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Spa Classic Returns to Francorchamps

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Welcome back to Spa-Francorchamps and Spa Classic!

Story and Photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt

Spa Classic is finally back on the Francorchamps circuit! After a hiatus of two years (we all know why), the tenth edition was able to take place in this month of May and moreover, without rain, which is not uncommon here. More than 380 cars came together to challenge the “Roller-coaster of the Ardennes”, seven kilometers long with its twenty turns marked out by descents and climbs. Nine grids represented the different eras of endurance racing from the post-war period until the early 2000s, which I invite you to discover here.

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The Quail Motorcycle Gathering Part 2

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1965 Moto Morini, red number 65, 175 cc racer, owned by Joey Shimoda

Story and Photos by Brandes Elitch

There are many high-end car shows, which are typically called a Concours d‘Elegance. Two of the most extraordinary are right in this area, the Pebble Beach show and The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering, right on the same field as this show. I have been to many shows of this type in the last fifty years, but I am quite sure that the Quail motorcycle show is in a class by itself, and is likely to remain that way for a while.

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Celebrating a Land Speed Record, 100 Years On

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The 350HP Sunbeam at speed.

Story and Photos by Jonathan Sharp

“It felt like being hurled into space in a good armchair…” wrote SCH (Sammy) Davis, Bentley Boy and sports editor of The Autocar in his article on driving the 350HP Sunbeam in the 22nd February 1929 edition of the magazine.

On the 17th May 1922, at around 5pm as the weather during the day had been bad, Kenelm Lee Guinness (of KLG spark plug fame), in the V-12, 18 litre 350 HP Sunbeam, descended off the Brooklands banking and onto the Railway Straight to enter the measured mile for the second time. Just over 27 seconds later he had broken the Land Speed Record. His average speed for the measured kilometre was 133.75 mph, for the mile 129.17 mph, and 136.05 for the half mile This was to be the last time that the Land Speed Record was to be broken on a motor racing circuit; the cars had become much too fast, so record breaking switched to beaches and salt lakes.
100 years to the day, we gathered at Brooklands, to celebrate his achievement. [Read more…] about Celebrating a Land Speed Record, 100 Years On

A Visit to Cassel’s Classic Cars

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Many Bugattis were present. Very interesting was this Bugatti Type 30 bodied as a ‘Torpedo ponté’ by Parisian coachbuilder Lavocat & Marsaud.

Story and Photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt

Cassel, a small town in the North of France, is not only a typical village in Flanders but also home of the Galerie des Damiers (the checkerboard gallery) founded and run for decades by well-known dealer Christophe Pund, who has no equal in unearthing automotive rarities.

Every two years, on the first of May, Mr Pund receives his car enthusiast friends for a good-natured picnic with, of course, the theme of old cars.

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The Quail Motorcycle Gathering 2022

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1967 Italjet Vampire (competition off road category) owned by Marc Crocetti who volunteered to help with this article. His bikes all have number 71.

Story and Photos by Brandes Elitch

The 12th Annual Quail Motorcycle Gathering was held at the Quail Lodge resort in Carmel Valley, California on May 14, 2022. Because of the pandemic, it could not be held for the two previous years. It was good to be back. This is a world-class motorcycle event, likely THE world-class motorcycle event. [Read more…] about The Quail Motorcycle Gathering 2022

2008: The Alfa Romeo 8C is Really Here!

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This Alfa 8C is painted in the optional color of Rosso Competizione.

In November of 2008, the late Werner Pfister was on hand to record this very unusual delivery of the first 8C Alfas in the U.S. So, 14 years later, how has the 8C faired?

An exclusive report by Werner Pfister
Photos by Werner Pfister

In July, 1951 Enzo Ferrari’s racing team won its first Grand Prix after only 4 years in existence. It was then that he was heard to say, “I have killed my mother!” referring to the fact that he had just beaten the dominant Alfa Romeo that had nurtured him both as a driver and manager of the Scuderia Ferrari Alfa team in the pre-war era. Today, Alfa, now under the same corporate ownership of FIAT as Ferrari, has come back to the USA in a very big way.

