The early post-war interest in small displacement automobile racing in Europe was fueled by enthusiasm and petrol rationing. Money was...
Terry Bennett says he grew up as both a nerd and a motor-head. It was hardly his fault. His father...
In the March 2009 VRJ I wrote about Don Blenderman’s Kurtis obsession and his wonderful Sutton-bodied 500KK. What I failed to mention was his lengthy quest to capture an example of Frank’s most prolific sports racer, the legendary 500S. The Kurtis 500S is a masterpiece in function and design. Introduced...
The inspiration behind the concepts and designs of Lister cars came from the pre-war Mercedes racing cars that would today...
This is the story of four Reuters, blood relatives… but not necessarily to each other. It’s also the story of a father with a mother’s name, a guy with nothing to drive, and a short man who did big things with little cars. Confused? Cliff Reuter is a forty-something-year-old tennis...
April 2010 Racing for Mercedes-Benz By Hartmut Lehbrink With the re-entry of Mercedes-Benz into Grand Prix racing as a factory...
The Ferrari 195 Inter was introduced in 1950 as a roadgoing machine to replace the 166. According to Stanley Nowak...
The Pikes Peak Hill Climb is the second-oldest major motor racing event in North America. The inaugural race was held in 1916, and the annual happening now attracts tens-of-thousands of spectators. The winding 12.4-mile course features 156 serpentine turns and starts at an altitude of 9,390 feet. The “race to...
The story of Chet Herbert is pure inspiration. Afflicted with polio at age 20, Herbert spent his life building a...
Motor racing was banned in Switzerland in the aftermath of the 1955 Le Mans disaster, one of the most catastrophic...
This exquisitely done painting depicts Juan Manuel Fangio, the five-time Formula One World Champion, finishing 5th in the 1956 Mille Miglia with the factory Ferrari 290MM. During the race he was delayed by carburetion problems, and further exasperated by the cold and persistent rain, all of which made the event...
The 7th running of the fall races at Watkins Glen, N.Y., was held at the Interim Course, a 4.6-mile, 9-turn...
George Valerio of Lincoln, California, has been hunting cars for as long as he can remember. Yes, it’s the way...
1952 Ferrari 225 S While the history of the Ferrari you see here will forever associate it with the great American World Champion Phil Hill, this particular car is much more important for its symbolic significance. In the early 1950s, Enzo Ferrari had his eye on America, and very few...
If there is a single quality that best defines Marc Surer it must be determination. When you consider that he...
Sir Stirling Moss scored the first of his three Monaco Grand Prix wins in 1956 with this Maserati 250F, nipping...
Following the vast destruction of WW II, exciting new sports cars emerged from the rubble, which was just what the world needed: Italian-born rolling sculptures from Ferrari, Maserati, and Lancia, German-engineered masterpieces from Volkswagen and Porsche, and, of course, a host of fabulous sports cars from Great Britain and the...
This fabulous-looking 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa was sold by RM-Sotheby’s “Ferrari Legend and Passion” auction at the famous Fiorano...
1958 Jaguar 3.4 Saloon An unused flying boat base from WWII provided the “test track” where our man Quinn tried...
In my book Vintage American Road Racing Cars, I wrote, “Of all the Kurtis road racing cars, the 500X is shrouded in the most mystery regarding how many cars were constructed. By some accounts as many as 12 were built, but some believe six or even fewer cars were actually...
1957 Aston Martin DBR1 Aston Martin’s relationship with the 24 Hours of Le Mans goes all the way back to...
During the fifties, Aston Martin produced sports cars with the designation, DB, which, of course, stands for David Brown. In...
Vince di Pierro knows what he likes. So much so that four years ago he sank more than $100,000 into a car he spotted at an auction; a car he knew absolutely nothing about. According to Di Pierro, “I used to go to these auctions run by the state of...
The glorious sunshine and exceptional calibre of racing stars brought motorsport enthusiasts out in their thousands to visit Race Retro...
1954 Fiat 8V Zagato If you lived through the ’60s and ’70s, then Sunset Boulevard, in Southern California, likely holds...
This is a little-known story, but the real father of Riverside Raceway was Jim Peterson. I thought this would be a good time to tell it, because the new Riverside International Raceway Museum is having a “Legends of Riverside” celebration on March 27-29. It might be appropriate to include at...
This painting depicts Mike Hawthorn, winner of the 1954 Spanish Grand Prix at Pedralbes, Barcelona, in the Ferrari 553 “Squalo”...
1953 Austin-Healey 100 Is this the ideal sports car of the 1950s? The car that sparked thousands of people into...
Don Blenderman is koo-koo for Kurtis cars. And why not? Frank Kurtis is arguably the greatest American racecar builder of all time. His career spanned four decades, and his cars regularly dominated the competition. The Kurtis midget was the car to have in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and the lovely...
