Tucked away in a little potato-farming town, 250 miles south east of Buenos Aires, is one of the most important...
In Mass’ last full year, 1991, he teamed with Jean-Louis Schlesser in this C11 for the Mercedes-Benz WSC team as...
Immediately after the Second World War, Jean-Pierre Wimille, Louis Chiron, Philippe Etancelin, and Raymond Sommer carried France’s colors back into battle on the motor racing circuits of the world. But Wimille crashed his Simca-Gordini and was killed while practicing for the Grand Prix of Buenos Aires on January 28, 1949....
Richie Ginther Biography Those readers familiar with the Grand Prix History website know that central to this site is the...
It’s not often that a Formula One driver can turn his hand to World Championship rallying. Look at 2007 F1...
Nelson Piquet Biography Nelson Piquet was born on August 17, 1952 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The son of a government official he spent much of his childhood in the Brazilian capital, Brasília. At the age of 14 he was participating in kart races and was crowned Brazilian kart champion...
It’s wrong to call Baconin Borzacchini the “eternal second,” as some motor sport historians do. Sure, he came 2nd in...
Eddie Irvine has been a shrewd operator for most of his adult life. He carefully maneuvered himself into the second...
St. Chamond in the Loire Valley of France was once known as a production center of ribbon and rayon, as well as its railway works. Now, it is best known as the birthplace of the little man who beat the world four times. For Alain Marie Pascal Prost, who was...
Keke Rosberg was a kind of motor racing Cinderella Man. He went from the drudgery of retiring or not even...
We’re spectating on a rally special stage. The Monte Carlo, Britain’s RAC, the Acropolis in Greece. Anywhere, it doesn’t matter...
With no fewer than 32 world championship victories to his credit, Jochen Mass is one of the most successful sports car racers of all time. He was only beaten to the unofficial title of the most successful by his longtime co-driver, Jacky Ickx, who has 37 wins. Born in Munich,...
“Sex – the breakfast of Champions” was the legend on the T-shirt the 1976 Formula 1 World Champion wore under...
Giuseppe Campari discovered 17-year-old Giulio Ramponi in 1919, when the youngster was working as a trainee for a Milan fuel...
Austrian Berger scored four of his 10 Formula One Grand Prix victories while wearing the fabled Italian Racing Red livery of Scuderia Ferrari. The world held its breath on April 23, 1989, when Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari 640 went straight on at Imola’s Tamburello corner during the San Marino Grand Prix....
Hero is far too modest a word to describe Eddie Rickenbacker. Racing driver, World War 1 ace, Medal of Honor...
So we have lost Dan Gurney, a few months shy of his 87th birthday. Dan was one of the sport’s...
Some time ago, Vintage Racecar published ”Absent Friends,” my story of astonishing heroism of another kind. It involved three motor racing greats, Robert Benoist, William Grover-Williams and, to a lesser extent, Jean-Pierre Wimille. The story told of their selfless devotion to their country, their indignation at the theft of their...
It may sound corny, but Dick Seaman’s short life really was the stuff of Hollywood movies. He was tall, handsome,...
In the March 2009 VRJ I wrote about Don Blenderman’s Kurtis obsession and his wonderful Sutton-bodied 500KK. What I failed...
Like Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell, Emerson Fittipaldi is one of the elite. A driver who has won the Formula 1 World Championship (twice) and the CART title with a record in both—that reads like any self-respecting Walter Mitty’s wish list. He won 14 Grands Prix—not to mention non-title “oddments”...
Louis Delage may have been born to a humble assistant station master and his wife in Cognac, France, in 1874,...
Dad was a part-time taxi driver and Mom a secretary, and five-year-old Mika plagued the life out of them to...
The word had gone out, I was told for the thousandth time, but I felt no better. What if the Mafia suddenly took back its word and the 1926 Bugatti Grand Prix car vanished? It was too late for second thoughts, though. The car was hidden in a lock-up security...
Johnny of the ready smile and blonde hair was a motor racing shooting star who might have aspired to becoming...
Bob Wollek was a champion many times over before he even got into motor racing. He won no fewer than...
With a dad like Stan Jones it was hardly surprising that Alan became a motor racing nut when he was still a kid. Stan won the 1954 New Zealand International Grand Prix, four 1955 Victorian Trophies at Fisherman’s Bend, Melbourne, became the 1958 Australian Gold Star Champion and won the...
Ronnie Peterson Biography Ronnie Peterson was born on 1944 in Örebro, Sweden, the son of an avid racer of moderate accomplishments....
Duntov at the wheel of the Chevrolet Experimental Research Vehicle, CERV 1, a single-seater that he designed and constructed as...
This son of a German garage owner had never raced a car until May 26, 1935, at the superfast Avus circuit near Berlin. But by the end of 1936, he was the king of all he surveyed—the 1936 European Champion, with six Grand Prix victories to his credit. All scored...