If you grew up in the United States, then you were weaned on “The American Dream” —the idea that anyone...
Then. Southern California is home to a seemingly endless supply of astounding cars hiding in garages, warehouses and barns. For those of us residing in the other 49 States, I suppose it’s too bad for us. For the past 27 years, an early-postwar Italian-blooded racing machine has been resting quietly...
Mike Lawrence In 1957 Maserati was supreme. Fangio won the F1 Championship and the Maserati 450S came within an ace...
Mike Lawrence By now, everyone who wants to see Rush has done so and formed their own opinion. There is...
BBC TV’s Top Gear is seen in 170 countries. There is now an insipid American version, which remakes original programs in a cozy way. The American presenters have had personality bypasses and have yet to look up irony in a dictionary. A while back, Top Gear challenged viewers to nominate...
Foretelling the future is impossible, yet that is what executives in car companies have to do. When I was a...
It happened again! Just like Phil (Bill Murray) in Groundhog Day, I go to sleep every night hoping that things...
Niki Lauda came back into Grand Prix racing, because he could! It has been suggested that he needed the money, or was bored with retirement, but whatever the reasons he certainly believed that McLaren could do the job. Above all, he felt sure he could. I think the real story...
As you’ll read in this month’s Racecar Profile, I recently had the great honor of being invited to the Indianapolis...
This year is the 60th anniversary of the Morris Mini-Minor and Austin Se7en, and the Goodwood Revival will feature some examples once owned by stars of the period, including the odd Beatle. The Mini was praised for being egalitarian, which fitted the mood of the time when social barriers were...
I’ve been fairly fortunate in that I have been able to part with various cars in my life, with a...
“Where have all the young teams gone?” the words of that famous song with a one word alteration could well apply to the ranks of Formula One teams since the World Championship came into being back in 1950. It is said that more than 150 teams have come and gone,...
No doubt by now you’ve heard of the passing of Paul Newman. Newman’s impact on the worlds of acting and...
Is Renault French? Is the Pope a Catholic? I ask because Renault has bought the Benetton team and has renamed...
This issue marks the fourth year that we’ve devoted a portion of our February issue to driver safety. With another new racing season quickly approaching—at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere!—we again feel strongly that this is a good time for all of us to reexamine our...
Jacky Ickx and the smoky Martini Porsche 936 just made it to the end to claim the win for himself,...
I swear to you, I don’t know how it could have happened. I had been so diligent, for so long – I took all the necessary precautions. I stopped hanging around with the wrong crowd. I stopped frequenting the usual haunts. And yet in the end, I was undone by...
What kind of racing driver is it who forgets how many times he’s won? One of the most successful, of...
I have just marked my half-century of being a motor racing enthusiast. On February 1, 1957, I bought a copy of Motor Sport. Many years later, I was chatting with James Weaver at Silverstone, who said, “Bloody Denis Jenkinson, it’s thanks to him I’m in my current mess.” In 1957,...
The only time I ever met Eddie Cheever was one weekend when we were at the Hockenheim circuit, in Germany,...
This year, Crosslé, Lola, and Mallock will all celebrate their fiftieth anniversaries. The exact date of each birthday is unknown,...
As I mentioned here, a few months ago, for several years I sorted the boxes of stuff that Eoin Young had picked up at auctions or autojumbles. One day I came upon a program for a motorcycle speedway meeting in 1937—it was only a sheet of foolscap folded in two,...
Greg Smith is a long time vintage racing enthusiast and runs a restoration shop that has traditionally specialized in European...
Over the past two months, you may have noticed several news pieces in the magazine about the seemingly insane attempt...
At the time of writing, the McLaren MP4-12C is an unknown quantity. Regardless of how well it does, it is a landmark. The main load-bearing structure, what McLaren calls a “Monocell” is carbon fiber, using a system similar to injection moulded plastic. This has been the automotive equivalent of the...