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Brooklands Italian Car Day: Fiats

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Welcome to Brooklands.

Story and Photos by Jonathan Sharp

When visiting the annual Italian Car day at Brooklands (April 30) you really do need to keep circulating the site, as cars come and go throughout the day. Some stay all day, some for just a few hours, owner’s club groups meet up and picnics get laid out. During lunchtime a group of vehicles selected by the event sponsor Auto Italia Magazine, ranging from Abarth Grand Prix to a Ferrari SF90, took to the adjacent Mercedes Benz World Test track for some demo laps in front of a large crowd that had crossed the river Wey to join them.

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And How!

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A few years ago we established a mini-feature entitled “And How” as a page to drop in short items, newsbits, addendums, etcetera. It worked fairly well. But after a while, I forgot to make further use of it. Then last week Graham Gauld, Rich Minor and Kendall Merritt had a few things they would like to impart, but shorts, y’know, things that would fit into a mini-feature. How do we do that within the VT format? Oh ya, I remember now. And How. Ed.

Mike Anthony gives Tony Brooks a push at the 1956 British GP. (Photo Gauld)

Graham Gauld and Tony Brooks

I am afraid I was unable to add anything to the comments about Tony Brooks as I had just left France after 27 years and getting adjusted to being back in the UK. [Read more…] about And How!

The Fred Puhn Story: A Tribute

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Fred Puhn and the Santee SS.

By Fred Puhn
All photos courtesy Fred Puhn

From the VeloceToday Archives, August 2020. Fred Puhn passed away on May 13th 2022; we republish the articles he wrote in 2020 for VeloceToday.

I was born in 1939; my childhood was spent in a country environment near Lakeside California. We lived on a dirt road and played outdoors most of the year. A big activity was the design, construction, and driving of “coasters” (gravity powered race cars). Not having much money, we scrounged materials such as old shopping cart or wagon wheels, scrap lumber, and old bolts and nails. Our coasters ranged from very nice to very crude, and we spent many weekends and summers riding down hills, crashing, and rebuilding. I learned how to throw a coaster sideways in the dirt to stop it because they never had any brakes. It was during these early years I learned to control a vehicle and to design and build one.

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Tony Brooks Obituary

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Goodwood 2008. Hugues Vanhoolandt photo

Tony Brooks passed away on May 3, 2022 at the age of 90. Our condolences to his family and many friends who knew him as a generous, loving family man and true gentleman, as well as a great race driver and successful businessman.

Tony Brooks, born Charles Anthony Standish Brooks in 1932, was a natural driver. He never went to driver’s school, never had a mentor. He was self-taught, self-motivated, extremely intelligent and knew what he wanted to do after the first time behind the wheel of his mother’s MGTC.

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Brooklands Italian Car Day 2022

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Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

The following articles contain no production numbers, with one or two exceptions, no chassis numbers, no race histories and no illustrious drivers, bar one. Just photographs of the sort of Italian cars you rarely see this days. Where might one see such an event? Brooklands, for the Italian Car day held on Saturday the 30th April. The right crowd, well they like Italian cars, but there was some crowding.

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Charles Jarrott and the Isle of Man Trials

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Charles Jarrott, along with S.F. Edge and C.S. Rolls were important figures in the early development of British racing cars. This is Jarrott in the Wolseley “Beetle” on or about May 10, 1904.

By Pete Vack, Photos courtesy Dale LaFollette
Research by Dale LaFollette

From 1900 to 1905, six races were held in Europe and the UK, named the Gordon Bennett Cup, the goal of which was to promote international racing. The photos below, attributed to the Dale LaFollette collection, exhibit the Elimination Trials for the Gordon Bennett Cup of 1904. Ed.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr.

Gordon Bennett, or James Gordon Bennett Jr., never attended any of the races named after him, nor did he particularly like the title given to the events and said that he preferred the name “Coupe Internationale.”

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