VeloceToday.com

The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts

Richie Ginther Tribute Part 1

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Sometimes size does matter, as at Santa Barbara on June 1, 1958, when Richie Ginther got behind the wheel of John von Neumann’s ungodly beautiful #211 Ferrari 250 TR capturing 3rd OA, but 1st in DM. Ginther was bested that day by Lance Reventlow in his Scarab Chevy in 1st, and Max Balchowsky in the Buick Ol’ Yeller in 2nd. Both were class BM, where size does matter.

This is the first of two articles about Richie Ginther, a great driver who never quite got the press he deserved. Below is Allen Kuhn’s portrait of the driver, and we’ll follow that up with personal recollections from Jim Sitz, who knew Ginther very well. These are fleeting bios; for a really good look at Richie, we urge you to get a copy of Richard Jenkins’ “Richie Ginther, Motor Racing’s Free Thinker”. Both Kuhn and Sitz also contributed to Jenkins’ book. Ed.

A Pictorial Essay By Allen R. Kuhn

My pictorial essay for this week actually began as I searched my negatives for a particular car. I found out that the auction house RM Sotheby’s is offering the John Edgar Ferrari 410S s/n 0598 at the Monterey Car Week this month. Was there a story for VeloceToday.com here? [Read more…] about Richie Ginther Tribute Part 1

Concorso Italiano 2022

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Maserati T151

Story and photos by Brandes Elitch
Scroll down for Alfa to Ferrari photo gallery

The third week in August is known on the California Monterey Peninsula as “Car Week.” The population of the small town (1.06 square miles) of Carmel-by-the Sea has about 4000 residents, but during car week they will see an additional 85,000 visitors, according to the Monterey County Visitors Bureau. This is primarily a four-day event, but there is even a “Pre-Historics” the week before at the Laguna Seca racetrack. Car week now spans ten days and stretches from Seaside to Carmel Valley to Big Sur. Aside from the three major shows, there are another dozen or so smaller events, spread out all over the Monterey Peninsula. The pandemic put the brakes on some Car Week events for the last two years, but now, “It’s all right here!” [Read more…] about Concorso Italiano 2022

2022 Oldtimer Grand Prix

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Wolfgang von Trips was the first German driver to have a shot at becoming the a world champion. He was not forgotten, and that is why a parade in his memory was organized, including an exact replica of the Ferrari 156 with which he knew glory and tragedy.

Story and photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt

In Mid-August, the 49th Oldtimer Grand Prix took place, an event that has been held for nearly fifty years at the famous Nürburgring track. After two years of absence, the greatest classic car race meeting of Germany was back, with races for all tastes.

Races for F1 cars were of course eagerly awaited by the public as well as the new DTM Classic Cup; the DTM Touring cars were always very popular in Germany.
Here are a few selections from the event.

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Bradley Price: Generation Alfa

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Story by Sean Smith
All photos copyright Sean Smith unless otherwise noted

From the VeloceToday Archives October 2017

Bradley Price became aware of automobiles at eye level. His father was an enthusiast, and when Bradley was young his dad had an Austin Healey 100-6. That went away and was replaced by an XK140 Jaguar that his father still owns. Being a young boy, these machines were looming entities. Bradley would examine them closely, looking at all the details. A piece of chrome, a tail-light, a shiny set of spokes. Cars resonated with him. He responded to their call where his older brother did not. Bradley was hooked.

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Abarths, Brands Hatch and Graham Gauld

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What does the “R” stand for? Gauld investigates.

Story and Brands Hatch photos by Graham Gauld

You know what it’s like, eight weeks living out of a suitcase trying to find a house in the UK, you get mentally frazzled. I needed a jab of car reality. Luckily, nearby at the legendary Brands Hatch circuit there was the

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Making the Cannonball Run Movie P1

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The owner of the Countach (left) with Tom Nash (center) and Guy Anderson (right).

Story by Guy Anderson
Photos copyright Guy Anderson

In 1980 I received a call from my good friend Jeff Glasserow, who worked in the film industry. Jeff worked for Ted Turner at the ‘Super Station’ WTBS and the all-new CNN center here in Atlanta.

Jeff called to inform me there was a new Burt Reynolds movie that was going to begin shooting in Atlanta in a few weeks. The subject of the movie was racing a Lamborghini in a coast to coast race called the “Cannonball Run.” The race invented by Brock Yates was officially called: “The Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash.” Brock Yates had written the script for the movie to be called The Cannonball Run and directed by famed stunt man and a participant in the original Cannonball run, Hal Needham.

[Readers: You do NOT want to miss this exclusive story! Editor]

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Making the Cannonball Run Movie, P2

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Rodger Moore standing still for the camera shot with Adrienne Barbeau.

