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Classic Sportscar Event Ferrari

Ralph Lauren’s Cars on Exhibit Again

Ralph Lauren’s 1933 Bugatti T59
Ralph Lauren’s 1938 Alpha Romeo Mille Miglia

The L’Art dl L’Automobile Exhibit is running at the Museum Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris until the 28th of August. Ralph’s cars have gotten a lot of exposure, but I for one appreciate that he isn’t hiding these remarkable machines away from the public. I like this quote from Ralph Lauren from the Speed, Style & Beauty book that accompanied the collection’s first museum exhibit.

“I’ve always seen cars as art. Moving art. While friends of mine were into paintings, I somehow felt that the real beauty of owning a rare and magnivicently designed car was the fact that you can use it. You can look at it, enjoy its visual qualities, as with a painting, but you can also get inside and drive it – which means both enjoying the drive itself and going somewhere with it. How these cars are put together, the purposefulness with which they were created, in every detail – the engine, the mechanics, the outside ornamentation, the design of the wheels, the whole spirit – is very, very exciting. And on top of that you have the men who created these cars, Mr. Porsche, Mr. Bugatti, Mr. Ferrari, and their backgrounds, their heritages, their fascinating histories, their reasons for driving and building these cars – I find it all very stimulating.”

Ralph Lauren. Speed, Style & Beauty

More images, engine sounds (!) and information on the exhibit on the Collection’s Site.

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Porsche Video

Early Racing Porsches at the 2008 Eifelrennen

Eifelrennen 2008 had a pretty impressive lineup of early Porsche racers. I see a 550, an RSK, an RS60, an Abarth-Carrera. I could just listen to that 4-cam for hours.

Ok, that’s all well and good, but let’s get on the track. Alright, let’s ride shotgun with Gerrit Kobus in a 550.

Categories
Automotive Art Racing Ephemera

San Diego Stadium Road Races?

Apparently San Diego’s racing community didn’t completely fizzle out after Torrey Pines was converted to the golf course. I’ve stumbled across this poster, but can find almost no information about the race. Does anyone know something about this October, ’67 event?
The poster itself is spectacularly beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I’m starting to consider the possibility that the race itself is fictional and this poster is simply a work of art and not an advertising handbill. Part of me likes that idea that a piece of artwork takes on a life beyond it’s canvas and—like War of the Worlds—creates a mythology of an event that never happened. As time passes and memories fade, who is to say that the race did or didn’t take place.

I’m sure though, that the reality is far more simple: that I’m just terrible at Google.

Also: the SCCA’s “Sportsmanship Demands Safe Driving” slogan should have never gone away, but it seems the trademark on the phrase has lapsed.

Categories
Historic Racing Photos Lost Track

Reader Photos: Brian Goldman’s Davis Field Trial

Brian sent in these unbelievable photos that his father took at the Brookfield Ohio Davis Field Trial in the mid-late 1950s. The event was apparently put on by Davis Volkswagen, but the photos here are even more shocking than seeing a Beetle giving its all on what looks to be virtually untouched field.

If you’ll remember, I was stunned, and pleased, to see a Jaguar XK120 being put through her paces on the dirt hill road of Agoura Hills. Well that’s nothing compared to the scene you see here—this time in what looks to be a Morgan.

The owner of this Triumph TR2 is no less courageous and pushes her for all she’s worth on less than pristine racing surfaces. I adore that these sportscar owners realized that their cars were for sporting purposes—and put them to that end with little mercy. I don’t think we’ll soon see any Lamborghini or Koenigsegg drivers reviving the Field Trial.

Well, I guess we’ll have to get by with the WRC.

Thanks for these, Brian. They’re an amazing artifact, not only of days gone by, but of a spirit gone by as well.

Categories
Historic Racing Photos

Pedro Leads the Pack

Pedro Rodriguez Kart Race

Dan from Karting Archives sent over this marvelous photo of Pedro Rodriguez leading a Mexican kart race. Just look at the spectators! Something tells me that the karting dress code has (unfortunately) relaxed in the years since this amazing shot was captured. Their attire makes this looks very much like a country club event. Who votes we start replacing the back 9 with a kart track?

Update: Over on The Chicane’s Facebook page, Luc Ghys pointed out this marvelous pair of articles from a Mexican Magazine from 1960 chronicling the karting championship and Pedro’s participation. Thanks, Luc!

Categories
Racing Ephemera Video

Documenting Disaster

LeMans ’55 Diagram

Part of what made the 1955 LeMans disaster so confusing and difficult to understand (beyond the enormity of the tragedy itself) is that it happened so quickly that it was nearly impossible to determine exactly what happened. If it were today, there would be several camera angles in high resolution to capture the event: a shot from at least one ground-based camera, a aerial view, on-board cameras in many of the cars. That doesn’t even account for the fact that virtually every spectator would be carrying a camera with them at all times—a camera phone at least. Investigations would commence and close in comparative short order.

