Category: Grand Prix

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Classic Cycle Event Grand Prix

Southsiders Visits the Vintage Revival Montlhéry

1932 Graham 8 Lucenti Indy car at the Montlhery Revival

Last month Southsiders MC‘s Vincent Prat made the short trip up the road to Europe’s second best known banked track for the Vintage Revival Montlhéry. Ok, maybe third best known. Fourth? Whatever. Lucky for us, The Southsiders crew has a fantastic photographic eye for capturing the atmosphere of the event. I’m so glad to see that the vintage spirit that surrounds the Goodwood Revival is spreading to other vintage events with period dress and accessories sharing the stage with the vintage machinery. The shots of the 1932 Graham 8 Lucenti Indy car wouldn’t have half the appeal were the pilot clad in just another contemporary race suit.

Entry to the banking at Montlhéry

It looks like a remarkable assemblage of machines were on-hand for the weekend, including machines that traveled from the Brooklands and Hockenheim museums—some returning to Montlhéry for the first time since they were actively racing pre-1940. Wonderful! You aren’t likely to see a better collection of Bugattis on any grid in the world. Looks like another to add to the ever-expanding list of events to attend in the future.

1932 Indy car at the Vintage Revival Montlhéry 2013

Click on through for Vincent’s recap and the rest of his fantastic photos from the event.

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Grand Prix Historic Racing Photos

Grand Prix Cars Thunder Through the 1939 World's Fair

What a sight it must have been, particularly for Stateside attendees of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Grand Prix cars were never a common site on American shores and the images of these racers bounding through the grounds must have been thrilling to see. Imagine the sounds that would have been echoing off of those arches as they blast through them, inches from the support columns. Makes my annual trip to the Minnesota State Fair seem positively sedate.

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Ferrari Grand Prix Video

Ron Howard’s Rush Trailer Released

If the trailer is anything to go on, Ron Howard has taken his look at the rivalry between Hunt and Lauda very seriously. Even better, there are darn few obvious uses of CGI racing in these clips. I don’t know why Hollywood can make perfectly realistic dinosaurs or Gollum, but every instance of CGI auto chases plows straight into uncanny valley and looks like crap.

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Ferrari Grand Prix Racing Drivers Video

Onboard with Fangio at Monaco

These weren’t little GoPros hanging off of the Maestro’s Lancia. Each of these cameras had to be loaded with film, started up, and run a few laps. Then they had to do it again and again so that you don’t see the giant camera in the other angles. It’s easy to dismiss the complexity of these earlier onboard films when we can easily toss a half-dozen or more digital video cameras on a car at every possible angle. It’s part of what makes early onboard footage so precious.

Looking through the slow motion montages in this clip, I have to believe it was part of the inspiration for Saul Bass’s racing sequences in Grand Prix.

via Retro Formula 1

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Grand Prix Historic Racing Photos

A Nearly Private Grand Prix

Rudolf Caracciola at Coppa Ciano

When I see images like this one of Rudolf Caracciola in his Mercedes-Benz W154 at the 1938 Copa Ciano, I am both energized by it and saddened.

Imagine the cacophony reverberating off the buildings of this narrow alley in Livorno, Italy. Imagine the show that this handful of people are having as they peer out from entryways and lean out of windows along the Montenero Circuit. It’s almost an intimate moment captured between driver and spectator as Rudolf glances up from his racing line and makes eye contact with a racing fan poking his head out of a doorway.

It’s most noticeable in the restrictions on pit access, but these opportunities for racing driver and enthusiast to connect are just as lost during the race as before and after. The farther and farther we push fans from the action—for good reasons, as Daytona recently pointed out—the more isolated the driver is from the fan.

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Grand Prix Racing Drivers Video

Plump, Dapper, and Charming

I’m not entirely sure that Alberto Ascari would have loved Murray Walker’s introduction in this clip from Walker’s F1 Greats. Once the stats start rolling in I’m sure the mood would have lightened. Tremendous.

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Grand Prix

A Driver's Work is Never Done

Not a terrible day at the office for Brabham, Surtees, Hill, and Clark.

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Grand Prix Historic Racing Photos

Pioneers in Racing Air Conditioning

Carlo Felice Trossi at the 1934 Nice GP
Stirling Moss in a Rob Walker Lotus 18 at the 1961 Monaco GP

Why swelter under the hot summer sun when you can have a cool breeze soothing you on a Sunday drive? Carlo Felice Trossi in his Alfa at the 1932 Nice GP and Moss in his Rob Walker Lotus 18 at 1961’s Monaco GP demonstrate.

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Ferrari Grand Prix Historic Racing Photos

Between a Barrel and a Soft Place

1955 New Zealand GP

I think one of the things I like most about historic motorsport is the makeshift facilities. New Zealand didn’t have a purpose-built racing course to host this GP in 1955, but did it stop them? No.

Prince Bira’s 250F Maserati (#1) was perfectly welcome to mix it up on the runways of Ardmore Airport with Lex Davison’s HWM-Jaguar (#77) and Tony Gaze’s Ferrari (#4) just the same. Sure, there’s good reason why 55-gallon drums and haybales don’t serve as today’s racing course construction but there’s a spirit of improvisation that I appreciate.

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Ferrari Grand Prix Historic Racing Photos

Imperfect

Raymond Sommer at the 1950 Pau GP

Blurry photo. Poorly reproduced. Beautiful.

No level of crystal clear photography and high resolution printing could improve upon this shot of Raymond Sommer drifting his Ferrari 125 at the 1950 Pau GP.