Browsing: Vintage Racecar Columns

First Turn
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The Internet has changed our lives in so many ways. In just the past 20 years, the Internet has both opened up the expanse of our immediate world and at that same time made it all closer to hand than we ever could have imagined. It is as a result of this strange global “closeness” that I now sit here, mourning a man I’ve known for over 20 years and yet never met. It is with a heavy heart that I report that Vintage Road & Racecar’s longtime contributor and “Italian Bureau Chief,” Robert Newman, has passed away. Robert began…

Heroes
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Today, Franco Cortese is, perhaps, one of motor sport’s forgotten stars and he shouldn’t be. He was the driver who put Ferrari on the map in a career that spanned 156 races, 20 victories and top placings as long as your arm. During more than four decades, from 1926 to 1958, he raced for the...

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Last Lap courtesy Audi
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A recent visit to the famous Donington circuit in England, for the launch of a wonderful book about the history of the place, got me to thinking of many other great circuits of yesteryear and what has become of them. Donington, which was Britain’s first road racing circuit, survives albeit not exactly in its original...

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First Turn The 1968 Dodge “Super Charger” Charger Concept incorporates modern touches, including the new 1,000 horsepower “Hellephant” 426 Supercharged Mopar Crate HEMI® Engine, shown in background, to reimagine one of the most iconic vehicles ever built by FCA US. FCA US LLC
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Imagine it’s 1973 and you’re an aspiring racer/car builder. Working out of your little shotgun shack, single-car garage, you’ve welded together a pretty sweet little sports racer. Your surfer buddy, who’s good with fiberglass, has fashioned you a sexy and light body to drape over your putative race winner. Despite your lack of resources, you’ve managed to single-handedly cobble together the foundation of a potentially potent Can-Am racer. All the ingredients are there to launch your career—and maybe even a new racing brand name—but you lack the defining component…a serious powerplant. But what if I told you, you could jump into…

Heroes
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He is literally the fastest man on the planet, and has been since October 15, 1997. That was when Andy Green set the current World Land Speed Record of an average 766.035 mph taking him to Mach 1.02, which also made him the world’s first supersonic car driver. And he did it in the jet-engined...

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Last Lap
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There is an old maxim which says America and Britain are two countries divided by a common language and in the automotive world this does seem to hold true. Not having been born in America, nor in England, I can see the broader picture with what I believe to be some slightly amused detachment. In...

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First Turn -
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By now, you’ve presumably seen at least some of our extensive coverage of this year’s Porsche Rennsport Reunion VI, from Monterey [Click here for our coverage]. At this point, if Rennsport is news to you, you would have to have been in an automotive coma for the past month or two, because it was a massive event and heavily, heavily promoted by Porsche. In fact, Porsche really went all in on making this their biggest event ever, reportedly investing over $7 million to bring together nearly 2,000 race and road cars, 82,000 spectators and over 50 legendary drivers for five…

Heroes
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Fathers and their sons who have each won the Formula 1 World Championship are few and far between. There are only two dads and their lads who have pulled it off. The first to climb that particular Everest were the Hills: Graham won the 1962 world title driving a BRM P57 and the 1968 title...

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Last Lap
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Do you like your racing cars to be aesthetically pleasing? Most people do, me included. So how do we finish up with so many ugly cars? Probably a variety of reasons, starting with the fact that not all stylists have the requisite eye for line, that the regulations have forced designers down the “ugly” route,...

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First Turn
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Last Friday I was mindlessly killing some time on Facebook, when I happened to stumble across the livestream of Goodwood’s Kinrara Trophy race for over 3-liter GT cars. Dubbed as the world’s most expensive race grid, this one-hour twilight race featured 8 Ferrari 250 SWBs, 8 Jaguar E-Types, 4 Ferrari GTOs, 4 Aston Martin DB4GTs, 2 Cobras, 2 Big Healeys and a Maserati 3500 GT thrown in for good measure. With a Ferrari 250 GTO having just sold at Monterey for $52 million, the combined value of the Kinrara field was pushing a half a billion dollars! What immediately sucked…

Last Lap
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As the calendar year moves into its second half, we come to what motor racing calls its “Silly Season,” when there arises lots of conjecture about who will drive for who in the next year or two. Actually, I think the silliest part of it is the name. Why “silly”? It is a natural reshuffle...

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