Category: Classic Sportscar

Rick sent in a link to this photo on the Anaheim Historical Society blog and I’m glad he did.

Even though the Austin-Healey 100 in the foreground is hardly identifiable to the casual observer, it is a vital part of the image. I know that because this was no casual snapshot by a pedestrian on the curb. This is a Julius Shulman photograph, who knows a thing or two about capturing an image of a piece of architecture. The gloved driver (captured here in her own car) is the wife of one of the Mobil station’s architects Whitney Smith or Wayne Williams.

Why did Schulman compose the image in this way? The Healey does help frame the photograph and give it some context while showing it in use. For me though, I immediately notice the design cues of the Austin-Healey; particularly one of my all-time favorite elements of automotive design—a feature that I’m surprised never became more popular in mid-century sportscar design: the folding windscreen. Something magical happens when you fold the Healey’s windscreen from the more upright touring mode to the raked, nearly flat racing angle. It is a sort of “call to arms” that must have been a thrilling ritual for many a Healey driver.

But perhaps that’s part of what Schulman intended with this photo. Pairing a modern piece of automotive design with an equally modern architectural nod to the automobile’s service. It makes me wonder if part of why recent automotive design has started to falter. Maybe there’s an unconsciously necessary balance of design and as the design of gas stations suffer, everything around it must fall to an equal level. After all, when a gas station can look this beautiful doesn’t your car need to follow suit?

Check out Rick’s restoration journal of his Healey BJ7 (future Reader Restoration, Rick?) and read more about this wonderful photograph at the Anaheim Historical Society.

Damnit. Rest in peace, chicken farmer. More at Speed and the New York Times.
Love this anecdote from that Times article.

“Bill Neale, an automotive artist who illustrated Shelby’s designs, once recalled for Vanity Fair that when Shelby assembled his first Cobra, he painted it yellow and had it photographed for the cover of Sports Car Graphic. The next day he showed another magazine what seemed to be an identical car, colored red.
“I said, ‘You have two of them?’ ” Neale recalled. “And he said, ‘Nah, we just painted it so they think we have two.’ ”

And Bill Cosby’s routine on Carroll and his machines is always worth a listen. (Thanks RossLH)

And, for reasons I can’t quite explain, I hope this article is true.

I can only imagine what it must feel like to look in your rear view mirror and see that the ’66 Corvette you were pulling has fallen off your trailer and your beloved machine is now traveling down the freeway driverless. That unfortunate scenario played out on a stretch of I-35 in Texas.

Corvette Forum member Sonny557 was there to see it go down:

“So I am watching in my mirror as his 66 is rolling along the highway with no driver !!! It slowly reaches the grassy part of the shoulder and slows down somewhat before going into a concrete drain and goes on for several more feet before coming to a stop. Miraculously only the whitewall had a major scuff mark on it, the car had no scratches or rash!!”

Sounds like the owner was pretty nonchalant about it, just hopped in an drove to the next exit. I might have fallen to me knees in euphoria.

Click on over for the complete story, and double-check triple-check your tie-downs.
Hat tip to TurretOpera’s post on Reddit for digging this one up.

Ian Claridge’s blog turned me on to this post at Zonkey Boot (a shoe design blog (!), which only confirms my belief that the lines of classic racing cars transcend design boundaries) concerning an amazing set of photographs shot by Bernhard Angerer for an exhibit at the Vienna Technical Museum in 2007. This photo of a Bugatti 51 in bare metal is what really drew me in. At first, I thought it was simply the uncommon image of a Bugatti stripped bare that captivated me so. I’m used to seeing the Bugatti Grand Prix cars and Voiturettes in their classic French racing blue liveries, but the bare metal made me focus on the 51’s lines in a new way.

The photo itself, though, especially when viewed among the others in the set, is a marvelous achievement. Angerer manages the difficult task of getting just the right amount of light reflected without making the cars look glossier than they really are.

Click on over to Zonkey Boot for more photos and a conversation with the photographer.