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Chicane News

Welcome Mike Jacobsen to The Chicane

I am pleased to announce that Mike Jacobsen will be joining The Chicane as a contributing writer. In a sense, Mike has already been a valuable voice on The Chicane for quite some time, he’s easily our most active commenter and has consistently enhanced the conversation on the site.

Mike grew up around sportscar racing; introduced to the sport at an early age by his father, who joined the sporting ranks in an unusual way. Mike says, “My Father, Lars Jacobsen, was hit by a car in a crosswalk in at age 16 in 1932 and had his spleen removed. Because doctors gave him only a few years to live, my Grandfather bought him a Bugatti. He went on to race sprint cars, father me in 1942, and race sports cars throughout the 50s (he lived to be 79)”. Fantastic!

Mike went on to crew for his father’s racing efforts at the wheel of two MG N Magnettes. One of these was converted to a homebuilt racing special, which Mike continues to race to this day. Mike’s own experience as Professor of art history and student of archeology is the perfect crossroads for racing fans—after all, isn’t every great vintage racecar a mixture of art history and archeology?

Welcome aboard, Mike!

Categories
Vintage Racing Advertising

Austin Healey Sprite, Now with Girlings

“The disc brakes fitted to the Sprite were masters of the situation under all conditions and their high speed behaviour was beyond criticism”

Call me crazy, but I actually find the hyperbole of this ad copy charming. Not to mention the tremendous graphic fantasticness of the Girling “G” logo.

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Classic Cycle Video

Catalina Grand Prix

As soon as you see all those racer bikes crammed onto the ferry boat dock, you know it’s going to be good.

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Event Ferrari Porsche

Vive la France!

Meals and Wheels took part in the Tour Auto 2010 and captured some absolutely stunning images. Gaby has a fantastic eye for everything from the details of the cars collected in the shadow the Eiffel Tower for the kickoff event to the battles for the checkers at Magny-Cours and everything in between. She photographed the event beautifully. I’d heard the name Tour Auto mentioned here and there, but never realized what a fantastic collection of cars assembled for the part rally, part race, part rolling car show.

What a tremendous event, starting in Paris before heading south to the Mediterranean with stops in Fontainebleau, Vichy, Lyon, Megéve, Aix en Provence; with a spin or two around such storied French racetracks as Magny-Cours, Charade, and Circuit de Bresse. And from the looks of it, these are no mere parade laps. Fantastique! Gaby’s shots capture the amazing field that takes on the event, with some of the most desirable and rare vehicles collected in such numbers that you almost forget how very rare they are.

It looks like an astounding experience; as if the Carrera Panamericana stopped for additional course races along the way. I’ve just added it to my “must do someday” list alongside Goodwood and the Mille Miglia. For now though, I’m happy just to live the event through these fantastic photos.

Head on over for the complete set.

Categories
Historic Racing Photos Porsche

In the Pits at the Targa

A wonderful view in any year.

Categories
Grand Prix Racing Ephemera

A New Movie About F1 from ‘68 – ‘82 to Hit Screens in 2011

A big budget film about F1, complete with Oscar winning writers and directors, is set for release in 2011.

Here is the blurb from Autosport

An officially sanctioned Formula 1 movie is set to hit the cinema screens early next year after a landmark deal was reached with the sport’s commercial chief Bernie Ecclestone.
Preparations are now well underway for the film, which will be an action documentary charting the history of the sport but focusing especially on the period between 1968 and 1982.
The film does not yet have an official name – but it has been decided the main focus will be on the period between Jim Clark‘s death at Hockenheim in 1968 and Gilles Villeneuve’s fatal accident at Zolder in 1982.
Oscar winning writer Mark Monroe said “We want to make a big action movie – do something that puts people in the car and makes them gasp at the speed of the thing. Then, tell the human stories all the while, so you can dip in and out of these human stories with these big action moments that are enhanced from archive footage”

We think it sounds great. It would be nice to think that finally there could be an authentic big budget film about F1.

Read the full story on Autosport here

Via: Motorsport Retro

Categories
Historic Racing Photos Racing Ephemera

“It is Marvelous to Go Very Fast”

One of my favorite lines from Grand Prix. Of course, virtually any of Françoise Hardy’s lines as Lisa are good. Why she’s wearing Pete Aron’s helmet in this shot though, I don’t know.

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Video

Racing in Angola Video: 6 Hours of Nova Lisboa

I should have known that yesterday’s peek into the racing history of Angola was only the tip of the iceberg. Here are a couple of short films from various runnings of the 6 Hours of Nova Lisboa endurance race. An amazing field in this footage, everything from an Alfa Tipo 33 to a GT40, to Minis and BMW 2002s and Lancia Fulvias. All careening through the city streets of Nova Lisboa (now known as Huambo following Angola’s independence in 1975).

Categories
Historic Racing Photos

Flickr Find: Auto Racing in Angola

I came across this fantastic set of photos a few years ago, but was recently reminded of just how precious an artifact it is. I’m surprised by the size and variety of the grids for these events. Minis, Lotus, a Beetle or 2, Fiat Cincuentas—magnificent. It’s easy to focus on the famous tracks and drivers of Europe, or the grass roots glory of the American road racing scene; but these shots from Angola at the height of sports car racing is every bit as vibrant and exciting.

The track preparation shots are particularly fantastic. We don’t often get to see photos from the era building the tracks that have become sacred ground. We’ve sat in more than enough traffic jams to get they general idea of how roadways are built today, but for me these shots of a few construction vehicles creating a tarmac racing surface from nothing is just another extension of the DIY spirit of home racing car builders and garagistas that has always been at the center of what we hold so dear about classic motorsport.

Be sure to click over to Nite_Owl’s Flickr stream for the complete set. Well worth it.

Categories
Track Maps of the Past

Track Maps of the Past: The Vanderbilt Cup

The States has less of a tradition of the town-to-town races that were a major part of the early European races and gave us such glorious examples as the Mille Miglia, Targa Florio, and the countless other events that laid the foundations for the Grand Prix events to follow. One shining example of this breed of motorsport, however, did stake it’s claim to the format statesite: The Vanderbilt Cup.

The race was run in its original form between 1904 and 1911 through a series of towns in Nassau County, Long Island; largely on roads that still exist today—although I think that the Massapequa Road leg has since been removed (can any Long Island locals confirm that?). Thankfully, this map will make recreating the paths of a hundred years ago quite easy. What I love about the public road courses is that each morning, hundreds of commuters toil along not knowing the magnificent men and machines that blazed the same trail in very different circumstances. This map may look very workmanlike and unembellished compared to others we’ve looked at in the Track Maps of the Past series, but I adore it just the same.