Have I told you lately how much I love it when people digitize their old 8mm footage of races? Just look at the clips from the pits of the Hippie 917 with its cover still sitting on it carelessly. Just look at the Ferraris being lowered from the truck. Just look at the sheer madness of the flares on the class winning Greder/Rouget Corvette.
Just. look. at. it. And that’s all before the opening parade.
I’m sort of surprised that Wes Anderson hasn’t bitten this dude’s lap update compositions.
Clear the next two hours from your calendar, pour yourself a beer, and watch Jackie Stewart’s Tyrrell get airborne on the Nordschleife.
via Pistonheads
Every season I try and give F1 another shot. But more and more I find myself hoping for another series to follow. Something more accessible. Something more inclusive of its fans. Something…. different.
I guess I’ve just never quite forgiven F1 for the 2005 USGP farce.
This footage from various running of Sicily’s non-championship Grand Prix of Syracuse only fuels my desire for a racing series that’s about the race and not the championship. Can you imagine contemporary non-championship races for Formula 1? Or even a reinvigorated Formula 2 (or, better yet, 3). The idea of Moss and Fangio and Ascari and, later, Siffert and Clark running alongside hometown hero local entrants sounds thrilling. The advances in racing technology at the top-levels makes this kind of thing all but impossible today—the notion of a wealthy enthusiast dropping in at Ferrari and buying a customer F1 car is almost laughable. But these images remind me that this type of participation was once commonplace.
Silver Arrows hitting over 200 mph on the straights at AVUS. That seems impossibly fast for 1937 but maybe I’m just underestimating the arrows. Hard to imagine that today’s Formula 1 is no faster than it was 75 years ago.
(Some marvelous footage of the same year’s action in the States at the end of this clip.)
When last October’s auction of Suzy Dietrich’s lifetime of mementos from her remarkable racing career drew to a close, I thought we might have lost a great possibility to release her archive of film into the world. For all we knew at the time, a collector had snatched up these precious film cans only for them to be viewed once or twice and sealed away in the deep wells of a closed collection.
You can imagine the sigh of relief I experienced when friend of the blog and occasional contributor, Cliff Reuter announced that he had won several of the film auctions and started to digitize and release them on Etceterini. Thank goodness!
The above is but a taste and Cliff says that there’s more to come, check his Suzy Dietrich video page on Etceterini.com.
Settle down, class. Now take your seats. Mosport 101 is about to begin.
thanks, @Pete_Aron.
Lovely footage from Italy’s Circuito Reggio Calabria in 1953.
Magnificent to see all these little etceterini in action. Seger doesn’t hurt either.
This is what it looks like when your GT40 is being off-loaded on a Brizilian dock in 1969. I’m sure there were some nervous folks on the docks that day watching this incredible machine twisting in the air high over the deck of the ship. Tense moments for sure. This footage is of GT40 chassis GT/40P 1083, currently on offer from Fantasy Junction. She looks as beautiful and determined today as when she was winning races for Sidney Cardoso and his Colegio Arte e Instrucao (C.A.I.) Racing team.
More information and a TON of photos on Fantasy Junction’s detail page. Thanks for the heads up, Paul!
I’ve watched this Giorgio Oppici tribute to BMW several times, and each time I pause and silently digest what a glorious set of images I’ve taken in… And then I pick up my jaw and watch it again.
The advent of affordable high definition video cameras and dSLRs has been a boon to the world of web video. I’m not about to claim that it’s just the quality of the gear that makes it possible—Oppicci would have doubtless been an astoundingly good cinematographer with nothing but a pinhole camera; but putting affordable high-quality gear in the hands of more filmmakers lets them better realize their vision and push the outer edges of the craft’s potential.
Simply gorgeous work.
For the first time in a long time I missed last year’s Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival. I must subconsciously still be kicking myself over it since I found myself wandering through YouTube clips from the 2011 event. Thankfully, Jeffrey uploaded this clip from the Group 10 (Formula Vee and Fords—among others) session to help get me through the winter.
Jeffrey says: “This was my second race weekend in my 1969 Lynx B. I qualified 11th on the grid (7th in the Formula Vee class) and finished 8th (4th in the FV class).”
Not bad. Not bad at all.