The Online Magazine for Italian and French Classic Car Enthusiasts
Photo by Hugues Vanhoolandt.
This week And How gives us a glimpse of Ol’ Yeller II at Goodwood on parade while E.T. Nagamatsu, ever the ambassador, meets the women who did such a wonderful job singing the classic tunes of the war years. Then Hugues Vanhoolandt captures some of the ambiance that surrounds the Goodwood Revival, and Jonathan Sharp focuses on a special OSCA shown at the Hampton Concours.
Bugattis enjoy a rare moment of sun. David Hand’s 1925 T39 sits next to the 1924 Brescia T13 of Charles Knill-Jones.
By Jonathan Sharp
From the VeloceToday Archives, 2012
The Cotswolds: bucolic golden-hued thatched cottages, rolling farm land, wheat fields swaying in a warm summer breeze, antique shops, old English country inns selling fine English ales. All this and more, for it is also the home of the Bugatti Owners Club of Great Britain and the famous Prescott Hill climb.
Hurricane
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
If you have been with us for the past few years and have read my ramblings you are probably already aware of my love for old cars and historic racing. Well I have also inherited my father’s love of old aeroplanes, so the Goodwood Revival each year is a double whammy for me. Not just fantastic and rare old racing cars, but fantastic and rare old aeroplanes courtesy of the annual Freddy March Spirit of Aviation Concours for Aeroplanes built before 1966 held as part of the Revival meeting. [Read more…] about Classic Aircraft at Goodwood
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
If only I had been able to record this! The key speaker at the London Concours for me had to be Lord Alexander Hesketh, the founder of Hesketh Racing. Lord Hesketh appeared at the show as part of the launch of the book Superbears, The story of Hesketh Racing. The new book can be ordered at
Peter Collins on his winning way in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July 1958. Photo: Grand Prix Library/Graham Gauld
Peter Collins Celebration begins June 10 in Worcester, UK
This year marks the 65th anniversary of the death of British racing driver Peter Collins in an accident during the 1958 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.
Collins was at the peak of his racing career and was a member of the Scuderia Ferrari team alongside his great friend Mike Hawthorn who was to go on to become Britain’s first Formula 1 Grand Prix World Champion. He was killed just two weeks after his famous victory in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone that year. [Read more…] about And How!
The Alfa Bimotore is on display in a quiet, beautiful, chapel-like setting.
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
From the VeloceToday archives, November 2014
Nestling, as if being protected, in the curve of the new display hall is the original workshop of Enzo Ferrari’s father Alfredo. A long and narrow building lit by many large arch shaped windows. The building was built during the latter half of the 19th century and would not have benefited from electric lighting, hence the many windows. At the far end of the hall, roughly where the “Enzo” is now displayed, was, along with the machine tools that Alfredo used to shape metal, a stable which housed the horses used to draw the sulkies (2 wheeled trotting rig) and carts of the time.
Ferrari’s Alfa Beater
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
Like many of us, I watched the various races streamed from Goodwood this year (favorite was the St. Mary’s Trophy). Obviously, nothing can beat the video coverage of Goodwood. At the same time I processed hundred of Jonathan’s still photos from Goodwood and prepared them for VeloceToday. Jonathan’s photos add a great deal to Goodwood coverage, aiding and abetting the video coverage, providing a depth and ambiance lacking in the brevity of video. We also hope that our readers are enlarging their screens to as much as 200 percent to better appreciate the many still photos; look large and linger long. –Ed.
I said to myself before the event “try not to take quite so many photos.” It is not the taking, it is the sorting that takes so much time. Anyway, Thursday afternoon at the cricket match, with reasonable control of my trigger finger, I took only about 88 shots, which is just about manageable. Friday morning early at the circuit I reminded myself to just shoot what you can use, stick to the French and Italian stuff! But it is just so photogenic that by 8.30am any chance of sticking to the script had gone out of the window. By close of play Sunday night a total of 3260 photos were taken!
The Tazio Ottis/Manuel Elicabe 1955 Ferrari 750 Monza races into the sunset, Freddie March Memorial Trophy race.
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
It’s Revival time; get out the tweed jacket and wear a tie and look like someone from the 1960s or earlier. But this year the tie was black and came with a matching arm band. The flags (Union Jacks) all around the circuit were all perfectly set at half-mast and the staff and Marshalls wore black armbands. The show went on but with all due respect being shown for the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and the Duke of Richmond giving a brief eulogy on the grid each day accompanied by a short film followed by a minute’s silence during which you really could have heard a pin drop.
Entered by Jonathan Segal, Maserati A6G Zagato chassis 2186 was completed on the 31st October 1956 and is the last of the 21 Zagato Berlinettas built. Order by Charlies Rezzaghi of Mille Miglia Motors Inc of San Francisco, upon delivery the Maserati was featured in the May 1957 issue of Motor Trend.
