This video could have stopped at the handheld footage of the corners from an airplane passing slowly overhead and it still would have been worth sharing. But then the tours of the pits with some of the most beautiful cars ever made, including a whole suite of various Ferrari 250s and their shirtless pilots. Then they prepared for the LeMans start… and I’m hooked—all before the action even starts. Somehow even though I have such a deep love for vintage racing, the atmosphere of the pits and spectators in these old films draws me in just as much.
Tag: France
Car restoration is dirty business, and you feel that grime intimately: There will be chunks of rust stuck between your neck and your collar. There will be endless layers of paint slowly being sanded away. Twisted pieces of steel will be stuck in the soles of your boots from every stupid broken-off bolt you’ll have to drill out. I can understand why restoration shops would rather wait until the car is finished, polished, and with the proper beginnings of a sunset behind her before they get out the camera. What ends up happening, though, is that restorers web sites all tend to look the same: beauty shots of the finished car. There is rarely even a single photo of the car before restoration began.
Germany’s AlpineLAB shows us the kind of beautiful documentation that can happen when a truly passionate restoration workshop has someone on staff that knows a thing or two about curating a web site. Of course, there are miraculously beautiful photos of the finished product worthy of any of the glossies on the newsstand. But the commitment to documenting the restoration and the race history of their Alpine 110 projects is so very refreshing. What I appreciate most, however, is their opening the archives to show us the specific period articles and photography of these cars’ race history. People spend a lot of time establishing a car’s provenance, it’s very appreciated to see those archives opened up for all of us and not just prospective buyers.
The Alpine 110 was an astoundingly capable little machine. I’ve read it described as a car that you wore rather than drove. That kind of machine deserves the treatment that AlpineLAB has given it. I imagine that as more and more restorers enter the community having grown up on the web, the more of this kind of wonderful storytelling we’ll see brought to the world. Clear your afternoon and click over to their site for more of their build stories. These images are but a taste.
Thanks for sending this in, Jürgen!
I suspect that photo opportunity that the entrance provided was not the key decision factor for the Triumph Works team when they chose the Hotel de France as their accommodations for LeMans in 1963 and 1964, but it may as well have been. I often prattle on about the lack of pit access and being able to wander amongst the teams and cars before or after the races, but this… this is something else.
Whether the factory cars were just pulled out in front of the hotel for a quick photo and then tucked back into transporters or garages and out of prying eyes, or whether they just sat out front, I don’t know. I like to think it’s the latter. The idea of the team cars just sitting out for a night before one last shakedown run on the hour drive to La Sarthe is too wonderful a notion to not daydream about.
Incidentally, Hotel de France’s Facebook page seems to demonstrate their continuing close relationship with vintage motoring and frequently hosts classic car tours.
Photos via Hotel de France. Thanks for sending these in, Willem!
Categories
Triumph at the 24
Let’s ride along with team Triumph at the 1961 LeMans 24 Hours race, shall we? I don’t know why every TR4 owner doesn’t have their car painted in this livery. That huge gumball on the rear decklid is such a bold graphic statement that it makes other early-60s racing graphics immediately look so stodgy by comparison.
You know that I love seeing this track action, but the first segment of the film in the pits almost does more to place me in the era. After all, we’ll be able to attend events and see many of these very cars race again, but will be ever be able to wander the pits like this? Just another reason why I hope Goodwood’s ethos of embracing the entire era catches on with more vintage racing events.
Thanks for sending this one in, Mandy!
Categories
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.
I love how the victorious Nuvolari just shrugs at the end. So confident. And how great is it to see a glimpse of the dancer-turned-racer Hellé Nice?
Magnificent shot that Bertocchi uploaded to a thread at Ferrari Chat. Prepare to lose the rest of your afternoon.
Update: Back on the FChat thread, Andrea points out that I’m inaccurate on this post’s title. The #14 car being unloaded is the Ferrari 500 of Louis Rosier’s “Ecurie Rosier”, not the factory team. Thanks, Andrea.
Rosier qualified 9th but retired on the 17th lap with engine troubles.
If you liked this week’s photos from 2013 Vintage Revival Montlhéry, then I have a feeling you’ll like the view from a 1918 Indian racer.
It’s easy to forget when you’re humming along the highway that right under that hood there are thousands of explosions happening every minute. Not so easy to forget at Montlhéry.
Fantastic film by Joris Bergsma.
Forgive the less than stellar scan of this circuit map for 1933’s inaugural running of the Gran Prix de Pau. Despite the poor resolution, you can see one of the elements I love in old track maps: the small illustrations of nearby buildings and landmarks. The elegantly hand lettered labels and arrows only help accentuate the glory of that little town illustration on the left side of the map.
Playing with points of view is something that seems to have gone away in contemporary track map design, but it’s common in the earlier maps we’ve featured. Having a top-down view of the track alongside isometric scenery illustration seems so illogical when I imagine it, but when I see the results on paper it works perfectly well. Compare to this map of the contemporary Pau map and join me in mourning (Even though it’s pretty good by contemporary track map design standards).