Race

If hot rods had been invented in England, Sidney Allard would have been their originator. The first postwar production models of the Allard Motor Company featured American Ford flathead V8s, more often than not fitted with Sidney’s own alloy speed parts such as intake manifolds and cylinder heads. By the early 1950s, larger American OHV…

340/375MM coupes are hot, claustrophobic, cacophonous, and demanding to drive. The spyders are simply demanding   {vsig}2007-10_2081{/vsig} Ferrari has been called a racing company with a production department, and nowhere is that emphasis more evident than in the production sports cars of the early 1950s. Not only was Enzo Ferrari passionately dedicated to victory on…

The Alfa is so light and quick, you almost forget it’s pre-war. Imagine a tall Lotus 7 with 19-inch tires and a lot more horsepower The chassis serial associated with this 8C 2300 is 2211051. This serial was the earliest number applied to the second-series of 8C 2300s, the brainchild of Alfa Romeo’s fabled chief…

At the end of the day, Formula 5000 is still the ultimate bang for the buck in vintage racing One of the most attractive categories within historic motor racing is Formula 5000, catering to single-seater (near-Formula One) cars powered by production-based engines of up to 5 liters capacity. Formula 5000 racing was introduced in 1968…

It is no overstatement to say that the Lotus 25 revolutionized Formula 1 car design. It was a complete break from conventional thinking, advanced even for Colin Chapman, and its significance must be one of the best-kept secrets in motor racing. Colin Chapman said the inspiration came from the steel backbone frame of the new…

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 the SCCA Canadian American Challenge…

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, it marks the high tide…

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 engine was not available, Porsche’s…

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 radical aluminum-bodied Zagato coupe incorporating…

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 killed in the 1903 Paris-Madrid…