Photos by Jonathan Sharp, September 1-3 2022
Captions by Hampton Court Concours of Elegance
Add-on by Pete Vack
By 1959 the car was owned by Frank Faine who entered the Maserati in a sports car race at Pomona after which the car was sold to Frank Jay Hoke from Tucson who competed in it at various race meetings across the USA.
From class one of the Ferrari 75th celebration and best in show winner, 1956 250 Tdf Zagato chassis 0515GT.
Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp
Captions from the Judge’s Handbook
The vehicles entered into Salon Privé (August 30-September 2) now in its 17th edition, seem to get better and better each year, for which Andrew and David Bagley together with their selection committee are to be congratulated. With so many fine automobiles to show you, (and I have not included absolutely all of them), I thought it best to feature the Italian automobiles in a separate piece.
Nigel Mansell and Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, 11th Duke of Richmond.
Story and Photos by Jonathan Sharp
One of the privileges granted to accredited and fully insured (see last week’s article) photographers at the Festival of Speed is to be able to access the assembly areas in which the entrants in each group/class are gathered before being sent down to the hill start line. It is in the assembly area that I get my best chance of pointing my camera at some famous drivers and riders old and new.
This week we focus on two of outstanding photographers, Jonathan Sharp and Hugues Vanhoolandt. We present two events, the London Concours, reported by der Englander Sharp and the Le Mans Classic by Hugues, who lives in Belgium. But first, we’d like to tell you a bit about how tough it is to be a race photographer in this day and age, and how much we appreciate their work.
For ten years in the analog era, your Editor and his photographer wife covered races and events for a variety of print magazines. We’ve been around the bend at LimeRock, slept in the Bog at the Glen, rode in Bugattis at Pittsburgh, beat the heat at Sebring, froze at Pocono, eaten by insects at Summit Point, morose at Moroso, cultured at Cavallino and chased by bears in New York. So we have some idea of what is involved in covering events for motoring magazines; bad accommodations if any, no food, no chairs, no shade, no money, no glory, no guarantees the photos or story will be published, and editors who would inevitably use the wrong photos. It is hard, tough work with a lot of competition. We retired from such strenuous activities long ago.
It rains in England. Best not to be afraid of a bit of water. At last year’s Silverstone Classic, says Sharp, “By the time I had got back to my hotel I smelt like a wet dog and had run out of dry clothes.” Photo by Jonathan Sharp
So what makes our guys tick? Jonathan Sharp has been taking professional quality photos since 2008 and has contributed to VeloceToday since 2012. “I have always had a love of cars and old aeroplanes but my passion for about the last 20 years has been in making the image, not just a snap of the vehicle/plane, but the overall image background, heads not chopped of, that sort of thing, and, as it is my passion, which has to be followed, and if that means traveling then so be it.
“I love trying to be creative and being around the stuff that interests me. What do I hate? Not being taken seriously. Anybody can take a snap; an image is harder, oh and camera phones, or rather arms holding camera phones that suddenly loom into the frame just as I am about to press the shutter.”
Vanhoolandt’s answer was a different dream. His first event with a camera was the 1991 Spa Ferrari Days. He’s been with VeloceToday since 2007. “To have the opportunity to go to places that have made me dream since my youth, like Le Mans, Monaco, Laguna Seca, enrich my photo collection, the pleasure of traveling to beautiful countries like Italy and California.
“Asking for accreditation is sometimes annoying and to make a good report, you have to be there early, leave late and walk a lot!”
Have you ever tried focusing a digital camera at night? A Ferrari at this year’s Le Mans Classic by Hugues Vanhoolandt.
Our photographers and reporters go to great lengths and physical discomfort to bring you superb texts and photos from events we can’t attend, for one reason or another. They do so without complaint, with speed and efficiency, and a remarkable degree of accuracy given the thousands upon thousands of cars and owners they have correctly identified over the years. They also require, and obtain, press credentials so that they can go where few others dare, in order to get the best shot. Obtaining press credentials, btw, is not easy.
Sharp reminds us that nowadays you need public liability insurance to go track side, usually a minimum £5 Million, sometimes £10 million of cover. “Oh and eyes in the back of your head would help, especially in assembly areas as you could be trying to photograph something at one end when something of equal importance arrives at the other end and you want to get a shot of it/them before it gets parked up, or they get surrounded by lots of people. My step count goes up on event days.” Hugues, for whom English is a second language, says that it is often difficult to write a good story in English, something shared with our Italian friends such as Roberto Motta and Alessandro Gerelli who have also done so much for us in the past.
And today, getting to events is tougher than ever. There has been a pandemic, and events tend to be super spreaders, while many events were suddenly canceled. Post pandemic our intrepid correspondents face hyperinflation, travel disruptions, and now, an unprecedented heat wave.
Yet they still go, and return, and process their photos, and send them to us in a timely fashion. We cannot thank them enough. We hope our readers appreciate their efforts, for we would all be poorer without them and I daresay VeloceToday would not exist.