This video of a Porsche 917 lapping is great in a way that most videos I’ve seen of 917s—or any other racing machine, really—usually aren’t. It’s because of what isn’t in it. There’s no damned royalty-free terrible music. There’s no barely understandable commentator over the barely audible track loudspeakers. There’s no clapping or “oohing” and “aahing” from a crowd. There is only that miraculous engine note.
It’s why Victory By Design
But that sound… That sound is crystal clear.
Stance Works photographers visited the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the results are magnificent. Somehow I think that photographers Mike Burroughs and Andrew Ritter made the slightly gloomy weather work to their advantage. Beautiful images. Click on over to Stance Works for the complete gallery.
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An Update on Recent Posts
With less than three days left, the MotorBinder project of archiving and publishing never-before-seen photos of American racing in the ’50s and ’60s has exceeded it’s Kickstarter goal by more than 50%; guaranteeing that the archive will be published. Congratulations, guys! There’s still time to get in on the rewards offered to backers at various levels at the Kickstarter page.
In other crowdfunding news, the Legends of the 70s shirt that we’re organizing at TeeSpring is only one precious shirt order away from its production goal. If you’ve been considering this one, now’s the time. It will only take only one more order to ensure that everyone that has pre-ordered the shirt will get their hands on it. Check out the Tee Spring project page for details and to order.
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Pitwear
It may not be safe but I’m going say that shirt and tie in pit lane is definitely a fashion “do”.
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Paramount Ranch
I typically take this opportunity to ramble on tearily reminisce over the hand illustrated aesthetic of vintage track maps that seems to be lost in the modern era. After all, it’s easier to output a quick render or line art from the track designer’s plans and call it done. Rarely would we think today of commissioning an artist to illustrate a custom map for an event program.
Today, though, I want to focus on something else happening in this image scanned from a Paramount Ranch program. A recent design movement has made me think that all may not be lost; and it’s the wonderful handwritten lettering on this map that helped me notice it. In the past couple of years there has been an enormous resurgence in hand lettering throughout all levels of design.
Why in the age of digital typesetting, when even the most amateur computer user has dozens of fonts at their fingertips, would the professional hand letterer be back in demand? Because it has soul. There’s something behind that ever-so-slightly-wiggly hand lettered headline that hints at a humanity and a playfulness that you just don’t get from perfectly set Helvetica Neue Light. Why couldn’t it also be so for hand drafters or illustrators? This map has soul.
We’ve seen maps from Paramount Ranch before and my sentiment remains exactly the same… Just look at that tunnel.
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A Porsche Log Ride
The log flume was always one of my favorite rides as a kid. I’m glad I can still enjoy it while piloting a Porsche RSK.
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Factories at Work: Alpine
Would you just look at all of those Renault-Alpine A110s. Gorgeous!
Alpine-Renault A110 assembly line 
RenaultSport-Alpine Dieppe Factory
via Motor Trend.
You already know that I love these kinds of projects that highlight amateur and unpublished photography documenting our favorite eras in motorsport. From just the few initial shots shared on the Kickstarter project page the MotorBinder project already looks fantastic.
Even just a few years ago, this kind of project would have been impossible and these photos would have remained on a shelf in their tattered binder. If project organizer Roy Spencer were particularly resourceful, he might have shopped the idea to a motoring publisher or two. Chances are stronger, however, that these photos would have remained unpublished. We might never have been able to see greater insight into the growth in American road racing in the 50s and 60s with images from Torrey Pines, Paramount Ranch, Laguna Seca, Riverside and others. What’s more, the team plan to archive and make these photos available to other projects in the future, even those that don’t make it into the final art book.
As is customary with Kickstarter projects, there are a variety of rewards for backers at varying levels, and these are marvelous. The large format prints available to backers are worth it on their own, that you also get the book makes this one a no brainer.
More information on the Kickstarter page.
Update: with several days to go, MotorBinder has been successfully funded!
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Porsche 550 Spyder Workshop
Just throw your Spyder up on some old saw horses and have yourself a fantastic weekend. I know this is what I wish I was doing tomorrow.
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A T-Shirt Shop Experiment
When you sell shirts like we do in the Chicane Shop, there’s a number of questions that need to be constantly asked and answered: How many of that design do we have left? How many of this new design do we think we’ll need? Will this design sell at all? How many of each size should we order?
All of these questions keep me from putting out more shirts, more often. There are services that print shirts on demand as they’re ordered. But they tend to use direct digital printing to the garment and the quality tends to be poor so I’ve avoided them. A recent service has launched that organizes crowdfunding of quality t-shirt screenprinting.
For those unfamiliar with crowdfunding, the basic system is this: A shirt design is proposed and if a certain threshold of people decide to buy it within a certain amount of time, then the purchases are processed, the shirts are printed, and they’re distributed to all the buyers. If not enough people decide they want it, the shirts never happen and no one is charged anything. Anyone who has followed a project on Kickstarter or Indie Go-Go is familiar with this approach to sales.
I’ve decided to give it a go as an experiment. The result is extending the Legends series of shirts we’ve been selling to include the Legends of the 70s; surely one of the most exciting times in international motorsport with some of the most colorful drivers and dynamic moments in racing. If we get 15 people to commit to purchasing the shirt in the next 2 weeks, the shirts will be printed and distributed. Of course we can sell more than 15 too, so tell your friends.
Here is the link to the sales page for the shirt. Head on over and pick one up.
What does this mean for the future of Chicane shirts? It will let us try more different kinds of shirts, more often. Instead of our typical glacial pace of 1 or 2 shirt designs—and infrequent re-orders—a year, we’ll be able to release one a month or one a week. It will also let us take more risks on the kinds of shirts we design. You wouldn’t believe how conflicted I was when I ordered the first batch of Yamura Motors shirts. Would anyone even understand this? Am I going to be stuck with boxes and boxes of this shirt? That shirt has gone on to be our best seller. A crowdfunding model like this takes some of that worry away and essentially puts those questions to a vote. You get to decide which designs make the cut.