Track maps have sure taken a turn for the worse since this illustration of the Swedish track Karlskoga, Gelleråsen. It’s absolutely fantastic. Dig the illustrated saloon cars racing around the front straight. Perfect.
Compare with the modern official map, and mourn the passing of elegance and style.
More video is finding its way online in the days following the Monterey Historics. Here’s a lovely example: the starting grid for Group 7 rolling out. A field that includes Porsche 917s, 910s, 906, and others. Hallelujah!
Here’s another for the Porschephiles among us. Let’s take a walk among the amazing machines that Porsche brought from their collection. Everything from the LeMans winning Herrmann/Attwood 917 (wow), to a pair of Porsche 804 Formula 1 cars (wow!), to the Redman/Siffert Targa Florio 908/3 (wow!!). Amazing.
This is a bit heartbreaking. If you suffer from heart problems, are pregnant, or have a weak stomach, by all means look away.
This Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa driver had a bit of an off at Laguna Seca this weekend and put one of the most beautiful cars of all time all the way through the kitty litter and into the tires. It largely looks like body damage, but it’s a chilling sight nonetheless.
I love to see vintage cars driven hard, wheel to wheel; the drivers getting a little competitive. Unfortunately, this is the price we sometimes have to pay for that passion. I don’t know what happened at this race, and I don’t say any of this to place blame on this driver. Aggressive contact and carelessness are terribly rare at vintage events, and I’m assuming that this wasn’t the result of either. I hope he wasn’t injured. It looks like a glancing blow on the tires, so hopefully he’s alright.
I’m looking for a silver lining here; I guess this is good news for restorers.
You can click on any of these photos for larger versions—but I wouldn’t recommend it. Octane had an excellent photographer in the right place at the right time and has the complete sequence of photos that led us here.
Octane has been really on top of Monterey coverage this weekend and I commend them for it. They’re really taking care of the vintage racing junkies that are trapped at home in front of our computers waiting desperately for information from the Historics.
Update: an incredibly comprehensive set of photos of this crash is available at AutoBlog. They report that the driver, David Love, is a long-time Monterey Historics competitor who suffered a brake failure in the corkscrew. David was dazed, but unhurt.
Here’s what a few hundred million dollars worth of Ferrari GTOs looks like.
The Monterey Historics are underway. There’s more racing action today, but I’m pleased to see that video from day one is already arriving on YouTube. Here’s just another stroll through the paddock as the Porsches line up for the featured marque parade. Keep your eyes peeled for the yellow Porsche 917 – this is the 917-021 that Gunnar Racing has been documenting the restoration of. They finished it in time for the historics, which is an impressive restoration pace for any car. My hat’s off to the Gunnar racing team on this. I’m amazed that they finished it in time.
There’s a whole lot more to love in this video, from Porsche 550 Spyders to RSKs to 908/3, to 935: this one video showcases virtually every Porsche racing model. I’m impressed that the cameraman didn’t fall to his knees and weep when he got to the end of the row.
Octane Magazine is on the scene in Monterey this weekend and has a brilliant gallery of cars participating in the Pebble Beach Tour, the annual road trip event open to participants in the Pebble Beach Concours. Check it out.
Speaking of 1950s Jaguars, why don’t we let Mike Hawthorn show us the ropes for the 1956 Le Mans?
It’s strange how the D-Type seems to overshadow the memory of the C. Even here in the States, where the excitement of the Ecurie Ecosse team’s achievements was more distant. For me, the C-Type is the very epitome of the 1950s big boys. It’s important to remember that, particularly in the States, sportscars were an extreme rarity, and in 1952 here comes a proper-built racing car. This example is coming available as part of RM Auctions’ Sports & Classics of Monterey auction.
I’d like to give credit to Jaguar for predicting the coming wave of popularity on American road racing. The truth, though is that the credit belongs to Jag’s Beverly Hills dealer, Charles Hornburg, who convinced the boys back in Coventry that some race wins stateside would increase road car sales. This very car was the first to arrive on US shores. Once here, it was driven straight to Elkhart Lake, WI to be driven by Phil Hill in the last street course race before Road America was built.
The race for the Sheldon Cup was a bit of a nail-biter, but ultimately Phil Hill took the victory after a nice battle with Phil Walters’ Ferrari. That win made this car, chassis XKC-007, the first C-Type to win a race on American soil.
C-Types are incredibly striking machines, and an ex-Phil Hill example is even more impossibly valuable. Phil Hill probably said it best when reminiscing about this car: “I was just in awe of the C-Type when I first stepped into it. When I look back on it now, it makes me smile. The steering was light – almost scary light. It was the first car I ever drove that had a really precise feel about it – it really felt like a racing car.”
More photos and information on the auction’s lot details page.
Update: This car set a new record price for a C-Type at auction by selling for a top bid of $2,530,000. Yowza.
This little beauty has a story to tell, my friends. Any Siata is a magical beast. Rare. They’re all rare. But this one. This is the one.
Siata may have started out just hopping up Fiats, but they really started to hit their stride in ’52: the year this magnificent little barchetta coupe was built for the Turin Auto show and a little race they call the Mille Miglia. In fact, the car was pulled early from the Auto Show, leaving behind a bare stage as her Fiat Otto Vù V8 engine was tuned for the Mille.
Arnaldo Tullini and Luigi Rossi hopped into this marvelous Siata, and pulled off the starting stand at 5:42. Sadly, this example didn’t last the race and dropped out early. But who cares? Just look at this thing. These photos show the car standing still in a warehouse. Look again, it’s standing still. I know it looks like it’s pulling 2 miles a minute.
You don’t often see Siatas come available for sale, and when you do, it’s almost always an open-top. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a Siata coupe. When you see the slippery lines and stunning roof-line of this amazing machine, it makes me wonder why.
Bonham’s Quail auction this year is absolutely on fire with the quality of machines coming available and I’m sure We’ll be featuring more in the days leading up to the event. I would have thought that with the economy being what it is, we’d see people holding on to their cars and waiting for ‘better days’, but the lot list at this year’s auctions sure seems to indicate otherwise.
The Siata 208CS is being offered with an estimate of $1.6 – 1.9 million. That’s a lot of scratch in anyone’s book, but it would almost certainly be worth it every time you blipped the throttle on an empty country lane.
More photos and history at Bonham’s lot detail page.
This has been getting some play on the motorcycle blogs, but the sheer beauty of this demands that I share it with you. This 1973 (non-video) arcade game is a thing of engineering and aesthetic joy. In the pre-video era, these remarkable coin-op games were not uncommon, and growing up in Michigan meant I could occasionally visit Marvin’s Mechanical Museum, which is a living museum of classic coin-ops. I don’t think ole’ Marvin has one of these, but if he did, I might have to move in.
This arcade game gives the customer, through a set of handlebars, control over a motorcycle which weaves, through traffic on its way to the finish line. Unlike some arcade driving games of the era, this game does not have small vehicles riding across a spinning treadmill to simulate motion. This game can do away with the visible strings holding the participants by using magnets to push the competitor motorcycles over a static play surface. The video does a much better job of explaining it than I ever could. It’s definitely worth a watch.
Needless to say, I’ve got a new obsession for an object to put in the garage. I’m not sure if this one is more or less expensive than a real race bike from the era would be. I’m also not sure which would be more fun.
More at The New Cafe Racer Society.