Category: Racing

The coming of the disk brake

Just a few minutes ago, going through my YouTube page I found this gem, and had to share it. From what I understood, this short film was filmed in 2012, but released in late 2020. Just 32 minutes, but to hear Stirling Moss reminiscing about those “poetic times” was absolutely fantastic. And it’s not just Stirling Moss, but Norman Dewis as well. A true legend when it comes to Jaguar, he talks about how he got involved with the Jaguar C-Type and his almost victory (together with Moss) at the 1952 Mille Miglia.

The film doesn’t show much technical details about the project’s development, however the participation of Jackie Stewart, Martin Brundle and Derek Bell make these 32 minutes totally delightful.

What is the WEC Hypercar?

I just stumbled upon this video on YouTube, and it explains pretty well both the new LMH and LMDh classes. This year, since it will be the inauguration of the new class (classes?), things will probably be kind of slow. However, I’m confident that by 2022, if things work out, we may have what we last saw in the GT1 era. Just imagine: a plethora of gorgeous cars from many manufacturers racing down the Hunaudières!

Bottom line I’m really looking forward to this 🏁.

The future of race cars?

A few months ago Top Gear did a piece on Volkswagen’s ID.R, their full-blown racing monster. Their goal was to conquer Pike’s Peak, which they did in 2018 and then, in 2019, conquered Nürburgring. On both runs Romain Dumas was at the helm, and it’s eerie to see him going flat-out and just hearing the electric whine of the engine.

As always, Top Gear made a fantastic video, and specially nice since it’s presented by the great Chris Harris.

New 1:18 917K from Amalgam

Thankfully it’s 1:18, therefor too big for the W-143 Garage. Because it’s EXPENSIVE – US$ 1300,00 (Classic Driver) 😲😲😲. Ultimately, however, it’s g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s! Though I’m not a big fan of weathered models, for a jewel of this caliber I would easily open an exception.

Amalgam will only make 100 models of the 1970 Daytona winner 917K, so don’t wait too long to go after yours.

Bruce Canepa’s garage

Two weeks ago, in association with the Petersen Automotive Museum, Bruce Canepa showed a video tour of his garage/collection. Though mostly specimens from Porsche, there’s basically something for everyone there, from BMW to Ford to McLaren, race and street versions. And last week he released the second part of the tour.

All in all, an hour of awesome machines that will make any gearhead drool. HIGHLY recommended 😎.

Mercedes-Benz Classic workshop

Mercedes has a HUGE (and fantastic!) museum at Stuttgart. The museum counts with around 1100 cars, and for a gearhead it’s basically paradise. And to maintain all those cars, they have a team of highly specialized technicians and mechanics exclusively dedicated to the museum’s cars. Last Tuesday Petrolicious aired a very nice article about the museum’s workshop.

Interestingly though, the director of Mercedes-Benz Classic recounted the story about why the paint was scraped off the W25 to get the car at the maximum 750 kg limit. However, that’s a confirmed fairy tale made up by Alfred Neubauer in his autobiography. Nothing against a little embellishing of an historical event, but I would expect that the head of such an endeavor as the Mercedes-Benz Classic department would be more factual.

Fairy tales aside, Petrolicious’ article (full of photos!!) is a treat.