Dick Wharton / Alfa Romeo 308 (1940)
During the Grand Prix that happened in Alexandria Bay (New York). The 308 was built in 1938 for the 3 liter class, with power output ranging from around 220 to 300bhp.
And welcome to 1939.
The place is the Nurburgring, Germany. Rudi Caracciola approaches in spectacular motion one of the most dangerous corners of the circuit, in his Mercedes W154.
The people at the Mercedes Heritage website pointed this out: notice the rails. You can’t, actually, because there aren’t any. Judging by the angle of the rear end of that Mercedes, this move took some serious courage. I say courage, but I really means balls.
Welcome to 1937, Donnington.
Bernd Rosemeyer, winner of the 1937 edition of the Donnington Grand Prix, celebrates his victory behind the wheel of the incredibly fast Auto Union Type C, with a lot of smoke.
Steve McQueen / Lotus 30
Most of you have seen McQueen on “Le Mans”, Lee Katzin’s 1971 production.
What some of you might not know (I didn’t) is that we could have seen McQueen on ‘Grand Prix’ as well, or at least in some other form of it. Here are the words of Smuckatelli on the topic:
“Steve McQueen had the idea to make a movie about Grand Prix racing and it was to be called “Day of the Champion” with MGM producing the movie. Steve even did some work using a Lotus camera car (see photo). That is actually Steve driving the car with some brave schmuck working the camera. Unfortunately for Steve John Frankenheimer started production on his movie called “Grand Prix” and they cast Steve’s good friend James Garner as the lead. As a result Day of the Champion was put on the shelf and Steve got so angry that he didn’t speak to James Garner for two years.”
Juan Manuel Fangio
1954, Swiss Grand Prix. Fangio drives the Mercedes W196, which turns out to have been the first F1 car with direct injection.
Nelson Piquet, Monaco Grand Prix, 1981.
Here driving the Brabham BT49.
1959 Portuguese Grand Prix, at Monsanto.
Portugal was once a synonym for fast, full on racing pedigree as far as Formula 1 is concerned, up until we lost the great street circuits both in Lisbon and Oporto — and then Estoril. It’s like the country dumped F1 for good.
So today it is quite endearing for us to watch clips like these, which remind us of what we once had and how a country, in serious need of development back in the days, stopped to a halt just to get a glimpse of what it felt like to live life really really fast.
This event was won by Stirling Moss (Cooper/Climax) with our own portuguese pilot Mário Araújo Cabral coming in 10th (Cooper/Maserati).
Monaco is close, peeps!
So here are a few Monaco Grand Prix posters for your pleasure, sadly in low resolution.
The 1967 poster hangs proudly on my bedroom wall, I’m eager to get my hands on a few more. I need a bigger apartment though :)
(Source: posterclassics.com)
The great Tazio Nuvolari, a fearless and amazing driver that shaped the profile of modern racing drivers.
This was taken during the Monza Grand Prix of 1934, the car seems to be a Maserati 6C, but I might be wrong.
Back in 1934, the competing GP brands were mainly Mercedes-Benz, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Bugatti and Auto-Union.
