I recently beheld a holy icon of auto racing called the Bothwell Peugeot. Why it is called that I will explain later, but first I need to tell you a remarkable story that will make real the significance of this issue’s feature car. The event happened more than 100 years ago but it was a...
Can you imagine the sheer agony if you were a Formula One fan and had to watch two dozen Grand Prix races of the sort we have been seeing over the last few years? Well, back in the early 1960s, there was an F1 race virtually every other weekend. In 1963, there were exactly 24...
Fed up with seeing their major races won by the Germans in the 1930s, the Italians allowed only 1½-liter entries in their 1939 races to eliminate their opposition. They reckoned without the astonishing skills of the Daimler-Benz Racing Department. The most glamorous Grand Prix race of the 1930s was not at Monaco, not at Dubai,...
Pat Harrington-Johnson was a South African newspaperman who covered motoring and shipping for the Natal Mercury before and after World War II and he was involved in editing what was the most remarkable motoring magazine ever produced. Harrington-Johnson was born in 1912 in the Forest of Deane where his father was the village curate. The family...
The terms Porsche and racing have now become virtually synonymous. In no small part, this is due to the German manufacturer’s stunning 19 overall victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans—more than any other manufacturer. However, the keen enthusiast will know that it took Porsche almost 20 years to notch that very first overall victory in 1970. For many, it would be easy to assume that 1970—and the mighty 917 that brought that victory—was the key turning point in Porsche’s endurance racing fortunes. But in reality, a pivotal event, in 1963, would pave the way for all of Porsche’s…
The name Alfetta is still one that makes any red-blooded Italian motor sport fan throw out his chest with pride. It is the name of a series of 1500 cc, 8-cylinder, supercharged Alfa Romeo 158 and 159 racing cars that dominated the sport from the late ‘30s until the end of 1951. The Alfetta –...
Tom Cantrell’s world revolves around excellence, and it seems he will go to any length to achieve perfection on, and off, the racetrack. The owner of a successful construction business in the Pacific Northwest and a collector of vintage cars, Tom has also built a formidable race team. With a true passion for racing history and a penchant for high horsepower machines, Tom’s stable of racecars is like a who’s who of excellence from the Big Bore era — including the remarkable project seen here. As a frame of reference for Tom’s project, we first need to set the stage.…
“Who painted this D-Type red?” was my thought when I first laid eyes on this legendary machine. Most of the Jaguar competition cars are BRG— British Racing Green—a livery thought by many to be “proper” for a car of this ilk. Sure a few black, blue, or even white cars are out there, but a...
Canadian motorsports owes a huge debt to the team of Jim Fergusson and his wife, Alice. Their efforts were almost always voluntary and for the love of the sport. Jim was not only a successful motorcycle, sports car and sedan racer but also a rallyist, as well. If that were not enough, he took on...
David Dubar Buick was born in Arbroath, Scotland, in 1854, and brought to Detroit, Michigan, at the age of 2. By the 1880s, he was a successful inventor in the plumbing field, inventing among other things, the lawn sprinkler and a new process for coating metal bath fixtures, tubs and sinks with porcelain. Buick sold...
Resembling nothing so much as a 1946 Chevrolet Fleetline sedan that was left in the dryer a bit too long, the Holden 48-215 was among the most popular and successful vehicles to appear in post-war Australia, and of course, it quickly found its way to the race track. Anyone who has enjoyed the dystopian “Mad...