Categories
Milne Bros. – Pasadena
Month: November 2015
Ordinarily I wouldn’t subject you to an 11 minute Johnny Walker ad, but maybe if advertising as short film as love letter to vintage racing is a success we’ll see more of these and fewer terrible ads. Will it join the Ferrari Shell spot and Castello Cavalcante in the pantheon of great classic racing ads? Only time will tell. But I’m sure I’ll want another look at that French Racing Blue beauty.
Cameos from Jenson Button and Mika Häkkinen are a fun bonus as well. But of course that gorgeous Delahaye 135 somehow manages to steal the spotlight from even Jude Law. Enjoy.
Categories
Reader Film from the Drags ’56—’65
Rudi wrote in with his footage from a variety of drag races saying, “Don’t know if you are into drags, but I just posted what I shot way back then”. I have to admit that I never really ‘got’ drag racing. But after attending my first drags as a spectator last summer—and starting to learn some of the weird intricacies of the sport—I have a much greater respect for drag racers (who are some of the most colorful and compelling figures in American motorsport today). I’ve also started to realize that much of what I love about classic racing, the grassroots everyman spirit, never really went away in drag racing. You’re just as likely to see a hotted up Ford Focus or GTI as a top-fuel dragster on any given weekend at the drag strip. That alone makes drag racing fantastic.
For those that live their lives a quarter mile at a time, this is absolute gold. The 1959 Nationals at Detroit are particularly great here… Not to mention the Gullwing Mercedes and the Corvette vs. Corvette grudge match starting after the 4 minute mark.
Thanks Rudi!
Porsche already does a good job of getting their historic racing cars out to the track and in front of fans—but I’ve never heard of an event like this one and I hope to be there for the next one. Sadly, no video editor alive can resist putting a music bed behind this.
Just listen to that 4-cam rev.
Categories
1959 Santa Barbara and Riverside Road Races
I was at a concert last night and invariably as the artist takes the stage, people’s phones come out and they start filming. My first thought is, “You’re never going to watch this poorly recorded video with poorly captured audio. Put your phone away and dance!”
But then I think of things like this 8mm film of the 1959 runnings of the spring and summer sessions of the Santa Barbara Road Races and Riverside… I’m sure at the time, people standing around this person thought they’d never watch the films. Other spectators were thinking that instead of enjoying the day of racing, our filmer here was lost in the camera’s eyepiece. And for what? Grainy film with no audio… Fifty hears later, however, I think of this document as absolute treasure and the person that recorded it as a hero.
Maybe I should lay off the people holding their phones over their heads filming all the time.