After you’ve finished restoring your vintage sportscar, after you’ve accessorized it in period options, after you’ve carefully placed your “Last Open Road” decal on the rear window, you’re ebay searches are likely to turn to some of the rarer accessories for your ride; the factory luggage. Manufacturers continue the tradition today and everyone from Ferrari to Porsche to Mercedes offers, at prices to match the cars, custom luggage designed to fit precisely in the diminutive trunk.
Don’t fret if you can’t find the original Triumph dealer bag to fit under the bonnet of your TR3. Austrian specialty luggage maker Jochen 70 has released a line of bags designed to fit in your classic, and look appropriate doing it. You can even order with your choice of colored racing stripes to match your livery. Following in the tradition of specialty motoring luggage, sadly, is the expense. Their launch bag, available only to participants of this year’s Mille Miglia and customized with the driver’s name and car number, are available for €1,000. Yeesh.
Let’s hope the expense is simply the Mille Miglia Driver tax and that once the final line is available, it’ll be so at a variety of price points.
From 1967—1970, American comic book publishers Charlton Comics published Grand Prix comics. They were a hilariously pulpy series of short graphic stories featuring dashing racing drivers dodging murderous rivals on the track and beautiful women off the track. I happened across an issue recently and just had to share this frame with you. I want it blown up to wallpaper size to cover my bedroom wall.
With the unexpected popularity of the Japanese cartoon Speed Racer pulling young boys to television sets around the world, it makes perfect sense that a series of comic books would follow. I sure would have spent 12¢ on an issue.
Interestingly, Grand Prix comics started with issue #16, having evolved from an earlier Charlton car culture series, Hot Rod Racers. I can imagine the boardroom at Charlton volleying for which motor culture to adopt as these things go in and out of fashion. What came after 1970? Chopper Comics, perhaps.
There are a handful of copies for sale on Ebay right now; some of which even have their opening bids starting at the cover price. With so few issues, I can’t imagine it would be too hard to collect the entire run. They’re certainly good for a laugh.
The upcoming online auction at l’Arte et l’Automobile offers some fantastic opportunities to do some armchair racing at 33rpm. The auto racing album is a bit of an anomaly, at once so antiquated and of-the-moment. These audio recordings put us right in the racing seat while at the same time putting in the head of a 12 year old racing fan appreciating these recordings again and again. They’re a simple reminder of the days before HD television put races live in our living rooms and we could only absorb the international sportscar scene by reading the race reports, attending a Grand Prix when it happened to be near enough, and staying up late into the night in a darkened bedroom flipping this record over again and again to imagine yourself behind the wheel. Bidding starts on June 17, with the gavel falling on July 15.
Booij’s ‘Maximum Mini’ collects in 500 photos on 128 pages a masterful group of Mini based cars; from coachbuilt one-offs to production based racers, to simple fiberglass rebodies. Some of these are absolutely remarkable looking little machines.
I particularly like the Deep Sanderson 301, a GT bodied little beast that competed at the ’63 LeMans. It’s a terribly beautiful little racer, but sadly its race record failed to live up to the promise of her bodywork. She DNFed at LeMans—and every other major sportscar race the team entered. But that doesn’t take away from the sheer beauty of the thing.
Several years back at the Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival, I spotted a curious little rebodied Mini racer, the Unipower GT and was immediately drawn to it’s lines and proportions that, from a distance, made it see a much bigger and meaner machine than it’s Mini bones would suggest. One of 75 built, the little yellow machine was as much a pleasure to the ears as the eyes. The Unipower faired slightly better in the world of sportscar racing, with a career best of a 14th at the Trophée des Ardennes Spa 500km. Unipower GTs were entered in a number of major races (Sebring, Targa Florio, LeMans), but either crashed out early or failed to make the race distance. I’m not sure if Jeroen covers the Unipower in his book, but it’s hard to believe it wouldn’t be in there—this truly seems to be the final authority on Mini specials. Actually, that little yellow number in the lower-right on the cover looks like a Unipower, so I think that answers that question.
I’m afraid it’s true. My car sickness extends beyond the cars themselves; beyond the posters and the slot cars and the models and books. Now I’m sick with places to keep it all. I’m sure this isn’t news to most of you. This is practically a support-group for people with automotive illness.
As a result, I find myself from time to time wading through the projects at the Garage Journal forums. Most of the garages are the stuff of pure fantasy. Pole barns and hangars and “Garage Mahals” of endless square footage. Recently a call was put out on the forum for a return to normalcy—or at least a reduction in envy. “Let’s see your 2 car garage”, seems like a normal enough request.
