecar and the ASP was no exception. The body was pretty hacked up, and was far heavier than it needed to be due to too many layers of fiberglass and paint. The chassis was riddled with holes from multiple floor pans and mounting this and that. And countless other problems that I’ve corrected along the way.

I started with the most miserable thankless job… fiberglass. I wanted to make sure the body was perfect and fit perfectly before disassembling the car…. a lesson I learned the hard way when restoring my Merlyn MK20A Formula Ford. For 8 weeks I spent nearly every night and most weekend days endlessly sanding and laying up glass. I started by grinding on the back side of the fiberglass and shed over 30 lbs from the body! Considering that 20 lbs is good for about 1 HP in a vee that is significant. I’d stand in my garage on a bathroom scale holding the part and record the weight. Then I would take as much material off as I dared or and weigh us again. I was able to take 13 lbs out of the tail section alone.

I then looked at original photos I have of the car and began to recreate the missing sections of body work. It had a lot of wear and tear, had been cracked up from minor shunts, cut for different seatbelt configurations, etc. Next, I sanded through the 6 layers of paint to get down to the gel coat so i could see all of the cracks. I carved out every crack in the gel coat with a Dremel and filled with glass filler so the cracks wouldn’t come back through the paint. Where the tie rods went through the body it was so bad i just laid in all new glass and cut new holes because there was just not enough material to work with. Then I did a lot of work making sure the body panels all lined up and came up with a better way to fasten everything together and minimize gaps. Once I was happy with how everything fit I took the body over to my good friend Brian Spieza’s shop to talk paint.

I don’t know why. Probably because I’m a designer by trade but paint color is something I agonize over. I love keeping cars original but the original paint scheme of navy blue and yellow was simply not an option in my mind. When I restored the car the first time I painted it Dutch racing orange and I liked it but it was too tempting to switch it up yet again. I finally settled on a color similar to the British Racing Partnership green found on the beautiful BRMs and Ferraris Innes Ireland drove. When it came to the graphics I wanted to keep it simple and somehow pay homage to the car’s winning history. I hand designed the numbers based on some old photos I had of BRP Formula Juniors. When Brian saw all of the reference I put together he loved it too, which was all the further convincing I needed. BRP Green it is. Brian then did the final sanding and we went to the paint shop to mix up the color.

While Brian was working on the body I began the rest of the disassembly and chassis restoration. The bottom frame rails had at least 3 sets of holes from different floor pans that I welded shut and ground down. There were about 50 miscellaneous holes drilled for brake line clamps and whatever else was mounted to the frame over the years. Some the original brazing had cracked and need to be re-brazed. I also sleeved and welded in some new tubes that had suffered the consequences of sitting outside nose down in the ground for a number of years. I did the final metal finishing and then dropped off all of the frame components for powder coat. I painted and refinished all of the rest of the bits myself.

Once Brian had all of the color down on the body panels it was time for graphics. I wanted the numbers and graphics painted on rather than vinyl. I know they used decals in the 60s and it’s extra work but looks far better and more correct to me. I cut out numbers in various sizes and placed them on the car until we found what we thought worked proportionally. When graphics are that simple, they have to be perfectly sized and placed or you just know something is wrong.

I for one think that a 40 year old racecar should look like it was painted 40 years ago. Some people think I’m crazy and some people really appreciate it. I work with Brian because he is a master of making brand new paint look old. He is known for painting guitars to give them an authentic vintage paint quality and broken-in look. When I was restoring my last car I asked him if he’d be willing to try the same technique on a larger scale. So many people look at that car and can’t put their finger on why it looks so period authentic…. It has a lot to do with the paint. It takes a lot of restraint to achieve this without overdoing it. Brian is truly an artist of a bygone era.

Within 2 weeks time I had all of the bodywork and frame bits back from paint and powder. Now for final assembly. I mentioned before I’ve had this car apart and back together many times but it came as a shock to me how quickly everything came back together this time around. I picked up the frame at 5:00 on Friday and by 2:30 Saturday morning the basic assembly was done. These are brilliantly simple cars. Saturday and Sunday I spent tidying up wiring and plumbing brake lines and by Monday I had all of the body work fastened on the car. Mind you it was pretty non-stop. Once I start seeing a project like this come together, I tend to forget things like sleeping and eating and life outside of the garage.

The engine is off to F Newton Motorsports for a freshening and as soon as I get it back I’ll drop it in. I plan to shake it down at Gingerman Raceway as soon as the weather breaks. In the meantime, I’ve already started in on winter project number two, a 1969 Merlyn MK 11A (the white frame you can see in several of these shots). Stay tuned.

Previously: Part 1, and Part 2.