Categories
Video

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.

Categories
Grand Prix Historic Racing Photos

World Champion in Training

You can almost see Senna’s passion and drive through his helmet—and his years.

Categories
Racing Ephemera Vintage Racing Advertising

Shopping the 1960 Heuer Rally Timer Catalog

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.

Categories
Automotive Art For Sale

Stefan Marjoram’s Automotive Advent Calendar

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.

Categories
Porsche Video

The Magnus Walker Collection

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.

Categories
Chicane News Historic Racing Photos Porsche

One of Many Proud Moments at the Chicane

When I started The Chicane, it was mainly as an outlet for all of the vintage racing research I was doing. A way to do something productive with all the hours I’d spend Googling obscure racing drivers or collecting images of favorite racing machines. What I didn’t count on, though, was how much I would enjoy the commentary and conversations that arise in the comments section of many of the posts. I’m consistently delighted when a post will prompt someone who raced in the discussed event; or owned the discussed car; or had photos from a discussed race meeting; will comment on a post and takes the conversation in a new, thrilling direction.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a set of photos that reader Brian Goldman sent in of the Put-in-Bay races. The comments, though, are why I love the post. Several of the racers checked in or enquired about particular cars. One of whom, Edward Eichenlaub, was looking for any photos that might include his own winning run at that event. Only a short time later, Manley Ford delivered—emailing me the photo you see above of Ed’s victory.

When I see Chicane readers connecting and fueling each other’s love for vintage racing, I… I don’t know how to describe it… It just makes it all seem so much more worth doing. Thank you all for that.

Categories
Vintage Racing Advertising

From the Competition Department

Now available from the West Coast.
SCCA authorized production car.
Factory options & modified parts.
Hollywood Sport Cars Competition Department.
5766 Hollywood Boulevard. Hollywood 28, California

Categories
Automotive Art Racing Ephemera Video

World’s Smallest V12

In case you didn’t already have a tremendous level of respect for home machinists. Just watching him turn that crankshaft is crazy, but then when he shows the valves… my brain melted.

Two cubic centimeters of displacement. 11.3mm cylinder bore. 10mm stroke. Stainless steel, aluminum, and bronze construction. Powered by compressed air.

Ready to drop in to Barbie’s Ferrari.

Categories
Video

Formulas Vee, B, and Ford at the 1998 Meadowbrook Historics

Speaking of the Meadowbrook Historic Races, here’s some video from the 1998 running of the event. The shooter here must have been there to support #55 and has a bit of a wandering camera but it’s still a fun artifact from an event that is precious to me. I grew up not far from this track and spent many Sundays in the bleachers at Hilltop Turn, hot dog and soda in hand, falling in love with vintage racing.

Categories
Automotive Art Racing Ephemera

In Praise of the Illustrated Racing Program Cover

Keeping goofy “title sponsorship” logos off of program covers and event posters wasn’t a conscious design decision in the 60’s, but it’s one I wish more poster designers would make today.

I have a poster hanging in my house for the 1999 running of the Meadowbrook Historics at the Waterford Hills Road Races. Like the brilliant imagery presented here, it’s beautifully illustrated with bold colors and finely executed imagery of racing cars. Bugatti was the featured marque for the race and the poster features a gorgeously realized Bugatti-blue Type 35.

The color and composition are quite lovely, but then the sponsoring corporation’s logo is slapped across the bottom. “Tech-Sight”, it says, in anachronistically severe quasi-contemporary logotype. It tarnishes the poster with its poor design and placement and late-90’s generically futuristic branding.

I had to look up what the company was to write this post: It’s a subsidiary of defense contractor General Dynamics. Yeah, that’s the kind of thing people want hanging in their automotive art gallery: graphically dated defense contractor logos.

Thankfully, we can always look back at these marvelous American Road Race of Champions program covers to give us the essentials: evocative illustration, uncluttered typography, and the sanctioning body’s logo – if necessary. That’s it. Follow that equation, poster designers.