Jack Olsen stepped up with a fantastic space to house his marvelous track car: a ’73 911 RSR tribute. The car is a beauty; built on a ’72 911 chassis, the engine bay hides a 993 power plant mated to a ’77 transaxle. She’s light too, with fiberglass bodywork and Lexan windows. Plus I’m just a sucker for the duck tail. He’s done a wonderful job on it. Especially after a decent smashup with the tire wall forced him to rethink things a bit (see the link above for the grisly photos).
But let’s look again at this great little 440 square foot car hole. I love the color palette and it’s a smart use of the space. These colors and cabinets remind me a lot of hanging out with my grandfather in his lawnmower repair shop. Does it seem like everything used to be that shade of Stanley Thermos meets Dickies coveralls green?
I also like John’s clever use of reclaimed cabinets, folding workspaces, and the idea of isolating the air compressor in the crawlspace probably helps conversations in the space. Mostly though, I like that this garage feels homemade and not like a swarm of garage contractors breezed in and manufactured perfection on the spot. It looks cared for and crafted.
Finally I can reset my garage fantasies to come back to reality a bit. Good job, Jack.
If this jacket didn’t have the modern Aston-Martin logo on it, I’d already be wearing it. It’s dead solid perfect. Even more than Shell’s Magic of Motoring collection, this year’s clothing collection that classic British menswear label Hackett has created for Aston Martin’s LeMans effort embodies the kind of vintage-racing inspired clothing I’d like to see more of. The Aston Martin Racing Motoplan Jacket is available from Hackett’s online store for £300 alongside the rest of their Aston-Martin line.
The 59 on the chest, of course, commemorates Carroll Shelby and Roy Salvatori’s surprise victory for Aston-Martin in 1959 behind the wheel of a DBR1. This year, Aston is hoping to take outright victory again, and with Audi heavily scaling back it’s racing effort this year, it’ll be their best chance yet.
Californians! Get up to Riverside this weekend (March 27-29) for the Legends of Riverside Film Festival. I’m quite envious and saddened that I won’t be able to attend what looks like a fantastic schedule of racing films; many of which I’ve never seen or even heard of.
It’s not all esoterics, of course, also on the schedule are the Canon of car nerd films, including LeMans, Winning, Death Race 2000, Thunder Road, and the Big Wheel. There will also be a special tribute to Paul Newman and his incredible history as a racer and actor.
Can-Am and F5000 cars will be featured on display and special guests include Pete Lyons, Bruce Kessler, and Dan Gurney. Holy smokes!
I may not be able to attend, but I’ll have to support by screening a few of my favorite flicks this weekend.
Shell has picked up the flag planted by Grand Prix Originals in offering a wide series of garments and accessories that evoke the history of Shell’s racing effort (in particular, their sponsorship of Jochen Rindt) under the name Magic of Motoring. Perhaps the standout of the collection is this LM Jacket, named for the Ferrari 275 LM that Jochen Rindt brilliantly piloted to victory in the 1965 24 Hours of LeMans.
It’s damn-near perfectly executed and if your friends don’t know any better, they’d believe it was dead-stock vintage sewn in ’66. The details are what really make it, from the small X-100 racing fuel patch on the breast, to the vintage Shell logo, to the “5 cans” graphic on the lining; it’s truly a splendid jacket. Unfortunately it’s not on my immediate purchase list for 2 reasons. 1: £160 is a touch steep for a cotton jacket. More importantly in my case is reason 2; it’s white, which means it would be stained about 20 minutes after I put it on for the first time. That being said, it’s a spectacularly realized version of the type of garments I’d like to see more of: Garments that not only commemorate vintage racing, but look period-appropriate. No airbrushed or heavily Photoshop filtered racecar shirts for me, thank you.
While the price on that jacket is a touch high, it’s not so high that I wouldn’t still consider it. An easier sell, though, is a very nice series of T-shirts. Certainly more affordable, they’re well designed and, like the jacket, look fairly period-appropriate. Although T-shirts as anything but undershirt weren’t popular at the time, the graphic and print method employed on these shirts look like it could have come from the ’60s. Naturally, my affinity for 500cc Formula 3 cars is coming through as I pick this shirt honoring the 1950 500cc International Race as my favorite. Each is inspired by the photography and illustrations that made up the series of “Shell Successes” booklets published in the ’60s to commemorate victories by competitors in all series of motorsport using Shell fuel. Good Stuff.
I would be remiss if I also didn’t point out the one thing that makes this series particularly appealing to vintage racers. They also offer a fully FIA compliant race suit in an equally appealing vintage style. Similar to the LM Jacket, it features a small X-100 breast patch, shell logo, and red stripes down the arms. It is also available with custom embroidered name panel on the opposite breast. It looks every bit as authentic as Dunlop Blues for your race weekends.
