Graham Gauld

Graham Gauld: Creating a New Grand Turismo

June 6, 2017 By pete

The Speedback GT prototype with David Brown at the wheel in the splendor of the Scottish Highlands last month.

Story by Graham Gauld
Kevin Emslie Photographer

I met David Brown for the first time almost exactly one year ago when he came on the Ecurie Ecosse Tour with his friend Philip Noble in Noble’s Ferrari 275GTB C. We got to talking in the bar one night and when I asked him what he did, he smiled and said he was in business creating a new British quality GT car.

The Speedback GT Brown spoke of had been shown at the Geneva Motor Show in 2016 and is now in production. For me it was a rare chance to sit down with someone who has not just produced a one-off car design, but has gone into full scale production.

David Brown is a charming, garrulous, Yorkshireman born in Harrogate who, like most Yorkshiremen, never takes no for an answer and is up front with his views about life, work and cars.

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Fangio, Suixtil and Modena, 1957

May 16, 2017 By pete

At Modena in 1957, Juan Manuel Fangio, shows Maserati chief engineer Giulio Alfieri, in jacket shirt and tie, and Swiss journalist Hans Tanner, back to camera, his bandaged wrist. Fangio would bring attention to a line of racing suits from an Argentinean-based company named Suixtil.

Story and photos by Graham Gauld unless otherwise noted

European motor racing in the years immediately following World War II tended to be a strictly European affair; that is until the arrival of the great Juan Manuel Fangio in 1948. Unlike Europe, where there was a war to contend with, young Fangio learned his motor racing craft in the wild and dangerous racing in Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s.

He proved to be not only a tough competitor but also a winner. Who better to be an ambassador for the Salomon Rudman’s Argentinean-based Suixtil company’s entry into the area of motor racing? Rudman’s enthusiasm for motor racing saw him produce clothing, which would not only be stylish but also comfortable. He took advice from his motor racing friends like Fangio as to design and functionality. [Read more…] about Fangio, Suixtil and Modena, 1957

Sir John Whitmore, 1937-2017

May 9, 2017 By pete

John Whitmore, right, with Alan Mann in the Shelby Cobra Team in 1965.

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

There comes a time in life when you begin to see too many of your friends in the obituary columns, and it happened again last week with the death of Sir John Whitmore. I have lost a great friend of sixty years standing.

This then, is not a catalog of all his races but a private look into a fairly private man who eventually found himself after his racing days were over.

John was something special not only due to his ability driving cars but due to his frightening intellect and constant urge to expand his knowledge, particularly in the field of human endeavor.

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Graham Gauld at Maseratil, 1957-1960

April 4, 2017 By pete

From the Archives: VeloceToday contributor Graham Gauld takes us back to the Maserati factory in 1957, 1958, and 1960. Says Gauld “Little was I to realize it at the time but in three of my earliest visits to Maserati I was actually witnessing the slow rundown of the business which led to administration and then to reformation. These were hectic days at Maserati but also days of great enthusiasm to build racing cars and develop the road cars that temporarily saved the company.” We present these great photos by year. Enjoy!

1957_____________________________________
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Graham Gauld on Motor Shows

March 21, 2017 By pete

The Vignale “Goccia”. Gauld took this photo in 1957, only to find the same car at a motor show in 1999, plus the Fish and the Pinin. Read on!

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

As most of you probably know there was a motor show in Geneva last week, where all the attention appeared to be on supercars with weird and wonderful aerodynamics; it all looked terribly serious. Editor Pete asked me if I was going to attend the show, but had to admit that it has been about twenty years since I attended the big salons of Geneva and Paris..

I knew that Pete will have plenty of photos of the Geneva event from other correspondents so wasn’t too worried. However, Pete’s comments reminded me of an interesting show I attended in 1999. It was organized by the well-known Italian collector Franco Lombardi in his home town of Genoa and I knew I had to be there. I was not disappointed! So to get you into the Motor Show mood let me tell you about three of the cars there. [Read more…] about Graham Gauld on Motor Shows

Jean Behra and the Fatal Insult

March 7, 2017 By pete

Jean Behra celebrates after winning the Modena Grand Prix 1957 – his penultimate Grand Prix for Maserati.

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

Had he lived, the great French driver Jean Behra would have been 96 last month (February). I say, “had he lived” because Behra was a hard, tough racing driver who had started out racing on motorcycles and had survived a number of accidents. He repeated this in his car racing career until that sad day when he was due to race his own Formula car, the Behra Porsche, for the first time in a World Championship Grand Prix.

