The Design Concepts of Jean Bugatti As a freethinking engineer and designer, his automobile creations were exceptional, daring to break...
Last month I wrote about the road race that took place in Palm Springs in 1950. It was the first...
Sports car road racing started after WWII on the East Coast during the late forties. The first wheel-to-wheel event was organized by the Sports Car Club of America on October 2, 1948 at Watkins Glen, NY. Even though Southern California was a hotbed of the car-crazy culture, road racing took...
Parnelli is not his real name. Rufus Jones’ middle name is Parnell. His mother named him after a Judge Parnell...
The original Trans-Am was part and parcel of one of the things that made the Golden Age golden. Many of...
“Revisited” because this is my second column about Ken. My March 2006 column was the first, but in rereading it there were some things I left out and would like to tell about. A short time ago, while looking for a photograph, I came across a negative of Miles I...
Learning to race on a road course can be daunting. Even though it was almost 50 years ago, I remember...
In 1953, the very first Corvettes hit Chevrolet Dealers’ show rooms. Hailed by some as the long-awaited American sports car,...
By almost anyone’s measure, one of the things that made the Golden Era golden was the Canadian-American Challenge Cup or the Can-Am. It was the pinnacle of American road racing. The cars were the ultimate in racing machines, to the extent that they were faster than Indycars and those running...
After WWII, sports cars became more and more popular. As a consequence, road racing took hold in the U.S. For...
During the years following WWII, road racing in the U.S. initially developed as an amateur sport, mostly run by the...
Jaguar’s XK120 Roadster was introduced at the London Motor Show in the fall of 1948. A year later, cars began to appear on American roads and tracks. They came in three configurations: roadster, convertible and coupe. All three were raced, but most entrants preferred the somewhat lighter roadster version. The...
A number of those among us stood head and shoulder above all others during the Golden Age of Motorsports. Juan...
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 to produce a sports car that would rival others of the genre. Japanese designer Satoru Nozaki penned a two-door coupe—the 2000GT—that some feel had styling influenced by the E-Type Jaguar....
Soon after motor vehicles were invented they were raced. Initially the contests were held on open roads, often from city...
The title of my column reads: “The Fabulous Fifties.” The era is one I know something about. During that time,...
