Look at the enthusiasm of the flag waiver in this shot of Jim Clark winning the 1967 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. I’m sure Jimmy was well pleased to win his 3rd GP of the season, but the flagman here is the real expression of joy in this photo. I’m pretty sure that flagmen aren’t leaping into the air today in their little balcony over the start/finish line.
And don’t you think we should really be reintroducing the laurels to the victors of today’s races? Then again, I suppose that they would cover the sponsor logo patches. Drivers are far more important as walking billboards than they are as athletes or sportsmen. Alas.
The Circuit Bugatti was quite unpopular at the time, but it looks lovely in this footage. It’s also fantastic to see open-wheel cars in the LeMans pits.
Great soundtrack in this recap of the ‘67 German GP. 1967 was the first year of the Hohrenhain chicane leading into the start/finish straight, which attempted to reduce the speeds. Even so, it’s still the Nurburgring, which with these light f1 cars means liftoff at Pflanzgarten.
Bad luck for Dan Gurney in this race, he broke the lap record 4 times in the early stages of the race (so much for attempts at reducing speeds!) only to suffer from a broken U-joint 2 laps from the finish.
Enough has been written about the differences in modern Formula 1 and the GP drivers of the pre-downforce era, but I’m especially struck by the starts. The narrower cars and wider classic tracks means that the start is a mob scene. Groupings of 6 and 7 wide weren’t uncommon in the dash to turn one. Today’s narrower tracks allows for a much more controlled and less chaotic, and certainly less exciting, start.
Maybe I’m feeling a little nostalgic in the approaching Holiday season. I was about 7 or 8 years old and sitting at the south side of Hart Plaza with my fingers in my ears. If only I’d understood. It wasn’t until years later that punk rock taught me that loud = good. For engines too.
After the race weekend, my dad was able to grab one of those Renault Elf banners you see lining the track. It hung for a couple of years from my ceiling, eventually tearing. It’s near the top of my list of things I wish I’d kept from childhood.
If you can look past the lackluster photography and vacuum of information at all on the sale detail page, this 1939 Maserati 4CL 1500 offers a remarkable story and a beautiful shape. I’m on a bit of a pre-war Italians kick lately, so this Maser jumped right off the screen on Klaus Werner Klassische Automobile’s web site. Like all 4CLs, this straight-4 powered, 4-speed menace was important not only for it’s brutal appearance, but for giving a solid go at fending off the Silver Arrows during their absolute domination in the immediate pre-war period.
This example, chassis 1567, wasn’t just any Maserati 4CL: it’s the first one. British GP Driver Reggie Tongue bought this car, the first complete example, on April 5, 1939, just in time for the International Trophy race at Brooklands a month later. In the 4CL’s race debut, Tongue wrestled the Maser to a 3rd place finish, with Prince Bira winning. Two months later at the Grand Prix de L’albigeois, Tongue did one better, taking 1567 to 2nd place. This time finishing behind fellow Brit Johnnie Wakefield.
After the war, as was so often the case, 1567 was pulled out of mothballs to take back to the track, this time in the hands of former Delahaye driver, Robert Mazaud. Mazaud re-introduced the car to the racing world at the 1946 Grand Prix de Nice. Unfortunately the car didn’t go the distance, dropping out on lap 22 with a faulty magneto. He had mixed results a few weeks later in the Grand Prix de Marseille, taking pole and winning the first heat, but crashing out on the first lap of heat 2. A 3rd place at I Coupe René le Bègue in June would be his last success with the car. In the following few races, the Maserat DNFed for a variety of reasons; bad steering, bad cylinders. I cannot confirm the chassis number, but it would stand to reason that this 4CL was the car Mazaud was driving when he was killed in the 1946 Prix des 24 Heures du Mans in a crash on the 3rd lap. Mazaud’s popularity was such that in October of ‘46, the Bois de Boulogne race was christened “I Coupe Robert Mazaud“.
Can you believe that the seller hasn’t shared any of this amazing story? It’s not only a markedly beautiful car, but this very example shared Brooklands with Bira and Boulogne with Nuvolari. It’s an stunningly beautiful monoposto, and I hope the new owner will continue to race her at vintage events to share her with the rest of us.
Here’s a Bugatti T59 being chased hard by Dudley Froy’s Bernatto-Hassan at Brooklands.
F1-GrandPrixHistory.net has more harrowing photos of Brooklands’ early days here.
Google Books’ archive of Life Magazine has turned up another wonderful bit of racing history in this ominously titled article about the arrival of Grand Prix cars and drivers at the Brickyard.
“Invasion at Full Throttle” may have been a year or two early, but the prediction about the impending dominance of the rear-engined menace from across the pond was fairly accurate. It wouldn’t be long before Jim Clark would indeed be enjoying a bottle of milk at the end of the Indianapolis 500. Of course the author of this particular article would have been in a good position to know a thing or two about the funny little cars heading to the 500; Stirling Moss penned this piece. I’m sure Mr. Moss wasn’t to worried about ruffling a feather or two when he wrote, “I have a hunch that the U.S. will be shocked by what happens. In effect, the race will be an international showdown between our all-purpose, all-weather cars and drivers and your closed-circuit specialists who steer only to the left in beautifully built, overdeveloped, unsophisticated cars that belong to the past.” Overdeveloped AND unsophisticated? Ok, Stirling.
I can just imagine a midwestern race fan not finishing the article once he reached that passage and throwing the crumpled magazine across the living room. But Moss does backtrack a bit, describing his own experience behind an Indy Roadster at the Monza-napolis 500 several years earlier. It’s a wonderful read, especially with the knowledge of hindsight of the Indy at the front/rear engine transition and the impact of the European GP drivers on this most American of races.
With a first row start and fastest lap in the race, the 1962 French Grand Prix really should have belonged to Graham Hill. But a minor bump with a privateer and later engine problems forced Graham to finish 10 laps off the pace. This race was made famous, of course, by Gurney’s win in a Porsche — the first Formula 1 win for both. Let’s take a spin around the forests of Normandy with Graham Hill at the wheel of his unlucky BRM, shall we?
Following on the success of Google Images archive of the Life Magazine photographic collection, Life has extended the relationship with Google and has uploaded their entire pre-1970 archive of magazines to the Google Books service. Another trove of auto racing booty awaits!
Let’s start with the October 28, 1966 issue’s piece by Hugh Moffett about the then-upcoming Cinerama popcorn movie, John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix. Yes, it’s another Grand Prix post. It’s an obsession.
While the article is a pretty light and typical ‘upcoming fare from Hollywood’ piece, it does reveal a few details about the project. Among them that the 16 camera crews shooting compiled over 300 hours of footage. That simple tid-bit makes the features included in the Grand Prix Two-Disc Special Edition DVD release feel woefully underdone. There has been a long-standing search underway by Nostalgia Forum commenters for the missing footage, including a rumored shooting session filmed at the Nurburgring that Frankenheimer was compelled not to use owing to a exclusive agreement between Nurburgring management and another film project. This article doesn’t mention the Nurburgring footage, but does give some delightful detail about the Formula 1 greats that participated in the movie, including a wonderful story about the thrill the writer got when Phil Hill popped him into the passenger seat of a race-prepped Ford Cobra for a few flying laps around a wet Brand Hatch.
release feel woefully underdone. There has been a 
