By Will Silk It's that time of year again when the sound of unrestricted race engines at full song begins to grow faint as yet another year in the collector car hobby and vintage racing scene draws to a close. With it comes the holiday season, which is why we have compiled the 2010 Holiday Gift Guide to assist readers in getting a head start on the next great race, the shopping race that continues through December … [Read more...]
Grumman F7F Tigercat – Unsung Hero
Story by Will Silk and photos by Marshall Autry The outbreak of World War II spawned the American aviation company known as Grumman to begin design of a twin-engine high performance fighter aircraft that would later become known as the Grumman F7F Tigercat. It was in 1941 that Grumman was working on an aircraft design to fulfill a U.S. Navy proposal for a powerful aircraft that was heavily armed and could … [Read more...]
AACA Hershey Annual Fall Classic 2010 – Report
Report and photos by Will Silk The Antique Automobile Club of America held its annual Eastern Fall Swap Meet and Collector Car Corral from October 6-9, 2010 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Hershey is known as the sweetest place on earth due to the chocolate bars that are made there; but every October, Hershey becomes the mecca for collector car enthusiasts with a four-day extravaganza of classic automobiles, parts, and … [Read more...]
Porsche 935K3 by True Scale Miniatures – Model Car Profile
By Will Silk True Scale Miniatures is a relatively new company to the world of scale sports car models, having been founded five years ago in Chino, California. It wasn’t until recently that the company began to venture into making 1:43 and 1:18 scale replicas of sports and racing cars after a few years of producing scale models of Snap-On Tools. Their first attempt is featured here, a 1:18 scale Porsche 935K3 … [Read more...]
Success for Automobilia Monterey 2010
By Will Silk One of the many highlights for enthusiasts attending the Monterey Week is the annual Automobilia Monterey event, held August 10-11, 2010 at the Embassy Suites in Seaside, California. Celebrating its 8th anniversary this year, the focus of Automobilia Monterey has always been to present a place where car collectors can immerse themselves in genuine automobilia, the rare artifacts that manufacturers … [Read more...]
Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing – Classic Cars for Sale
By Will Silk Few will doubt that perhaps the most breathtaking cars ever to emerge from Germany were the beautiful 300 SL Gullwing coupes of the mid-1950s. This edition of Classified Ads from the Past spotlights an advertisement for two of these svelte machines that originally appeared in the pages of Road & Track’s April, 1964 issue. The year was 1952, and Germany was searching desperately for a halo car to … [Read more...]
Griffith 200 by Automodello – Model Car Profile
By Will Silk A new diecast company has joined the world of sports car replication in scale. Automodello of Buffalo Grove, Illinois, USA has emerged with the debut of a 1:43 scale replica of perhaps the most feared 1960s sports car ever to turn a wheel on public roads, the Griffith 200. The story of the Griffith is one of sports car manufacturing’s wilder ones. The early 1960s was a splendid time to be a … [Read more...]
CSRG Charity Challenge 2010 Features Formula 5000
By Will Silk The Formula 5000 Revival Series has selected to run its final race outing for 2010, the CSRG Charity Challenge to be held on the weekend of October 1-3 at Infineon Raceway Sears Point in Sonoma, California. The tranquil and scenic Sonoma Valley will be audibly shaken by the roar of a full grid of historic F5000 racing machines this coming October as these thunderously fast open wheeled racing cars … [Read more...]
Aston Martin DB3S Coupe – Classic Cars for Sale
By Will Silk Our latest classified ad from the past comes from an April, 1986 edition of Hemmings Motor News and is none other than a pristine Aston Martin DB3S Coupe; a rare variant of one of Britain’s greatest sports cars. The 1950s saw a new breath of life come into Aston Martin, as Sir David Brown, a wealthy entrepreneur in England who was widely known for his agricultural machines, had acquired Aston … [Read more...]
Sam Posey – A Lifetime of Achievements
By Will Silk Few in the realm of motorsports will deny that one of the most capable drivers to climb behind the wheel of a race car is Mr. Sam Posey. Sam’s driving career started in the mid-1960s, when sports car racing in North America was building at a rapid pace. Daytona, 1966, marked the first, true international debut for this young driver. It was driving a Porsche 904 GTS along with Jim Haynes and … [Read more...]
1955 Arnolt-Bristol – Classic Cars for Sale
By Will Silk The latest Classified Ads from the Past is a rare all-aluminum 1955 Arnolt-Bristol offered for sale in the pages of Road & Track in 1972 for $6,000. The story of the Arnolt-Bristol is a short lived, but incredibly wild venture. The man behind the beautiful Arnolt-Bristol cars started out as a mechanical engineer in the Midwest United States before the second World War. When the company he worked … [Read more...]
Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL Racing Saloon – Classic Cars for Sale
Story by Will Silk This edition of Classified Ads from the Past features an advertisement for a rare Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL racing saloon with an impressive history. The ad for this particular 300 SEL was originally run in the May, 1972 issue of Road & Track Magazine. Many think of Mercedes-Benz as the ultimate in luxury car technology from Germany, and with very good reason, as the marque departed racing after … [Read more...]
Carving Out Racing History, One Car at a Time
Story by Will Silk I recently received an email from a gentleman in Maryland that does wood carvings of sports cars. One look at the pictures he sent along made me promptly sit down and have a closer look. The carvings were of a Porsche 917K and a Ford GT40, two of history’s most lethal and winning sports cars. So I made it a point to contact the craftsman who whittled these fine masterpieces to perfection and … [Read more...]
Les Richter (1930 – 2010)
Story by Will Silk Perhaps no single man had more involvement in the development of West Coast racing in the United States than Les Richter. Les was born October 26, 1930 in Fresno, California. He attended high school in Fresno before moving onto the University of Berkeley where Les became an All-American Line Backer and later inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame. After college, Les served in the … [Read more...]
Ferrari 275GTB – Classic Cars for Sale
Story by Will Silk Sports Car Digest is proud to revive our vintage classifieds column to reflect on the market that we all love and enjoy being a part of. In true Sports Car Digest fashion, hours were spent pouring through old sports car magazines that featured classified ads to their readers back in the day. After a few days worth of digging, the respirators were removed and the artifact brushes set aside, as … [Read more...]