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.

1963 Shelby King Cobra Cooper Type 61M

Film clips show MacDonald almost sideways and he never lifts or moves the wheel as he slides through the turn, lap after lap. It is breathtaking to watch In 1963, Carroll Shelby needed a car to compete in the USAC-sanctioned Fall Series on the West Coast, which evolved later into […]

Maserati Tipo 65 Sports Racing Prototype

It’s an iconic Italian failure, a testament to chaos, caffeine, grappa, panic, and an unwillingness to throw in the towel This remarkably imposing V8 rear-engined, sports-prototype is the last of the line of Maserati competition cars built during the Gruppo Orsi Empire’s long ownership of the Italian marque. As such, […]

1961 Porsche RS 61 Sports Racing Spyder

The factory figured on 120 man-hours to create one of these engines. Setting the cam timing took between eight and 15 hours. Porsche’s giant-killer Spyder series of four-cylinder, four-cam sports racing cars ruled small bore international racing for a full decade, beginning in the early 1950s. Since a powerful multi-cylinder […]

1965 Alfa Romeo TZ-1

Alain de Cadenet explained to me a few years back that he bought his first Ferrari GTO because he couldn’t afford the TZ-1 he really wanted Alfa Romeo replaced the Giulietta in 1962 with the Giulia range of cars, powered by 1,570 cc engines. In 1963, the company introduced a […]

1907 Renault AI 35/45 Vanderbilt Racer

This car was the Ferrari Enzo of its day-exclusive, fast, beautiful, and exciting-but not really a racer Renault’s reputation was made in the open-road races of Europe at the turn of the 20th century, in cars built and driven by Louis Renault and his brother Marcel. Even though Marcel was […]

1963-64 Lola-Chevrolet Mk 6 GT

This stunningly beautiful car represents the beginning of the modern GT and will be extremely competitive in high-level vintage racing His groundbreaking Anglo-American competition coupe, with its two sisters, marked one of the most significant landmarks in the entire history of world-class endurance racing. This rear-engined Lola GT is the […]

1927 Bugatti Type 35C

I can personally attest that it’s possible to sit for hours contemplating the Type 35 like a piece of sculpture There were 23 automobiles on the starting grid for the 1930 Monaco Grand Prix. Fourteen of them-60% of the field-were Bugattis. Bugattis were essentially graceful machines that emphasized light weight […]

1956 Jaguar D-type

This gently patinated, tastefully restored 1956 Jaguar D-type sports racing car exemplifies all that was most impressive, most innovative-and perhaps above all most beautiful-about the legendary British manufacturer’s mid-’50s design. The immortal D-type survives today as the supreme example of semi-monocoque frontier technology. After three Le Mans wins in 1955, […]

1993 Williams-Renault FW15C

ABS brought the realization that it was possible to allow computing power to do far more than keep the wheels from locking World Champion Alain Prost once described the Williams-Renault FW15C, as “really a little Airbus” -his way of describing an F1 car in the electronic era. Prost campaigned seven […]

1968 Howmet Turbine

Much of the experimental engine is missing. Only ten were built, to win a government contract, so replacement parts are on intergalactic backorder Throughout the past century of automotive progress, the turbine engine was perceived as a possible alternative to the internal combustion engine. The two most famous American turbine […]