New Yorkers like to think of themselves as having seen it all. I can’t help but imagine though that this Ford GT40 driving down First Ave in 1967 turned more than a few heads.
Tag: USA
I’m a little disappointed that even in ’61 the ad copy led with luggage space and seat adjustability. Get to the performance info, people!
’61 Corvette
New form and fineness for America’s only sports car.
There’s a winging new shape for the ’61 Corvette, and beneath these crisp contours, you’ll discover new refinements that reach right down to Corvette’s powerful heart.
Settle yourself in the cockpit and feel the no-nonsense comfort of those new bucket seats. They’re individually adjustable and the seat tracks themselves can be moved farther back for more driving space. Notice the increased foot and leg room made possible by a driveshaft tunnel that’s 19% narrower. There’s more trunk space, too; the luggage compartment is 20% larger for even greater touring convenience.
For muscle, the ’61 Corvette retains five versions of America’s most famous high-performance engine, the Corvette V8. Quick and sharp as a whiplash, this engine is available with up to 315 horsepower in a Fuel Injection version. There are three transmissions to choose from: a brand-new three-speed Syncro-Mesh with new quick accelerating ratios, the close-ratio four-speed Syncro-Mesh for the keen type, and Powerglide for the boulevardier.
There’s a feeling of pure confidence about the ’61 Corvette, a feeling born of the knowledge that this is the genuine article! See this new one at your Chevy dealer’s and you’ll know…
If you wanted a Corvette before, there’ll be no holding you now!
Chevrolet division of General Motors, Detroit 2, Mich.
Corvette by Chevrolet.
via Chromjuwelen.
You’d think that Ford would have rested a bit after achieving their drubbing of Ferrari and bringing LeMans victory home. But whether it was just momentum or to silence critics that suggested that the GT40 was more Lola than Ford, FoMoCo decided to bring the design of the next iteration of the GT car more in-house. Keeping the mighty 7 liter of the previous generation, they sculpted a new shape around it in partnership with Kar Kraft. Getting those strings placed right to measure the wind movement over the shape helped refine the aerodynamics of the project that would eventually become the GT40 Mk IV.
More at The Magnetic Brain. Thanks for sending this in, Skeeters.
In the hours leading up to the start of the 1965 running of the Sebring 12 hours race, it seemed like a perfect day for racing. A bit hot maybe at 94° but that wasn’t unusual for a Florida afternoon—even in March. There were rumors of hard weather on the way, but radio jamming between the US and Cuba meant that there was no solid local weather report available trackside.
After 6 hours of racing the sky began to threaten rain. An hour later, at 5:25 pm the sky opened up. By the time the race was over, prototype drivers were saying that their cars were filling up to their elbows with rainwater. It sounds like hyperbole until you see the photos. Rain delay? What’s a rain delay?
There’s endurance racing, and then there’s endurance racing.
More on the race and the spectacular conditions it was run in at Sportscars.tv. Some photos from BARC Boys, Via Retro and The Inside Line.
What a sight it must have been, particularly for Stateside attendees of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Grand Prix cars were never a common site on American shores and the images of these racers bounding through the grounds must have been thrilling to see. Imagine the sounds that would have been echoing off of those arches as they blast through them, inches from the support columns. Makes my annual trip to the Minnesota State Fair seem positively sedate.
I’m still buried under a foot of snow and I’ve been able to keep the cabin fever from setting in too hard… until No Braking posted their snapshots from the Classic Sports Racing Group’s event opening their 46th(!) season.
The April 5 race weekend drew 150 vintage cars to Sonoma Raceway which looks like it offers some excellent views. Some of these grids look a bit odd, but may have been an enduro or other cross-racing group sessions. Plus I like a mixed racing group—It’s always fun to see a smaller bore Alfa on the track with a Mustang. Fantastic stuff.
More photos on NoBraking.com, and check the Vintage Racing Calendar for their next event.
BARCboys‘ photo archives never fail to turn up a unique angle on the races they travelled to. Dave Nicholas’ shots from the 1965 Sebring Endurance Race are no exception. The race was a wet one and the sparse accommodations for spectators at the race makes me wonder if a greater percentage of competitors or spectators made it to the end of the race. Thankfully, Dave stuck it out to document the race.
What interests me just as much, though, are these images that Dave managed to capture of the Mecom team making some final preparations on Friday night—and look like they could well have been included in our factories at work series. I always enjoy seeing the pit facilities from years past and while Sebring may be an extreme example owing to its reputation as a “primitive racetrack”, the team garages at LeMans or Monaco were little better.
