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Articles by Ed McDonough
BOURNE SURVIVOR - 1965 BRM P261
In 1966, the rain in Spain didn’t stay mainly on the plain. It blew eastward to the Ardennes Mountains of Belgium, and hurled itself down onto the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps, one of the regions unfortunately prone to such downpours. One lap into the race, Jackie Stewart and the BRM you see here flew off the road, bringing the Scot to the very edge of a critical accident.
African Assault - 1984 March 84G-Porsche
I couldn’t quite pinpoint why, during the research and writing of this profile, that I kept hearing the Lennon/McCartney hit “Come Together” somewhere in the back of my head. I have often used the metaphor of how some of the most interesting motor racing tales are based on an almost accidental “coming together” of a number of threads, people and incidents. But this seemed different.
Fox Hunt: 1970 Macon MR8 Formula Ford
Formula Ford, as unlikely as it may seem now, brought me closer to being on the inside of professional motor racing than anything I experienced before or since. After a 35-year lay-off from that particular single-seater category, it was both an eye opener—and somewhat familiar and reassuring—to go back and do it again. It was also a little bit scary! This is a long story, so I will try to tell it as quickly and painlessly as possible.
African Assault - 1984 March 84G-Porsche
I couldn’t quite pinpoint why, during the research and writing of this profile, that I kept hearing the Lennon/McCartney hit “Come Together” somewhere in the back of my head. I have often used the metaphor of how some of the most interesting motor racing tales are based on an almost accidental “coming together” of a number of threads, people and incidents. But this seemed different.
Highland Terror-1957 Porsche 356A
Modern automobile manufacturers would tell you – if you ran the Porsche history past them without putting a name to it – that it couldn’t possibly be true. A father and son leave allied prisons after WWII and set up a small design firm. One of their projects carries the design project number 356; and in 1947, 356-001, an automotive prototype, is completed.
Porsche’s Kangaroo
In the current era of Grand Prix and sports car racing, there is virtually no such thing as a new model racing car from a team or manufacturer and, at least on the surface, the 2003 F1 Ferrari looks like the 2002, which looks like the 2001, etc. However, it was not always thus.
Rennmeister - 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR
The original idea for this “special” feature had been to do a test on Porsche’s famed Moby Dick…the 935/78 long-tail beast from 1978, the company’s first racecar with water-cooled cylinder heads. However, that particular machine was on tour in China and not due back at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart in time for this issue. So, having lined up a few possible alternatives just in case, old friend Mike Burtt offered the use of his 1973 2.8 RSR.
Vanwall: Green for Glory
McDonough, Ed Vanwall: Green for Glory ISBN 13: 9781861265425 0 avg rating • ( 0 ratings by Goodreads ) Synopsis About this title The Vanwall was one of the Great Green hopes of British motor sport in the 1950s. The brainchild of the industrialist Guy Anthony Vanderwell, the Vanwall Grand Prix car was built to beat the all-conquering red cars from Italy that dominated the Grand Prix scene at that time.
Late Bloomer - 1976 March 2-4-0
There are cars, and there are cars. Some come and stay, many come and pass on. A few appear briefly but don’t make it to the grid, and then they disappear. Thanks to historic racing and car collecting fever, however, a number have managed to rise from the ashes. VR has had the good fortune to get behind the wheel of some of these—the Amon, ATS, DeTomaso, Scirocco—all F1 cars that struggled in period and never made the grade even when so much effort went into them.
Wing and a Prayer - 1974 Amon AF101
One of the problems in writing this profile is the temptation to indulge in a long list of Chris Amon misfortunes—and there were plenty of them. Chris, however, has always been a really nice guy, and inevitably ends up looking like he perhaps didn’t know what he was doing in choosing teams, leaving teams, and setting up his own projects. A summary of his career always tends to strengthen that stereotype.
Peter Gethin 1940-2011
Former F1, sports car and F5000 driver Peter Gethin died on December 5 after a lengthy illness. Gethin is remembered for a number of stirring races including his famous victory in the 1971 Italian Grand Prix at Monza for BRM, considered to be the closest finish ever in a Grand Prix. Gethin started fairly late in motor racing, his time in F3 leading to two championship years in F5000 in 1969 and ’70.
F1-67 “NONDA” - Back to the Future
Think back, if you can, to the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and possibly even the ’80s. Did you ever think that the sports cars and single-seaters roaring around the circuits of the world would someday be about the most expensive and desirable items even the most acquisitive of us could possibly want? Manufacturers, including Ferrari and Alfa Romeo, chopped up their second-hand racers. Jaguar pulled theirs to bits and used the parts for the next model, so many of them simply no longer exist.
