Categories
Classic Sportscar Historic Racing Photos

Triumph's LeMans Digs

Factory Triumphs at Hotel de France
Factory Triumphs at Hotel de France garagesI suspect that photo opportunity that the entrance provided was not the key decision factor for the Triumph Works team when they chose the Hotel de France as their accommodations for LeMans in 1963 and 1964, but it may as well have been. I often prattle on about the lack of pit access and being able to wander amongst the teams and cars before or after the races, but this… this is something else.
Whether the factory cars were just pulled out in front of the hotel for a quick photo and then tucked back into transporters or garages and out of prying eyes, or whether they just sat out front, I don’t know. I like to think it’s the latter. The idea of the team cars just sitting out for a night before one last shakedown run on the hour drive to La Sarthe is too wonderful a notion to not daydream about.


Incidentally, Hotel de France’s Facebook page seems to demonstrate their continuing close relationship with vintage motoring and frequently hosts classic car tours.
Photos via Hotel de France. Thanks for sending these in, Willem!

Categories
Racing Ephemera

Does Shell Still do These?

Shell Successes 1954
Shell Successes 1960



They should.

Categories
Classic Sportscar Racing Ephemera

Petrolicious Visits RM Wilson Engineering

Wilsons Garage

Close your eyes and imagine your perfect racing workshop.
I suspect that no two of you have the same image in your heads. For some of you, it’s a pristine Garage Life-ready half museum, half garage. A few of you have a neon-bedazzled, diner-inspired, American Graffiti-esque explosion of color. For some, it’s a humble pole barn and a lift. Hell, Garage Journal is filled with hundreds of different takes on seeking perfection in automotive spaces.

This series of photographs of Bob Wilson’s shop that Amy Shore shot for Petrolicious comes as close as I think I’m ever likely to see of the image I have in my mind. Not overly sterile; not overly bright; just a cozy little hobbit hole of a workshop with just the right tools and just the right cars to work on. And that unassuming brickwork just visible outside the shop… Gorgeous.

You really owe it to yourself to click over to Petrolicious for the whole series.

Categories
Vintage Racing Advertising

The Same Kind You Can Install

Dana Piston Rings ad

16 straight wins for Perfect Circle piston rings at the Indianapolis “500”
No other piston rings made match the win record of Perfect Circle at Indianapolis. In 31 of the last 37 years, Perfect Circle helped give “500” winners the extra margin of full power performance it takes to enter victory lane. And the the PC piston rings used by these champions were not specially made for racing. They were standard sets—the same kind you can install! What’s more, every qualifier in last year’s “500” also used Perfect Circle Valve Seals. So take a tip from the experts. When you re-ring, insist on Perfect Circle.
Perfect Circle
Dana Parts Company • Dana Corporation

Categories
Lost Track Video

Unseen Racing Footage: Santa Ana Road Races. May, 1960

More marvelous scenes from El Salvador’s racing scene. Shot by Dr. Carlos Alvarez and provided to the Chicane by George Kehler, the little-seen footage of the 1960 running of the Santa Ana races on the streets of El Salvador has some fantastic vintage Formula Libre racing action.

Keep an eye peeled for two Porsche RSK Spyders driven by Americans David Lane (in the white RSK) and Chuck Cassel (in silver). Whether word of San Salvador’s racing scene had finally made it up to the States, or if Chuck and David were just hitting everything they could in the hemisphere, I don’t know. But I can’t help that think that he saw the writing on the wall for street courses and wanted in while he could.

By 1960, street racing was all but done in the USA, but it’s likely from Chuck Cassell’s participation at this race in San Salvador, and in Nassau two months earlier, that he must have wanted a taste of the thrill of true road racing before it disappeared entirely.

These scenes both demonstrate why street courses are so amazing, and why they’re so very dangerous. Getting around these simple roads is, for me (and I think many of you agree), the purest form of racing. But those curbs and surface changes and light poles and, oh yes, surging throngs of spectators wandering much to far onto the racing line, make it clear that the format was meant for extinction.

More from the Alvarez/Kehler archives here.

Categories
Video

Triumph at the 24

Let’s ride along with team Triumph at the 1961 LeMans 24 Hours race, shall we? I don’t know why every TR4 owner doesn’t have their car painted in this livery. That huge gumball on the rear decklid is such a bold graphic statement that it makes other early-60s racing graphics immediately look so stodgy by comparison.

You know that I love seeing this track action, but the first segment of the film in the pits almost does more to place me in the era. After all, we’ll be able to attend events and see many of these very cars race again, but will be ever be able to wander the pits like this? Just another reason why I hope Goodwood’s ethos of embracing the entire era catches on with more vintage racing events.

Thanks for sending this one in, Mandy!

Categories
Historic Racing Photos

You OK Up There?

Major Peter Braid had quite a ride during this Formula 3 race at Blandford Army camp in August 1949.
Presumably Braid had some flight experience because I can think of no other way he might have gotten his F3 Cooper up on the guardroom house, but apparently a bus stop and a tree gave him a boost along the way.

Categories
Vintage Racing Advertising

Sign of the Gulf Orange Disc

Jaguar Gulf Oil AdEven if you went all-out to get your XK-E 2+2, you still don’t need the most expensive motor oil.
Just the best.
Now that you’ve put yourself behind the wheel of this luxurious cat, you’ll want to give it some extra loving care. This means picking a really fine motor oil. Like ours. Gulfpride® Single-G. Using tests established by auto makers, we constantly check Gulfpride Single-G for its ability to protect against wear, scuffing, rusting, deposit formation, and clogging. Gulfpride far surpasses the requirements of car makers in these tests. Recent tests show Gulfpride Single-G performance equals or exceeds that of four leading competitive premium motor oils. (And one of them costs 25¢ a quart more than Gulfpride.) Get the best protection for your engine. Get Gulfpride wherever you see the Sign of the Gulf Orange Disc.

Categories
Grand Prix Porsche Video

Formula 1 Cars are Fast

That sounds more than a bit obvious of course. But this clip is a rare opportunity to give you some basis of comparison. Of course, we usually only see Formula 1 cars being driven around other Formula 1 cars. One is a few tenths faster than another, but what are these machines like when running next to something we know, like a typical econobox, or even a high performance road car? McLaren answers in this unusual scenario they hosted at Estoril in February of 1991.

Here’s the setup: Gareth Rees leaves the starting grid in a 1.6 liter Honda Concert. 20 seconds later, Alan McNish leaves the grid in a Porsche 911 Turbo. For the next 55 seconds, we watch McNish catch up to Rees. What seems like an eternity (1 minute 15 seconds) after the Honda started the 2 1/2 mile lap, Ayrton Senna departs in his McLaren. A minute later, and still on the first lap, Senna passes them both.

It seems like a foregone conclusion that he would, but watching that McLaren’s closing speed on the road cars really highlights how an F1 machine is just an entirely different animal from a road car.

Final Lap Times:

1) Ayrton Senna – McLaren – 1:14:00
2) Alan McNish – Porsche – 2:08:00
3) Gareth Rees – Honda – 2:28:00
via McLaren Soul

Categories
Historic Racing Photos Racing Ephemera

Let’s Get This Going Again

Unfortunately this clipping from Popular Mechanics didn’t include the build blueprints. Anyone have one of these in their attic and want to restart the series?