When I started The Chicane, it was mainly as an outlet for all of the vintage racing research I was doing. A way to do something productive with all the hours I’d spend Googling obscure racing drivers or collecting images of favorite racing machines. What I didn’t count on, though, was how much I would enjoy the commentary and conversations that arise in the comments section of many of the posts. I’m consistently delighted when a post will prompt someone who raced in the discussed event; or owned the discussed car; or had photos from a discussed race meeting; will comment on a post and takes the conversation in a new, thrilling direction.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a set of photos that reader Brian Goldman sent in of the Put-in-Bay races. The comments, though, are why I love the post. Several of the racers checked in or enquired about particular cars. One of whom, Edward Eichenlaub, was looking for any photos that might include his own winning run at that event. Only a short time later, Manley Ford delivered—emailing me the photo you see above of Ed’s victory.
When I see Chicane readers connecting and fueling each other’s love for vintage racing, I… I don’t know how to describe it… It just makes it all seem so much more worth doing. Thank you all for that.
So I’ve been reading this morning about Classic Automobile Investment funds and it bums me right out. The worst part is that I don’t think there’s anything that can be done about it. The story is that there are investmentgroups creating funds and using these pooled investments to buy classic cars. What’s worse, there is more than one of these groups—virtually ensuring that their competition will artificially inflate prices in the vintage racing and sportscar world and put these cars outside of the reach of drivers who would use these machines for their intended purpose.
The most you’ll see of an old racing car.
Maybe some of you view your classic car as an investment and maybe I’m insulting half of my readers here… and maybe (probably) I’m just naive… But it bothers me that speculators and investors who may or may not have any purer interest in their chosen investment are becoming an ever increasing percentage of the market for historic sports and racing cars.
I’ve long since come to terms with the fact that I’ll likely never own a 250GTO or 917 or Tipo 33—so I like to think this isn’t all just coming from a place of jealousy—but as this trend increases, even once affordable classic sportscars values are skyrocketing at a pace that puts even much more modest road-going sportscars out of the budgets of vintage sportscar fans.
I suppose I should have seen this coming in the wake of the Barrett-Jacksonification of the muscle car market. I would sit stunned and watch what seemed to me like fairly ordinary muscle cars change hands for stratospheric sums. It all makes a bit of sense, I guess. I’m sure there have been many, many vintage sportscar owners that have been more than happy that when it came time to sell their pride and joy that they could turn a tidy profit on it. Perhaps that profit would fund a new automotive dream. These profits were bound to be noticed.
Maybe I’m wrong on all of this and these automotive funds are buying these cars to be used. Sure, they see them ultimately as an investment, but there’s no reason it can’t compete at Goodwood or the LeMans Classic while they’re in our care. Even respected collectors who DO use their cars are on board. I can’t help but think though, that they’ll just be stored in vaults; perhaps visited by an occasional mechanic or significant investor or banker, hidden from the public. Not driven. Not owned by loving caretakers that will use them as intended.
It’s like hanging a Vermeer in an empty, unlit storage locker.
Am I being foolish? Or is this a real threat to our passion and community? What do you think?
This Friday, January 28, at 7pm The Trylon Microcinema in Minneapolis will be screening Grand Prix as part of their ‘Color Me Gone’ celebration of racing films.
Naturally, I’ll be there. If any readers want to meet up beforehand, some of the Chicane crew will be holding down the fort starting at 5:30 at The Chatterbox for happy hour. The Chatterbox has a bunch of vintage video gaming systems and you can check out classic Atari, Sega, and Nintendo NES titles from the bar, so some Pole Position seems in order to get us ready for the movie. I’ll have posters from the film series to give away as well. Drop a line in the comments if you’re planning on coming.
