Author: Thor Thorson

Thor Thorson is president of Vintage Racing Motors, a Seattle-area collector-car dealer and vintage-racing support operation. He has been actively involved with racing for over 40 years, dealing with racers from Ferraris to Sprites, but is mostly seen driving Elva sports racers. He has been writing the race-car profiles for SCM since 2003.

1964 Alfa Romeo TZ Coupe

It’s tempting to speculate what this car might have brought if it had retired after the 1964 season instead of being raced for years One of the most desirable of all of the postwar Alfas, TZs were—and continue to be—considered as Alfa Romeo’s version of Ferrari’s GTO. Ranking in rarity […]

1976/1983 Ferrari 308 GTB Group B Michelotto

Introduced at the Paris Salon in 1975, the stunningly beautiful 308 GTB—Ferrari’s second V8 road car—marked a welcome return to Pininfarina styling following the Bertone-designed Dino 308 GT4. Badged as a proper Ferrari rather than a Dino, the newcomer had changed little mechanically, apart from a reduction in wheelbase. The […]

1961 Elder-Crawford Indy Roadster

Front-engined roadsters were a feature of the Indianapolis 500 from 1921 to 1963. Especially constructed for the 150-plus mph oval track, they attracted the best racing engineers that America had to offer, including Harry Miller, Fred Offenhauser, Frank Kurtis and A. J. Watson. Few Indy 500 roadsters survive in unmodified […]

1968 Lola T70 Mk III GT Coupe

There are a lot more T70 coupes out there than ever left the Lola workshop in Slough Eric Broadley’s Lola project, the legendary T70, debuted in 1965 and quickly demonstrated its prowess in the hands of John Surtees, who won the inaugural Can-Am Championship in 1966. The T70 was produced […]

1933 Bugatti Type 51 Grand Prix

The late Fitzroy John Somerset, 5th Baron Raglan, is remembered with tremendous affection within the vintage racing world. Following a successful Chairmanship, Lord Raglan was only the third person to become Patron of the U.K.’s Bugatti Owners’ Club, in succession to Ettore Bugatti himself and the illustrious motor racing peer, […]

1967 Jaguar E-type Series 1 Roadster Race Car

This month’s column is a tale with both tragic and cautionary threads for those who play in the vintage racing car hobby This Series 1 E-type roadster was purchased from its second owner in 2005 after being discovered in a garage where it had remained since the mid-1980s. The car […]

1966 Ford Lotus Cortina

The gulf between an assemblage of parts and a functioning, front-rank racer is immense and can be very expensive to cross Ford was looking to race the Mk I Cortina in the Group 2 category, for which 1,000 “homologation specials” would be required. The obvious powerplant was the twin-cam version […]

1934 MG PA/B Le Mans Works Racer

This car is the sole original survivor of a three-car team put together by MG to publicize the new P-Series, which had been introduced in 1934. The idea was that three identical works cars would be entered in the 1935 Le Mans race, driven by three teams of women, with […]

1960 Faccioli Tipo BF Formula Racer

Bologna-based engineer Aldo Faccioli started out in 1947 when his OSFA workshop (Officina Specializza Faccioli Aldo) designed, developed, and built 750-cc specials based on the Fiat 500 chassis fitted with the Lancia Ardea engine. The subsequently named OFSA/Lancia spider achieved numerous top-five finishes throughout the 1950s. In 1960, racing driver […]

1933 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Monza

I know a number of extremely knowledgeable individuals who simply state that if they could own only one collector car, it would be an 8C 2300 In the early 1930s, Italian road racing, and motor sport in general, relied on various tiers of competitors to fill the grids: factory entries, […]