Behra told me, ‘You are a stupid man!’ and slapped me on the face.

It was not to be, for a few hours earlier he chose to compete in a sports car race on the same high-speed banked Avus track in Germany in a Porsche RSK. He slithered on the banking in the wet and hit a pole at the top of the banking and was killed outright. [Read more…] about Jean Behra and the Fatal Insult

Gauld and the Six Delage Grand Prix Cars

February 21, 2017 By pete

Retromobile captured five out of the six 1927 Grand Prix Delages for display, an amazing feat.

Story by Graham Gauld
Color images by Hugues Vanhoolandt unless otherwise noted.

Every year tends to mark the anniversary of something significant in the automobile world and 2017 is important for one car in particular, the Delage 15S8. It was one of the most successful Grand Prix cars of all time and it was born ninety years ago this year.

It was fitting that Retromobile in Paris reserved a special area upstairs and in the smaller hall for a remarkable display that featured five of the six original cars built ninety years ago! It was a tremendous feat to gather them all together in one place for the first time thanks to a group of dedicated Delage enthusiasts including my old friend Christophe Pund.

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Gauld at Retro 2017 Take One

February 14, 2017 By pete

What’s special about this special Lancia?

Story and photos (except as noted) by Graham Gauld

This year Retromobile was bigger than ever with a surprise every ten yards. And that’s why most of what is contained in this early story is a mere fragment of the kind of stuff you can find if you look in all the nooks and crannies. I’ll be writing more about this year’s Retro so just stay tuned to VeloceToday.

I am always on the lookout for cars that remind me of times gone by when they were new and fresh and so it came as a surprise to find a very interesting stand supported by Fiat Group, concessionaires and associated car clubs as they had brought along a number cars that all had stories to tell.

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Gauld at the Osenat/Gombert Junkyard Auction

November 15, 2016 By pete

The Alfa Montreal bought by Gerard Gombert for junk and now steadily sinking into the undergrowth fetched $13,000 at the Osenat Auction on November 9-11.

Story and photos by Graham Gauld

Nothing much happens around this part of the South of France. The hot spots of Nice, Cannes and Monaco lie on the sunny Coast of the French Riviera but here, inland about twenty miles away, village life is about the same as it has always been. But on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week all that changed with one of the oddest auction sales I have ever attended. Here is the story.

The Alpine A110 in the foreground sold for $15,000 with the blue one behind went for $27,000.

Gerard Gombert was a one-time motor cycle racer and garage owner in Nice. He had some good customers and clients but gave it all up a number of years ago and bought a semi-derelict property right beside the main road from Draguignan and the perfume capital of France, Grasse.

What he bought was fairly dense woodland with a small house that bordered that road. Then compulsion took over and he began to collect things, mainly cars and motorcycles but eventually caravans, trucks and bric-a-brac that nobody else would buy. His property became a junkyard.

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Clark, Goggomobil, Glas and the Dart

October 11, 2016 By pete

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

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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Graham Gauld: Bosley versus Michelotti

May 31, 2016 By pete

The Bosley GT, a superb, stylish design that predated cars like the Berlinetta Lusso by a number of years, yet designed in America. Gauld photo.

Richard Bosley and Giovanni Michelotti: A styling dichotomy.

The 1957 Vignale-bodied Triumph TR3 parked in a Modena street, built as a styling exercise by Michelotti to help persuade Triumph to hire him as a consultant: it worked. Gauld photo.

By Graham Gauld

A couple of stories this month which bring up the matter of style and coachbuilding. (see last week’s Michelotti Corvette article) If you read the two stories you could be forgiven for thinking the photos showing the first car described was designed in Italy and the second in the United States.

But it was the other way around.

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Gauld at Maranello and Monaco

May 24, 2016 By pete

Howden Ganley welcomes Piero Ferrari as an honorary member of the Grand Prix Drivers Club in the Cavallino Restaurant opposite the original factory gates. John Surtees is in the foreground.

By Graham Gauld

In some ways I always dread the month of May as I usually have something going on, not only every weekend but in four different countries! As a result this is written in haste before heading off for Scotland and the Ecurie Ecosse Tour.

Ten days ago it all started with the Annual General Meeting of the Grand Prix Drivers Club which this year was held in Maranello on the invitation of Ferrari, and resulted in a good turnout of members including not only what we would call normal Ferrari drivers but including one World Champion, John Surtees. Piero Ferrari, vice-President of Ferrari was made an Honorary Member of the Club by Club President Howden Ganley and was seated beside John Surtees. [Read more…] about Gauld at Maranello and Monaco