Seeing the Hansgen/Donohue Ferrari 250LM and Cannon/Saunders Lola T70 wedged in here between the tractor and the steel tubing, though, really illustrates the shocking range of difference in amenities between contemporary racing facilities and those of 40 or 50 years ago. This is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about when I talk about the kinship that vintage racing teams had with Hot Rod garages. They were damn near the same thing.
Walt Hansgen and Mark Donohue’s Ferrari 250 LM finished 11th overall (4th in class). John Cannon and Jack Saunders qualified in 6th, and were fast runners in the opening laps of the race, but dropped out with a failed oil cooler after 55 laps.
More of Dave Nicholas’ photos on BARC Boys’ 1965 Sebring Gallery. Sports Car Digest did a lovely profile of the race that’s well worth a read.
Brian Goldman wrote in with this outstanding collection of slides that his father, William Goldman, shot at Ohio’s Put In Bay Races. From the racing numbers and drivers, it looks to me like the 1958 running of the races. While, William’s photos may have been of different subjects if there were larger classes on the island (Put In Bay didn’t offer a class of races above 2 liters), I’m going to just assume that he shared my taste in the small-bore production and modified classes between 500-1000 cc’s that dominate these photos. I know the big boys usually get all the interest and glory, but these small light racers are, for me, the very essence of sports car engineering and design.
Those small racers must have also been ideal for cramming onto the ferry that would take racers each June between 1952 & 1959 (and again in ’63) to Put In Bay, the small island in Lake Erie not far from Toledo. I can only imagine the fun that must have been had on that small island each summer, with drivers arriving from all over the Midwest, and some from as far as Mississippi. Gathering each summer on Erie for a weekend of racing must have been like the little brother of Bahamas Speed Week. Perhaps I’m overstating things a bit in my comparison of Lake Erie to the Caribbean, but I’m sure it was an absolute blast.
Another interesting aspect of the races—perhaps because it was for smaller classes—was pointed out in Sports Car Illustrated’s coverage of the ’58 event: It attracted a large number of young drivers. Of the hundred or so entries in the 1958 event, over half were first-time racers. I can only imagine the terror that a pack of novice racers would inspire in any event insurance adjuster. This casual spirit of the event was even noteworthy at the time, prompting comparisons to the ‘good old days’ of round-the-house racing of the early 1950’s. Good to know that vintage racing nostalgia is nothing new.
Perhaps my favorite expression of the informality of the old community-hosted city street event is this line, again from Sports Car Illustrated’s coverage. “The crowd had complete freedom to watch the race from any vantage point they wished, and though none of the cars were running on alcohol many of the spectators were.” Quality writing there from SCI’s Len Griffing, who was part of an SCI team running a Porsche at the event.
More information—including race results and scans of period articles on the races—at PIB Road Race, which serves as a hub for the enthusiastic community that both remembers the past races and organizes reunions and competitions on the island today.
More photos from the William Goldman archive here. Thanks again for these, Brian!
Keep digging photos out of the basement, everyone. And let us know about them, we’d love to share them with the rest of the community.
In March of 1960 Zych, Nicholas, Spankey, Kelley, Kelley Sr. and Tierno of the infamous BARC Boys made the trip down from New York to Florida for the Sebring 12 Hours. Good thing they packed their cameras.
MGA Pits 
Pit Straight: 1st & 2nd Porsches 1000 OSCA and Sprinzel Sprite
See the rest of the set on the BARC Boys site.
Categories
1959 Lime Rock Photos
The BARC Boys have a wonderful gallery of their members and others in action at the 1959 Nationals from July 4th weekend, 1959. Briggs Cunningham in particular seems to have been a busy man that weekend, gridding his Lister Jaguar and the OSCA in which he took 2nd place for the G & H Modified class.
There’s a lot to love about this series of photos. Many Maseratis, Porsche 550s, an Aston Martin DBR-2, OSCAs were popular that year. But the handful of photos of the motorcycle-powered 500cc Cooper single seaters really do it for me. Just look at this photo of Lex DuPont leaning hard into a turn in his. Sadly they’re terribly uncompetitive in today’s vintage racing monoposto classes, but these little Coopers are pure racing delight to my eyes. I love the backyard ingenuity, wonderful lines, and repurposing of motorcycle engines in these little beauties. I’m definitely going to have to write more about these little cycle-powered racers in the future.