Sunbeam at the ’64 Geneva Rally with bonus LeMans clips.
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Author: Harlo
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Just a Pile of Tools
The late 60’s were a fascinating time for racing. I think I’m most drawn to the era because—for better or for worse—it was such a transformative period. Perhaps nowhere was this more true than in Porsche’s Le Mans pits. We were, after all, on the verge of a ridiculous procession of Porsche Le Mans wins throughout the 70’s and 80’s.
But look at this photo from the Porsche garages in 1969. The boys from Stuttgart had their hands full with the early 917s and the holdout 908s. These were state-of-the-art machines from a racing workshop that was starting to share more with the aviation industry of the time than the auto industry.
But look at these tools! My grandfather’s mower repair shop was better equipped than this. No pneumatics. No carefully sorted trays of perfectly polished stainless. There’s no apparent sorting of the wrenches by size. Hell, the sockets are just laying out! It’s just a pile of mismatched tools on an old plank of wood.
It’s part of why I love this transitional time so much. In many ways, it was old dogs with new tricks. Fresh technology and traditional skills. New engineering by old shop-hands. I’m sure, like always, I’m romanticizing things too much but this image strikes such a chord with me about the era. And it doesn’t even have a car in it.
Also, what I wouldn’t do for one of these jackets.
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Tunnel Vision?
I’ve seen countless images of the Grand Prix legends of the 1960s with a bit of gaffers tape obscuring part of their goggles. I never really thought about it until I saw this rather extreme example of Graham Hill’s. Does anyone know why they did this? Was covering the top half of the goggles done to block out the sun? Was it to isolate the extreme motion of items in their peripheral vision? Was it simply to strengthen the goggles themselves?
The STILETTO, shown trimmed. Body widths: Front 54 in. Rear, 53in. Also the SCIMITAR, identical design, wheelbase 6ft. 1 in. to 6 ft. 5 in.
Fibreglass Body Shells £49. Bare shell, untrimmed. For wheelbases of 6ft. 11 in. to 6ft. 9in.
Kits for experimental work or body repairs: 12/6, 17/6, 28/6, and 45/-.
The Mistral
£58. Bare shell untrimmed. Designed for Space-Frame or Twin-Tube-type chassis of 7ft. 3in. to 7 ft. 6 in. wheelbase.
Dept. MS7.
Micron Plastics (Microplas LTD.)
Block N. The James Estate, Western Road. Mitcham, Surrey
Telephone: Mitcham 4407
Head over to SportsIllustrated.com today and run a search for “SCCA”, you’ll find that there isn’t a single article about this year’s racing season. The only article that even mentions the term is about a retired basketball player that owns a Sprint Cup team. It’s almost difficult to imagine an era when back-yard engineers and amateur racers would be featured in a multi-page spread in America’s premier sporting magazine.
Reading the article though, it starts to fall victim to the same pitfalls that today’s mainstream press does when it bothers to cover motorsports: A focus on the personalities and the celebrities attending events. “The meet that doesn’t produce a bosomy Hollywood starlet to top off the black oil grime on the faces of the winners with a scarlet smear of lipstick is impoverished indeed.”
It’s an admittedly short piece, but this photograph of Chuck Daigh’s Troutman-Barnes special trailing Pete Woods’ D-Type Jag more than makes up for any puffery in the text. Also funny now to see Richie Ginther identified as “Ferrari Salesman” and not as the racing legend he would become.
FScheff has the article scanned over on his Riverside page.
Previously: Sports Illustrated’s Racing Covers.
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Early 70s Vees at Holtville
Clementeski, the YouTube uploader, says, “this is from the old HAIR (aerodrome) days. Not sure of the exact date, but it was probably the winter series ’73 or ’74.”
It never hurts to watch Formula Vee. It’s one of my favorite series for tight battles.
There’s always a lot of passing and repassing in one of the few series that actually managed to keep cars pretty balanced. Keeping the cars evenly matched is a great opportunity to see some serious development of driver skill. Even in today’s vintage runs, they keep together well and don’t become a parade. Hell, NASCAR drivers could learn about drafting from these dudes. Plus, it’s nice to see a clip from the disused WWII era bomber training strip at Holtville, CA in her racing prime.
You can almost see Senna’s passion and drive through his helmet—and his years.
Whenever I stumble across these old ads and catalogs I’m reminded how temporal value is. It seems obvious, of course, that today’s highly collectible and rare racing part or accessory was yesterday’s common off-the-shelf product. Today any of these dash-mounted Heuer timers would cause a bidding frenzy on eBay or Pelican Parts. In 1960 one of them could have been yours for about fifty bucks.
I’m reminded of a scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark which describes this phenomenon so wonderfully. The villain, René Belloq, holds up a pocket watch and says, “Look at this. It’s worthless. Ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless! Like the Ark. Men will kill for it; men like you and me.”
Now I don’t think anyone is going to kill for a Heuer dash timer. Maybe give it a few more years.
See the complete catalog at On the Dash.
Stefan wrote in to tell me about his latest wonderful automotive art project. Each day leading up to December 24th, he’s releasing a different postcard-sized pencil and watercolor sketch. If I know Stefan’s stuff, they’re bound to all be fantastic. But then he does us all one better—he’s selling the original piece each day through his new Etsy store for a paltry £24. The images above are the releases for December 1 and 2—each with their respective racing number. Fun!
Hey Stefan, if you do one, set aside the Porsche 550 one for me, eh? 😉
Check Stefan Marjoram’s sketch blog for the fresh calendar item daily, and try to be the first to that Etsy shop each day.
Clothing entrepreneur and car guy par excellence Magnus Walker has the early Porsche 911 bug. Bad. Real Bad. Thankfully, he’s created a pair of threads on the Early 911S Registry and on Pelican Parts as a sort of support group for the rest of us afflicted with this dreaded obsession to help him through it. If you’re a fan of early 911s—and why wouldn’t you be?—head on over to both threads and marvel in the glory.
Edit: Hmm.. it looks like the video has been pulled from Vimeo. Alas. I’m leaving the include here in case it resurfaces.
Edit 2: The video is back online! Re-embedded for your viewing driving pleasure.