Story by Guy Anderson
Photos copyright Guy Anderson

In Part 1 of the Making of the Cannonball Run, Anderson left our readers with a description of a special lighting prop used in the night scenes:

The crane was positioned before the overhang outside of the double row of cars used in the movie. The hydraulic expanding arms were extended outward and lowered to plant the crane firmly on concrete while the boom was extended. However, the rear arm was extended and its pad was placed on the ground, which was still damp from rain the day before.

As the moonlight crane sat for hours, no one noticed that the soft ground had given way for the crane to tilt ever so slightly. Then someone yelled out that the crane was sinking – just moments before gravity took its toll. The loud crash was heard by all and the film set was filled with screaming that echoed from the walls of the English Inn. Smoke as thick as a London fog filled the area where the crane fell as the bulbs exploded and smoke covered the complete area.

The smoke started to clear around the fallen crane and it was obvious there was something wrong. Initially no one could see what happened, and then as the air cleared, the extent of the destruction was confirmed. An all original, white-with-black leather 1965 AC Cobra 289 roadster was sitting under the crane.

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Making the Cannonball Run Movie Part 3

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Dom DeLuise, the funnyman’s funny man, enjoys his Italian food along with Italian cars.

Story by Guy Anderson
Photos copyright Guy Anderson

Read Part 1
Read Part 2

Hal Needham, the director of The Cannonball Run, was a stunt man by trade turned actor/director. Needham had many years under his belt perfecting these types of dangerous stunts and was famous for his ability to place the film-goer on the edge of their seat. He went to great lengths to get his audience involved with some amazing stunts that his productions devised and executed.

This was a time when stunts were actually made by real people; there were no computers to generate these stunts. Just imagine riding in the Smokey and The Bandit Trans Am when it jumped the Mulberry Bridge in 1977 at the Jonesboro, Georgia location. This was an insane stunt that is now made famous in the Smokey and the Bandit franchise. The Trans Am was a real car with real stunt men with a very real and extremely dangerous 150-foot jump over a real rotted-out bridge. Needham made that insanely dangerous and scary sequence happen with precision in its execution.

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On the Block: The Bertone Collection, 2011

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By Roberto Motta, Pete Vack and RM Auctions
Photos courtesy Sotheby/RM Auctions

From our Archives, April 2011

As a consequence of the financial reorganization of Bertone, the liquidators of the Bertone Museum offered six of the most original, thought provoking and classic Italian concept cars ever made. These wonderful cars were auctioned by RM at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Cernobbio, Italy, 21st May, 2011.

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Tales of the Tatra

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From our Archives, February 2012

Story and Photos by Karl Ludvigsen

Journalist Gordon Wilkins said that ‘although it has an impressive performance, it produces in the driver the uneasy exhilaration which may be got from shampooing a lion.’ Consumer advocate Ralph Nader called it the only car that was more dangerous than the much — oft unjustly — maligned Corvair. The German Army was said to have barred its officers from driving it, lest their numbers be diminished even more rapidly than World War II was already managing.

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The Champ and the Goggomobil

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The Goggomobil Dart photographed in 2007 at Classic Adelaide in Australia. It was running on the event but is a promotional car for the Australian insurance company Shannons.

The Goggomobil Dart photographed in 2007 at Classic Adelaide in Australia. It was running on the event but is a promotional car for the Australian insurance company Shannons.

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

From our Archives, October 2016

We all know about racing drivers who started out running the oddest cars in motor sport events, but I think the guy who really takes the biscuit is the legendary Jim Clark, two-time World Grand Prix Champion and the first British winner of the Indianapolis 500.

It was 1956, and the world had never heard of Jim Clark. He was still the farmer’s son running his Sunbeam Talbot Mark III in the odd rally and gymkhana. That year Europe faced the Suez Crisis when Egypt threatened to close the Suez Canal. This would have put Britain in dire straits when it came to delivering oil from the Middle East, so the British went to war. It was short and a political disaster in many ways but it brought in severe fuel rationing in Britain. As a result, many people turned to Germany where they were producing a new breed of Microcars. The BMW Isetta was the most popular with the Heinkel coming next. But who remembers the Goggomobil?

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A Porsche for Roy

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Along came a Spyder – but Roy Smith could not afford an original!

A story about a Porsche? Well wait up. Previously, we featured the RSKs that participated in our TT 59 coverage from Goodwood. This provided an opportunity for famous author (Alpine, Gordini, etc.) Roy Smith to talk about his street-ready Porsche RSK. You will enjoy! From the Archives, September 2019

Story and photos by Roy Smith

As a writer of few books on race cars including four about Porsche, I had the pleasure to meet one the great Porsche test and race drivers of the 1950s and 1960s, Herbert Linge, on several occasions.

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