You can practically feel the sun in your eyes and the air rapidly moving across your helmet’s visor as you watch this on-board video of a windshieldless 1950s Corvette racer. This one, in full 360-degree video provides incredible sound and shows a lot of the things you’d normally miss in a video.
While Pescarolo Sport’s Courage C60s—with naturally aspirated V10s—proved quicker in qualifying, Champion Racing’s turbocharged Audi R8 prototypes won the day back in 2005. The 24 hour endurance race at Le Mans favored the open-top Audis, this one taking the top step of the podium by two laps with Tom Kristensen, JJ…
FIA Group 5 class racing went through four distinct generations from the early touring car races of the late 1960s through the off-the-wall bonkers silhouette racers that dominated the international sports car scene from about 1975 to about 1983. Perhaps the most iconic and dominant racer developed for this series was…
How did it come to pass that Steve McQueen was bestowed the title of “King of Cool” when Paul Newman was infinitely more badass, arguably more talented on the race track, and unequivocally more talented on the silver screen? Besides, he had to be the baddest mother in the land to finesse this Bob Sharp Racing-prepared…
Open up a dictionary, and under the definition for ‘class’ you’ll probably find a picture of a Bugatti. These are cars that generally radiate elegant beauty through their sleek curves and undeniable speed. But… not everyone can always be perfect all the time.
Last weekend during the Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca, Mazda racer Tristan Nunez climbed aboard a manic high-rev monster from the company’s past to do battle with the other drivers, but also with the car. He’d managed to wrestle the mid-engine rotary racer to the pole position, but on the first lap of…
The Whelen Engineering Action Express Racing Chevrolet Corvette Coyote Daytona Prototype was racing, and winning, in IMSA’s top tier Prototype class just two years ago. In fact, it took drivers Dane Cameron and Eric Curran to the series driver’s championship in 2016.
Like a getaway scene in an old school Brit bank heist film, Grant Williams drives his 1959 Jaguar Mk1 sedan racer at full tilt and only half in control. It’s well known that drifting and sliding is rarely the fastest way to negotiate a circuit, but at Goodwood you’re rewarded for being memorable. If Grant had simply…
Apropos of nothing, Lamborghini has returned Minardi M191B chassis #003 to vintage racing duties after a lengthy seven-month restoration by the company’s Polo Storico division. Many of the original 1990s Lamborghini and Minardi staff were involved in the restoration. Polo Storico is dedicated to the preservation and…
Jeff Green, an Illinois dealership owner and former Pro Mazda Championship racer, died Saturday in a wreck at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Green turned 61 just a week before, and friends described him as a “true gentleman who would always help anyone out at any time” in Facebook posts after his death.
Vintage racing is some of the best racing in the world. The thrill of seeing the cars you never got to see race in their prime running around the track at speed is incredible. The sights, sounds, and smells are generally quite unlike anything you’d get from a modern racing series event.
Some vintage racing events lure crowds with the promise of Formula 1, Can-Am, and Le Mans exotics of years past. But this year’s Classic Motorsports Mitty was focused on a more mainstream marque: Datsun and Nissan.
In the late 1950s, there were all kinds of low-production shoddy-built sports racing cars available for the average sportsman to purchase and set immediately to the race track. The Kellison J4-R you see here is perhaps one of the better ones, fitting a lightweight chassis with Chevrolet’s venerable small-block V8 and…
Back a few weeks ago, I wrote a brief piece about Rod Millen’s Pikes Peak-winning Toyota Celica, and how it would be running again at this year’s Leadfoot Festival, a vintage hillclimb event hosted by Rod himself. The driveway to Rod’s ranch in New Zealand serves as the Goodwood-esque hillclimb venue, and it seems to…
Vintage racing is a show, as much as collecting expensive, old cars for display is. The cars aren’t bought to sit around, no matter how misleading the shiny body panels and pristine conditions are. They’re bought to take a beating on the race track, and still need the kind of upkeep they did before becoming…
If there’s one event you should experience in Japan, it’s the Richard Mille Suzuka Sound of Engine. Now in its third year, the Sound of Engine is possibly the closest thing Japan has to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Except rather than watching cars go up a hill they go around one of Japan’s most well-known circuits…
Jules Gounon is a successful international racing driver, having come 2nd at the Daytona 24 proper, won the Spa 24 hour race outright, and secured the ADAC GT Masters championship, and that’s just this year. During the Classic 24 Daytona last weekend, Jules added another race to his tally by assaulting the field with…
The 600-horsepower 1991 Mazda RX-7 IMSA GTO is a four-rotor symphony of mighty Wankel engine sounds. Pro racer Joel Miller stuck a camera on his helmet so you can experience all the loud noises from home—that is, if you can crank your home stereo up to “definite noise violation from two counties away.”
Unless you get mesmerized by the fact that they’re hustling über-expensive, state-of-the-art formula cars inches away from every barrier, the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix can be a dull parade. But not in vintage cars. They’re narrow enough to pass on Monaco’s twisty roads and holy crap, they sound awesome.
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