In 1955, however, there were only a few grainy photographs and a single film camera (that I know of) running that caught the tangle between Mike Hawthorne, Pierre Leveigh, and Lance Macklin (with Fangio in the middle of it all as well). Leveigh would ultimately be thrown from his Mercedes which tumbled over the hay bales and into the crowd killing 83 spectators and injuring a further 120. It remains the single worst crash in the history of motorsport—and likely the worst accident in all of sport.

This is why it was so important to determine what happened. To assign blame, perhaps, but more importantly to find a way to keep it from happening again. Some were quick to blame Hawthorne, some rightly faulted the facility’s lack of safety measures, some governments decided that motor racing itself was to blame. France, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany banned motor racing entirely until tracks could be brought up to a higher level of safety. The Swiss ban remained in effect until 2007.

LeMans 55 Illustration

The lack of a visual archive—of a detailed record—made communicating exactly what happened challenging. So we had to leave it up to artists to show the public the details of the LeMans disaster. I find these artifacts fascinating. This type of record has become almost completely obsolete today, and the simple line drawings somehow both communicate what (they thought) happened and at the same time filters it. Looking at these diagrams, the LeMans crash becomes a cold, matter of fact, sequence of events; not a horrific and bloody nightmare.

These renderings omit the human tragedy; the emotion; the panic. They simply communicate the clinical facts of the crash—which car went which way, and when. In that way, you can argue that it’s more effective than the horror of looping the video feed back and forth.

Categories
Grand Prix Historic Racing Photos

Reader Photos: Dick Lees at the 1970 Silverstone Int’l Trophy Meet

Lotus 72s for John Miles and Jochen Rindt

Let’s take a look at another marvelous group of photos from Dick Lees archives. This time it’s a non-championship Formula 1 race at Silverstone: the Daily Express/GKN 22nd International Trophy Meeting. Lots of great views from the pits here. Watching this year’s Monaco Grand Prix over the weekend, it’s still hard for me to believe the accessibility that was once so common at F1 races.

  • Jackie Stewart Drove a March701 and finished second to Chris Amon also in a March 701
Denny Hulme’s McLaren and Mike Walker’s McLaren F-5000
Categories
Automotive Art Racing Ephemera

The Automotive Art of Mark Havens

These photographic prints of vintage car model decal sheets are an amazing collision of my interests in car culture and typography. I’ve long been a fan of these old decals and have spent way too many hours in Photoshop trying to reproduce the vintage printing techniques that make these artifacts so soulful. I’d be on-board with Mark’s project in any capacity, but when I see the scale of the reproductions, I’m simply smitten with them.

I love the colors and the type and the cartoony appeal of these decals at their original size; but the prints are startlingly detailed and textured when reproduced at 4×5 feet. Each little crackle and discoloration becomes so painterly and weathered and beautiful. I’m sure that even the artists that Revell and AMT employed when these decals were designed would be startled by the depth and vibrance of them at this scale.

There’s something about playing with scale that makes us notice things. When we see something familiar at a radically altered size, it makes us notice it again; and we start to look past the idea we have of it and see more closely the details and the construction. I think 3 or 4 of these prints running the length of a garage wall would be an absolutely fantastic display.

The series, appropriately titled Displacement, is being exhibited through the end of July at the JAGR Projects gallery in the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia. More images at Mark’s site.

Categories
Vintage Racing Advertising

Moment-to-Moment Knowledge

A good driver drives still better with a Smiths Electronic Impulse Tachometer.
The racing driver’s control of his car depends on knowledge—not just knowledge of how to drive, but the moment-to-moment knowledge he gets from his instruments.
Chief of these is the tachometer. There’s no substitute for the information it gives the driver—information which is now available to you, whatever car you drive.
Smiths electronic impulse tachometer is a handsome, superbly accurate instrument, which can easily be fitted to an existing dashboard. It costs only £9.15—not much to pay for the chance of increasing motoring skill, and motoring pleasure too.
If you’re experienced enough to take advantage of a tachometer, you might be interested in Smiths other supplementary instruments, and the attractive sub-panel designed for mounting them below your dashboard.
Smiths Electronic Impulse Tachometer.
Write to us (or ask at your Garage) for full information about the electronic impulse tachometer and the complete range of supplementary instruments.
Smiths Motor Accessory Division
Sales and Service, Oxgate Lane, London N.W.2

This is something we’re unlikely to see again. It’s difficult enough to swap a new radio in lately, let alone gauges.

Categories
Video

1911 Indy 500 Footage

When a race is 40 years older than the Formula 1 World Championship, the newsreels have to both show the race highlights and explain how an auto race works. “Cars remain in platoon formation for the first lap”—platoon formation. That’s the first time I’ve heard that term: definitely ready for a comeback.

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