This month the celluloid mavens and cinema revivalists at Take Up Productions are hosting Color Me Gone, a series of racing movies at the Trylon Microcinema in Minneapolis. What a marvelous coincidence that MPLS also happens to be The Chicane’s home base. It looks like I’ve already missed the first weekend’s movie, Viva Las Vegas, which is a shame because it is my easily favorite Elvis flick. This weekend the series continues with Smokey and the Bandit and Two-Lane Blacktop. The weekend of January 14th hosts Fast Company. With Vanishing Point starting on Jan. 21.
But then… On January 28, 29, and 30, the Trylon will host Grand Prix. I’ve never had the opportunity to see it on the big(ish) screen and I’m not going to miss the chance now. In fact, if there’s sufficient interest I’ll put together a pre-screening happy hour at a nearby bar before one of the showings. Any Minnesotans (Wisconsinites and Dakotans too!) out there want to join up with other Chicane readers for a pint before Pete Aron, Nino Barlini, Scott Stoddard and Jean-Pierre Sartí take to the streets of Monaco?
I’m sure I’ll be taking in others in the series as well, drop me a line if you’re heading to one.
It’s been far too long since I added an item to the Chicane Shop. Today I’m thrilled to announce the newest shirt in the lineup—our tribute to the golden era in Formula 1 racing.
Maybe your favorite champion is on this list. Maybe he isn’t. But together this era in motorsport was as impassioned and as fierce as in any age of competition. Individually, these are giants. Together, they represent the reasons I—and I’m guessing that many of us—fell in love with historic racing. Together, they represent the pinnacle of motorsport. Is that Phil or Graham? You choose!
Made and printed in the USA. Available today in The Chicane Shop.
For the design nerds among you: Helvetica Bold on Black American Apparel. With a secondary tribute to Experimental Jetset’s oft homaged Beatles shirt.
I am pleased to announce that Mike Jacobsen will be joining The Chicane as a contributing writer. In a sense, Mike has already been a valuable voice on The Chicane for quite some time, he’s easily our most active commenter and has consistently enhanced the conversation on the site.
Mike grew up around sportscar racing; introduced to the sport at an early age by his father, who joined the sporting ranks in an unusual way. Mike says, “My Father, Lars Jacobsen, was hit by a car in a crosswalk in at age 16 in 1932 and had his spleen removed. Because doctors gave him only a few years to live, my Grandfather bought him a Bugatti. He went on to race sprint cars, father me in 1942, and race sports cars throughout the 50s (he lived to be 79)”. Fantastic!
Mike went on to crew for his father’s racing efforts at the wheel of two MG N Magnettes. One of these was converted to a homebuilt racing special, which Mike continues to race to this day. Mike’s own experience as Professor of art history and student of archeology is the perfect crossroads for racing fans—after all, isn’t every great vintage racecar a mixture of art history and archeology?
This is a big day for The Chicane. We finally get to let you in on something that we’ve been dying to share on the blog for some time.
After months of work, we’re finally ready to debut the first pieces of a line of vintage racing inspired clothing. Chicane Trackwear will ultimately include a variety of garments and accessories inspired by our love of vintage racing: everything from our favorite racing models, marques, teams, races, and eras of auto racing history.
The first items are two t-shirts from two very different parts of our vintage racing heritage. The Riverside International Raceway t-shirt is inspired by the early races held at the track in 1957. There are a lot of tracks that we’d like to feature on t-shirt graphics. But for our first, we though it was important to celebrate one of America’s great Lost Tracks. It would be obvious to have a Green Hell shirt, or a Circuito Palermo (and I suspect we’ll have one of each eventually), but celebrating America’s sportscar racing heritage has always been an important part of The Chicane, and there’s not many tracks more missed than Riverside.
The Yamura Motors t-shirt is our way of showing appreciation for the fictional Formula 1 team at the heart of John Frankenheimer’s legendary film, Grand Prix. In a few frames of the movie, you can see the Yamura pit crews gathering around Pete Aron’s machine wearing coveralls with a graphic very like this one. Most people might not understand it; but when someone does it’s magic.
Available exclusively from the newly launched—and soon to expand—Chicane Shop.