Prophet Motive
Racing car enthusiasts, on the whole, treasure every innovative idea manufacturers have managed to conjure up. However, Auto Union and Porsche were criticized for putting the engine in the wrong place. When Ferrari eventually got round to doing the same thing, they got taken to task as well. The Formula One boys tried four-wheel-drive and everyone laughed, and when Ken Tyrrell went to six wheels, well you could hear the collective jaws hitting the floor.
1962 Porsche 804 - An American in Stuttgart
Dan Gurney was about as versatile as a racecar driver could ever be. He pretty much skipped the junior grades of motor racing and went in at what we could safely call the “deep end.” He drove sports cars in America, then in Europe, moved to Grand Prix cars while extending his sports car reputation, turned to oval tracks in both stock cars and Indycars, and constructed his own winning F1 machine…the Eagle-Weslake.
1952 Ferrari 225 S - Dual Personality
While the history of the Ferrari you see here will forever associate it with the great American World Champion Phil Hill, this particular car is much more important for its symbolic significance. In the early 1950s, Enzo Ferrari had his eye on America, and very few of his products of that time came about without the notion that they might do well in the new American sports car buying market.
1957 Aston Martin DBR1 - A Le Mans Legend
Aston Martin’s relationship with the 24 Hours of Le Mans goes all the way back to 1928 when Jack Bezzant/Cyril Paul and “Bert” Bertelli/George Eyston launched the British company’s assault on the event with LM2 and LM1, Aston’s 1495-cc, 4-cylinder racer. Neither car made it to the finish, but the effort marked the beginning of a quest that goes on at this very moment. Aston Martin is still at Le Mans.
Phil Hill: A Personal Remembrance
The more in-depth summaries of the life and career of Phil Hill have focussed on three significant aspects: the racing accomplishments, the complex nature of the man, and the fact that he was an underrated driver. Phil died of respiratory complications due to Parkinson’s disease on August 28, 2008. He had intended, in true Hill tradition, to be at Monterey but had ended up in the hospital instead.
Monzapolis Kraft
When Champ Cars made a very rare appearance in Europe a couple of years ago, many of us thought this would be a dream come true for those people who had never been to Indy or to any important oval race. I dragged as many friends as I could to the first race at Rockingham, mainly because I hadn’t had the experience myself and I thought it was something that couldn’t and shouldn’t be missed. I think I was right.
Winds of Chance
By the time you read this, a superb collection of famous, bizarre, futile and fantastic Grand Prix cars will be gathering for what promises to be a unique and stirring event at Donington Park in the UK. The weekend of May 18–20 is when GPLive brings together the good and great—and the not so great—of Grand Prix racing, from the 1,000 horsepower turbo cars to the little-known and oft-forgotten…like the beautiful Scirocco you see here.
Big Talbot
When the conversation turns to the great prewar race and rally teams, the big names—Bentley, Maserati, Alfa Romeo—tend to dominate the list that is produced. Certain marques managed to get a great deal of attention at the time and have hogged the memory of most prewar enthusiasts. That leaves a lot of important players and stories out of the equation.
Road Runners-Chaparral Mk1
February 11, 1962, brings back a very striking memory. I had been married for only eight days, yet for some reason I was sitting in front of a black and white television watching the Daytona 3-Hour Sports Car Race. Perhaps other things should be clearer in my memory, but there was something special about that race. These were still the “early days” of televised motor racing and also early days for Daytona and sports cars.
1951 Ferrari 212 Export “Burano” - Signor Burano
As a VRJ reader, the chances are pretty good that the car you see here has some seminal significance, especially if you were born somewhere between the late 1930s and 1950, or have a long-time interest in proper road racing…or both. I was 14 when Kirk Douglas and Bella Darvi starred in the 1955 production of “The Racers,” which opened my eyes to “real road racing”, though much of what appeared on the screen was anything but real.
1947 Swiss Grand Prix
Motor racing, especially at the Grand Prix level, had reached a frenzied pace before World War II but was brought to a halt in 1940. When the war was over, Mercedes and Auto Union were gone from racing but it wasn’t too long before Alfa Romeo announced that it would be returning to the competition scene. By September 1945, a group of racing stalwarts organized the first post-war event in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.
Product Reviews
Introduction by Karl Ludvigsen The 1940s are the under-reported years of motor racing, and additions to the existing dearth of material is always welcome. This 128-page soft-cover from the Iconografix series is no exception. It is, as the title suggests, a photographic record of Indy 500 cars, though it also includes a few cars from the very late 1930s as well. No Subscription? You’re missing out Get immediate ad-free access to all our premium content. Get Started
Amon’s Arrow
After the smaller 1.5-liter Grand Prix cars of 1961–’65, the return to a larger engine size was unanimously welcomed. The smaller cars had been much better than anyone thought they would be, but a “return to power” was thought to be good for motor racing. Ferrari expected they would do well in the new formula, as they already had a good 3-liter sports car engine to develop for F1 racing. However, the promise was not realized for many years.
