Warren Olson arrived in Southern California fresh out of South Dakota in the late 1940s, just in time to take...
During the years following WWII, road racing in the U.S. initially developed as an amateur sport, mostly run by the...
October 2010 At the sports car races in Palm Springs on the first weekend of December, 1955, Tony Parravano (third from left) looks at Carroll Shelby who’s seated in Parravano’s Ferrari 375 Plus before a practice session. Parravano was known as “Saturday Night Tony” because he often wouldn’t bother to...
Dan Gurney’s motor racing career as a driver, car constructor and team owner is just about as star-spangled as his...
A number of those among us stood head and shoulder above all others during the Golden Age of Motorsports. Juan Fangio, Stirling Moss, Carroll Shelby, John Fitch, Dan Gurney and Phil Hill immediately come to mind. Only one from that exhalted group, however, was proposed for President of the United...
During the sixties, Carroll Shelby tried almost anything having to do with cars and racing. A little-known episode was his...
When Japanese cars first came on the scene, although practical, most were somewhat stodgy. In the mid-’60s, however, Toyota decided...
Over 2-liter Grand Touring cars have always had a place to compete within the ever-changing regulations of International Motorsport; the World Sports Car Championship from 1953–1961, the Speedworld Challenge from 1962–1963, and the International Championship of Makes from 1972–1981. This included racing in the great endurance races such as the...
There was a summer of my life when I often walked back home from an evening ramble in a European...
The second annual Legends of Riverside Film Festival and Gala took place at the Riverside International Automotive Museum in that...
Back in the June 2008 issue of Vintage Racecar we announced that two special 4-cylinder Austin-Healeys were being prepared in Australia for the purpose of retracing the steps made by the Donald Healey Motor Company at Bonneville in 1954. Back then, with the likes of Carroll Shelby, Roy Jackson-Moore, and...
Wealthy Belgian aristocrat Olivier Gendebien has the unique distinction of being Ferrari’s most successful GT and sports car racer. He...
The title of my column reads: “The Fabulous Fifties.” The era is one I know something about. During that time,...
When I first talked with Vintage Racecar editor Casey Annis in 2005, the conversation revolved around the subject of me writing about the fifties, the fabulous fifties as it were. After all, this was what I was known for. I had written seven books about the decade. One of my...
By 1963, Cobras were doing very well in Sports Car Club of America races. Cars driven by Shelby American drivers...
The second annual Legends of Riverside racing reunion and film festival has named Carroll Shelby as its special guest of...
1970 De Tomaso 505-Cosworth The De Tomaso drew much admiration from the crowds at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. Photo: Peter Collins Where do you start? Society weddings, the jet set racing crowd, brewery heirs, Mangustas, Grand Prix disaster. The De Tomaso story has it all, and the car you...
Today almost exclusively remembered as the genius behind the competition cars named for a road-running bird in the southwest, Jim...
My column in the October 2006 edition of Vintage Racecar was titled, “Shelby, the Early Years.” For the most part,...
My father, Tom Bamford, first got involved in motor sport in his late teens when he bought an Ariel motorcycle in the late ’30s that he had to keep down the street at a gas station because my grandparents didn’t want him to own it. One day he was following...
As everyone knows, after the 1960 racing season, Carroll Shelby retired as a driver and became even better known for...
Billing itself as “America’s Largest and most historically important archive of automotive history,” this is the official site of the...
The Petersen Automotive Museum and Checkered Flag 200, the museum’s premier membership group, will present another gala tribute this November in honor of the SCCA’s Trans-American Sedan Championship. “Tribute to Trans-Am” will take place November 12, beginning with a 6:00 p.m. cocktail reception, followed by dinner. Also scheduled is a...
Two events, one forever unforgettable, the other somewhat less memorable, shared the same Sunday, 40 years ago. Heading up the...
1957 Aston Martin DBR1 Aston Martin’s relationship with the 24 Hours of Le Mans goes all the way back to...
Aston Martin entered the1959 sports car season targeting just a single race, Le Mans, but walked away the deserving winner of an almost accidental Championship Away at the drop of the flag, Moss has already exited stage right to lead the early going, while the eventual winner (#5) can be seen...
One of a baker’s dozen of American citizens to have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall, Carroll Shelby...
This month marks the 50th anniversary of Aston Martin’s one and only victory at Le Mans. With such a major...
Tall, handsome, and charming, Roy Salvadori was everything Hollywood ever wanted a racing driver to be. He was a ’50s–’60s swashbuckler and would not have looked out of place swinging down from the rigging of a man o’ war, sword in hand, instead of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Fantasy perhaps, but...
