By Pete Vack with help from Roy Smith
As we have seen in the past two VeloceToday features,
The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts
By pete
By pete
This week we take a bit of a break from our four wheeled friends to allow Jonathan Sharp to show you a few photos from his other passion, vintage aircraft, or as he insists on calling them, aeroplanes. They were part of the Goodwood Revival after, all, so fair game. Besides, we greatly enjoyed it! Ed.
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
OK, so what is the Freddy March Spirit of Aviation?
It is a concours for aeroplanes built up to 1966. A Pebble Beach for aeroplanes. It was first run in 2007 and now is a key element in the annual Goodwood Revival event. These photos are from the 2019 concours.
By pete
Story and photos by Dave Willis
In these pestilential times, I am watching YouTube, with music and fast cars of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s at Goodwood where I can see cars of my era still competing. And of course, writing my memoirs —
I was and remain an only child, fortunate in my choice of parents. My father, Wallie Willis was a 1930s techie: photography, radios, motorcycles, airplanes, and cars made his day. We lived happily in a suburb of Toronto, East York, Canada.
I was car mad during my formative years in the 1950s. There were two Corvettes amongst my friends, a hot rodded Studebaker Lark fettled by an older brother. Famed comedy writer Bruce McCall, growing up about a mile southeast of us, remarks on this car mania in his memoir How Did I Get Here?*
By pete
By Roy Smith, historical images copyright Bob Dance
From the VeloceToday Archives, April, 2012
Our lead photo is of the Gordini Transporter Recreation, based on a Laffly chassis and it is actually a race car transporter, not a support truck. Sadly, the original vehicle, based on a Lancia 3RO 6.8 liter, no longer exists as we are given to understand, though many stories abound.
We thought it might be interesting to recall some of the highlights or maybe lowlights of one of the most recognisable racing car support vehicles to grace the paddocks of Europe’s racing circuits in the 1950s.
By pete
Review by Pete Vack
Fred Wacker, Gentleman Racer
Compiled by Fred Wacker III and Bob Birmingham
177 Pages, color and black and white photos, hardback, no slipcover
ISBN 978-159598-785-3
$49.95 plus shipping
Buy Here https://henschelhausbooks.com/product/fred-wacker-gentleman-racer/
Last week in VeloceToday we presented, in his own words, Fred Wacker’s description of racing Formula I Gordinis in Europe, thanks to an interview recorded by S. Scott Callan before Wacker’s death in 1998. Fred Wacker III’s new book about his father compliments Callan’s work and covers a much wider spectrum, including Wacker’s youth and family connections in the Chicago area. (Yes, Wacker of Wacker Drive.) [Read more…] about Fred Wacker Biography, Reviewed
By pete
By pete
Story by Graham Gauld
Drones are popular these days, my eldest daughter just recently qualified as a drone pilot and the newspapers tell us that every time we step on a commercial airplane there is a possibility we may crash because we have hit one of those things, so I prefer to talk about another drone, The Healey Drone.
By pete
By pete
By S. Scott Callan
Photos by Bernard Cahier published with permissions
What could be more appropriate for VeloceToday than an American racing French Gordinis in Europe? Author S.Scott Callan allowed us to publish part of his full length interview with the late Fred Wacker, below. Stay tuned as next week we’ll review the new biography of Fred Wacker authored by his son and Bob Birmingham.
Fred was a friend of my Dad’s. He and Fred and Jim Kimberly spent a lot of time together in the early days of Midwestern racing.
After my Dad passed away Fred and I got into the habit of talking in the spring, when he was heading back to Chicago after wintering at the Palm Springs house, and in the autumn when he had just arrived. Fred would regale me his stories of getting started in racing with his black Cad-Allard, the eight ball. Racing at Sebring, around the roads of Elkhart Lake before they built Road America, at Watkins Glen, and down Argentine way.
By pete
Story and photos by Paul Wilson
After seeing what fun Brandes Elitch and Sean Smith have had with their Top Ten stories, I can’t resist giving my own version. I had the good luck to live when most of the ‘50s and ‘60s sports cars were affordable, and so I’ve owned all of the cars on my list. Yes, those fuzzy, amateur pictures you’ll see are my cars. And some of my opinions have an antique flavor, too. When I had them, these were just cars, not Sacred Classics, so if they had flaws, it wasn’t blasphemy to point them out.
By pete
Story and photos by Adrian Donovan
Seeing someone else drive your car can be a tricky experience – but when that someone is a seven-year-old grandson driving a small car you have just completed, that experience becomes positively nerve-wracking.
Max had driven my little Lancia only once before, in a deserted pub car park, but now he was in front of quite a large crowd, driving around an ornamental lake, which just happened to be in the Hampton Court Palace gardens.
By pete
Story by Gijsbert-Paul Berk
The Formula Junior was the brain child of Giovanni “Johnny’ Lurani, an Italian nobleman, engineer, racing driver, speed record holder, author, publisher and the Italian representative in the CSI (International Sporting Commission) of the FIA, the governing body for automobile sports. Like Piero Dusio before him, he saw the need for a new formula for affordable single-seater racing cars, allowing a new generation of drivers to gain experience. True or not, at the time some thought and even wrote that Lurani promoted his Formula Junior idea to compensate for the lack of success of Italian cars and drivers in the British dominated 500 cc. Formula 3. However, in October 1958 the FIA officially recognized the International Formula Junior.