I talked a little about the Tripoli Grand Prix and the Italian lottery when I reviewed the W165. In fact, I even mentioned that there was a story about how the lottery was rigged. Well, Aidan Millward released a very nice video about that infamous episode in 1934.
Category: History
McLaren at La Sarthe
Edgard, my good friend (and stinker), sent me this link a few weeks ago and though I bookmarked it, unfortunately I forgot about it. My bad, because it’s 40 minutes of pure gearhead bliss. McLaren released this video in the 90s, where they show a lot of the development behind the Mac F1 and their attempt at Le Mans.
Even if you’re not a Mac F1 fan boy it’s cool to see 😎.
1962 Monaco Grand Prix
Stumbled upon this short film last night. The big deal is that it’s high quality footage, so the image is really good for something shot in the 60s. It’s almost seven minutes of very enjoyable old-school racing. In fact, if not for the helicopter shots instead of drone footage you could almost think this is current footage of a vintage racing event.
The Nissan GTR-LM was a failure. Why?
Le Mans isn’t forgiving, and being blunt, the project of the GTR-LM was kind of wacky. With that, the car just flunked. Aidan Millward has an in-depth explanation why.
Such a shame, since I really liked the lines of the beast.
Who were the garagisti?
On my ramblings throughout W-143, you will read the term garagisti quite a few times. The term means “mechanics” in Italian (singular garagista = mechanic). Sure, a mechanic is a professional certainly related to Le Mans and motorsports. But despite the apparently simple translation, that can’t be all there is to it. So who were the garagisti in reality?
Clickty click here and you will find out.
🛠⚙🔧
24 Heures du Mans 2019 – highlights
On the 15th I posted that ACO released their “official movie” about the 2019 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The film was a condensed 1h20m of the whole race, with all the highlights. Unfortunately though, today (17th) I looked and ACO or someone else pulled the video from YT 😖. I fortunately downloaded it to watch on a TV, but those who didn’t are out of luck. What you can see is the highlights of the race (above), just 11 minutes, but better than nothing, right?
Boogers 😕.
Bizzarrini Iso Grifo A3C
Yesterday I found an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage about the Bizzarrini A3C. The exact one that raced at Le Mans in 1965 and came in first in it’s class. You can find more info on the car here at W-143.
Other interesting facts on the 1955 race
Interestingly, this morning I found an article at Petrolicious about the 1955 race. Not about the crash and tragedy, but some interesting facts about the race per se. A short read with some VERY cool (non-crash) period photos.
The 1955 Le Mans crash
I’ve seen many videos and articles on the terrible 1955 tragedy. Some quite good and a few with too much bias. But so far this video here is the best one I’ve seen to date, with a very good description of what actually happened.
Kudos to Aidan Millward 🍻
Some of Le Mans’ greatest pilots
Some years ago Petrolicious published a story about five of the most fantastic pilots to race at La Sarthe. I read this story on their site when it came out, but Einstein here didn’t bookmark it. And of course, afterwards, for the life of me I couldn’t remember where I read it 😣. Last night, from nowhere, the story appeared again in my Facebook feed. But this time I’m sharing it.
Not a long article, but with some terrific photography of the era. So, if like me you’re into the stories that make Le Mans THE greatest race on Earth, click here.