The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts
By Graham Gauld
From the VeloceToday Archives, September 2017
Bearing in mind the tremendous success of German drivers in Grand Prix racing before WW2, it is baffling that since the inception of the World Championship in 1950, it took 44 years before Germany could claim its first Formula 1 Champion, Michael Schumacher in 1994.
By Graham Gauld
Bearing in mind the tremendous success of German drivers in Grand Prix racing before WW2, it is baffling that since the inception of the World Championship in 1950, it took 44 years before Germany could claim its first Formula 1 Champion, Michael Schumacher in 1994. [Read more…] about Graham Gauld bios Hans Herrmann
The two factory Mercedes 220SEs beside the monument on Loch Ness to the English racing driver and adventurer John Cobb, who was killed sixty years ago whilst attempting a new World Water Speed record on the loch.
By Graham Gauld
Unlike the Continent, rallies in the U.K. did not use special stages on closed roads to decide the winners; they normally used gymkhana style driving tests; in 1960 the RAC rally was going to use special stages for the first time. These were a handful in Scotland mainly using loose-surface tracks in the forests and prepared by the Forestry Commission.
Graham Gauld finds oddities at the 1958 Ollon Villars Hillclimb
Clearly the readers of VeloceToday have enquiring minds. They appear to warm to the oddities of this world and no doubt in future months the odd oddity will make its way into my features. Just to give you a warm up I want to take you back to 1958 when Brazil won the world soccer cup and Mike Hawthorn became the first Englishman to win the World Formula 1 drivers championship.
I had decided to return to Modena to see what was happening since last I had been there, but I was stuck as I did not have a car – even though I was sports editor of an automobile magazine. The fact that a friend loaned me his Heinkel three-wheel “bubble car” and I drove it from Scotland to Modena and back…including over the Alpine passes…is another story but we were tough back then as well as stupid! However, on the way to Modena I planned to go to the European Hill Climb Championship event at the Ollon-Villars Hill Climb near Lake Geneva.
Hans Herrmann on the line at Ollon-Villars with the Borgward 1500. Note Wolfgang von Trips looking at him behind the car with von Trips’ RSK lined up behind. The red and white car is Albert Leuenberger’s Lotus II-Maserati with a 1500cc engine.