1955 Zephyr Special Today, you would describe Eldred De Bracton Norman as a lateral thinker, but during the 1950s, “eccentric”...
John Michael Hawthorn was a Yorkshire lad of 24 with hardly any top-level motor racing experience when he drove the race of his life and beat the 1950, 1951 and 1952 Formula One World Champions, Giuseppe Farina, Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari in the 1953 Grand Prix of France....
Following the steep rise known as the Montee du Beau Rivage, the Virage de Massenet is a relatively quick and...
January 2007 Sunshine, Speed and a Surprise: The 1959 Grand Prix of the United States By Joel Finn In “Sunshine,...
1959 Cooper T-51 and 1960 Cooper T-53 The two Formula 1 Coopers you see here represent one of the key moments in the evolution of Grand Prix racing. From the beginning of the Drivers’ Championship in 1950, front-engine cars were the norm. Through the years of the 2.5-liter engine formula,...
1955 Crowfoot Holden Special The author opens up the wailing Crowfoot Special onto Wakefield Park’s front straight. Photo: Casey Annis...
1954 Alvis Grey Lady At the 2004 Goodwood Revival, a most unlikely machine quickly became the large crowd’s favorite as...
1955 Le Mans-Winning Jaguar D-type Chassis XKD 505 The temptation is to dissolve into a wave of superlatives…that would not be a problem. Chassis XKD 505 won the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hours with Mike Hawthorn and Ivor Bueb behind the wheel, the race remembered for motor racing’s worst accident....
February 2006 BMC Competition Department Secrets With Marcus Chambers, Stuart Turner, and Peter Browning While the name of the book...
Sports car racing in the U.S. during the ’50s was unique. It was very different from the American circle-track or...
Juan Manuel Fangio, called by the Argentinos “El Chueco” the bandy-legged one, is considered by many to have been the greatest Grand Prix driver in the world. Five times a world champion Fangio won his titles driving for Alfa Romeo (1951), Mercedes-Benz (1954–55), Ferrari (1956), and Maserati (1957). Like most...
1952 Ferrari 500/625 Ascari. Taruffi. Villoresi. Farina. Hawthorn. Trintignant. Maglioli. Gonzales. Mieres. Whitehead. Siracusa. Pau. Marseilles. Bremgarten. Sables d’Olonne. Naples....
Whether or not most of us realize it, a most unusual man is among us. Until the late ’50s, he...
September 2005 The Amazing Summer of ’55 By Eoin Young There is no logic why 1955 was destined to ring...
July 2005 The Cruel Sport by Robert Daley Two years ago, I received this e-mail from Robert Daley: “I am...
1951 Ferrari 212 Export “Burano” As a VRJ reader, the chances are pretty good that the car you see here has some seminal significance, especially if you were born somewhere between the late 1930s and 1950, or have a long-time interest in proper road racing…or both. I was 14 when...
This stained glass window was commissioned by Kye Yeung, owner of European Motor Car Works in Costa Mesa, California. The...
It was one of those good races spoiled by bad scoring. After taking the checkered flag at 10 pm, Phil...
Pete Lovely said it best: “We couldn’t believe they would let us race through this beautiful park, which was almost in the heart of a major city.” Not only were the races held for three years on what many sports car publications called “the best road race course in the...
1959 Old Yeller Mk II As with so many of the great racecars and specials of the ’50s, the success...
FORMULA ONE & TWO AT REIMS, 1958 | It could never happen now. Ian Burgess was a works Cooper driver...
Pete Lyons Fifty years—let’s set the old timescope at that fulsome number today. It’s been a long time since 1954, yet it’s still within reach of mind—of mine, anyway. For me, photographs of that age have eerie dual powers—they depict a world so distant as to seem alien, yet often...
May 2004 Women in Motorsport From 1945 By Susan TP-Jamieson and Peter Tuthill The topic of women in motorsport is...
1956 Ferrari 500 TR Prototype I have to confess that we sometimes get very carried away by some of the...
1958 Devin D Porsche Across the southern hills of the Dolomite Mountains of Italy, north of a line drawn between Schio, Marostica and Bassano del Grappa, lie some of Europe’s most beautiful and challenging roads…long and fast sweeps coming down from 3,000 meters, medium speed twists across alpine meadows, and...
Jaguar had entered three XK120s for the 1950 Le Mans race and while two cars finished 12th, and 15th respectively,...
The Conclusion of Boyd Harnell’s First-Hand Look at the 1954 Carrera Panamericana Mexico City-Leon, Leon-Durango: November 21, 1954 The carnage...
1958 Lola Mk1 The Broadley cousins were racing enthusiasts from an early age. Both built and raced Austin specials before setting about in 1956 to construct something to compete with the new Lotus VI, being built and raced by one Colin Chapman. Their original idea had been to buy a...