Interview: Ian Walker
Ian Walker has been in and around motor racing for over 50 years. He started as a competitor but was drawn to team management and ownership, and became one of the best known British privateers, along with that other Walker—Rob—for a long period of time. Like his namesake, he ran some of the best drivers of the 1960s, having a special agreement with Team Lotus, and thus had Jim Clark, Graham Hill and others in his stable alongside his ‘own’ drivers.
Product Reviews
May 2004 Women in Motorsport From 1945 By Susan TP-Jamieson and Peter Tuthill The topic of women in motorsport is a fascinating one and has been highly underrated, considering the amount of attention, the number of women who have been involved and the role they have played. No Subscription? You’re missing out Get immediate ad-free access to all our premium content. Get Started
Interview: Sir Jackie Stewart
Sir Jackie Stewart’s career started in 1963, and though he no longer competes, there is no end in sight to his continuing career in the higher echelons of motorsport. Today, he still plays a major role at Ford and the Jaguar Grand Prix team, serves as President of the British Racing Drivers Club, in addition to carrying out a wide range of educational and promotional activities.
Little Stinger
Variations on a theme – that’s the one-liner which always comes to mind when encountering an Abarth creation, especially one of the many, many machines which encompassed humble Fiat origins with Abarth genius. But the theme was more a concerto or an opera, so many stories were told and tunes played. If Carlo Abarth had been a composer, he would have been a Verdi or Puccini, or perhaps Mozart, as he did indeed come from Austrian heritage.
Product Reviews
Archives d’un passione By Michael Bollee Michel Bollee never loses sight of the fact that every race produces leading or winning cars, but every race is also made up of a much larger number of cars and drivers that don’t lead or don’t win. He also knows how powerful visual images of the great 24-Hour race can be, so he combines this power to evoke strong memories of the whole race, not just the leaders. No Subscription? You’re missing out Get immediate ad-free access to all our premium content.
Porsche’s Kangaroo
In the current era of Grand Prix and sports car racing, there is virtually no such thing as a new model racing car from a team or manufacturer and, at least on the surface, the 2003 F1 Ferrari looks like the 2002, which looks like the 2001, etc. However, it was not always thus.
Formula Junior Super Test
Formula Junior was very much as it sounds, a junior category dreamed up by the Italian driver and race administrator Count Giovanni Lurani, who saw it as primarily an Italian formula to provide a single-seater training ground for Italian drivers. In the UK, the 500 cc Formula 3 category had been doing this for some years but was very much outgrown by the late 1950s. Formula Junior got started in Italy in 1958, but rapidly caught on across Europe and lasted for some six years.
Goodwood Revival
Chichester, England Sept. 14-16 Pit stop for the Frank Sytner/Rob Wilson 1962 Jaguar Lightweight E-Type during the RAC TT enduro. Photo: Classic Images No Subscription? You’re missing out Get immediate ad-free access to all our premium content. Get Started
Shark Attack-1961 Ferrari 156 F1
Icon is probably an over-used word in automotive journalism, and modern commercialism has seen it applied to many automobiles which are clearly not icons – and sometimes not even interesting. However, it is difficult indeed to find a more fitting term to describe the Ferrari 156 – the “Sharknose” – a Grand Prix car which dominated its championship season in 1961 and just as quickly faded away the following year.
Le Mans Legends
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1929 Bentley Blower - Birkin’s Baby
This Profile may be forced to veer somewhat from our usual format since the chance to have a close encounter with a very historic Bentley in the same place where it made its name and on the much heralded occasion of Team Bentley’s return to the Sarthe, rather overwhelmed the experience. This wasn’t so much a car test as a drift in time – a union of old and new. It truly got the adrenalin pumping.
Blade Runner-Works Sunbeam Rapier
As a 1960 Sunbeam Rapier drifted through long fast bends on the top of the Downs above Goodwood House and the Goodwood circuit, the tail hanging out just as the car disappeared out of the sun and sped through the dappled light of the Sussex forest, one of the least well-known stories of a racing rally car emerged, and with it the tale of its exotic history and special drivers.
Product Reviews
May 2001 The Legendary 2.3 By Simon Moore Simon Moore doesn’t write often, but when he does it’s usually worth waiting for. After his classic work on the Alfa Romeo 2900, this huge piece of research on the 8C-2300 has been long awaited, though your mailman won’t like getting a hernia from carrying it. No Subscription? You’re missing out Get immediate ad-free access to all our premium content. Get Started
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