phil hill ferrari

Jim Sitz Remembers Phil Hill

June 14, 2021 By pete

Phil Hill, World Champion. 60 years ago this week Phil won the Belgian Grand Prix for Ferrari. We celebrate his championship year. Photo of Phil Hill at the LA Times Grand Prix by Jim Sitz courtesy IMRRC.

Recently, working with Jim Sitz, we recalled that it was 60 years ago that Phil Hill won the Formula One World Championship. So why not put together something on Phil Hill, divide the photos up into four segments, each of which to be published close to the date of Phil’s remaining 1961 F1 races, culminating in the Grand Prix of Monza. And, in addition to Jim’s photos, we sneak in a couple from other photographers. But throughout we’ll get Jim to provide first hand recollections of his talks with Hill over the many years they knew each other. [Read more…] about Jim Sitz Remembers Phil Hill

Phil Hill: Racing the Jag at Carrell

May 1, 2018 By pete

By Pete Vack and Jim Sitz
Photos by Strother MacMinn, copyright Bob Ames

As we have seen in the past, link, Strother MacMinn was photographing the automotive scene in Southern California and took many images never before seen or published. Bob Ames now owns the MacMinn archives, and through Dale LaFollette has allowed us to present these rare photos from Carrell Speedway near Los Angeles.

As we reviewed the photos, we realized that the first few sets of negatives told us very little. We knew that some were taken at the dirt track called Carrell Speedway, and others taken at an airport event, probably Palm Springs. And for the most part, the negs were of Jags and MGs, hard to identify or place.

We knew Jim Sitz could piece this together. “I was friends back then with Phil, McAfee, and Roger Barlow, who operated the dealership where Phil was the mechanic. We were all pretty young; Phil was 23, Barlow 38, John Bond (of Road & Track) also 38, Jack McAfee was 28, MacMinn 32 and real man- about-town, driving his Rolls Phantom II down to black neighborhoods for their jazz clubs.” [Read more…] about Phil Hill: Racing the Jag at Carrell

Denise McCluggage: The Tale of a Transporter

September 12, 2012 By pete

[Denise McCluggage passed away on May 6th of this year. A great fan of VeloceToday, she contributed several articles; below is one of her best. We miss you, Denise.]

By Denise McCluggage

At the time whereof I write, the late 1950s, Modena was the real home of Ferrari. Maranello, a sleepy hill town, boasted the low, gated factory but little else. No test track, no museum, no shop. No tourists. No Il Cavallino, the posh ristorante opened in 1962 across from the factory on a slight rise set back from the road. Cavallino Bianco Bar, a working man’s bar of the type found in every Italian village, occupied the site.

Memory has me coming out of the factory gate and looking up at the bar. A few tables are topped with the ubiquitous Martini & Rossi umbrellas and scattered on the beaten earth before the dark entry. At the tables, singly and in pairs, sit somber working men in earth-brown coveralls. Some wear the odd pill-box-shaped hats common in a pre-baseball cap world. They wrap their hands around glasses of that clear stinging stuff called grappa. Or maybe a nearly purple Lambrusco, the local wine. There is nothing for tourists in this Maranello of the working man’s bar because there are no tourists. And that’s because there are very few of the tourist-spawning Ferraris; in 1958, if every Ferrari owner in the world chose to make the pilgrimage to the Emilia countryside where his car was built, the few hotels in Modena – down this winding road out of Maranello, down the long and lovely hillside – will likely have room for every one of them.

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