With a nod to this month’s feature story about the Chateau Impney Hillclimb in Great Britain, we thought that a look at one of America’s classic vintage hillclimbs might be in order. That event would be The Grand Ascent, which has been incorporated into Pennsylvania’s The Elegance at Hershey, held this year on the weekend of June 12-14.

The post The Sweet Ascent appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Since this month’s Profile car is the March 761 with which Ronnie Peterson won the 1976 Italian Grand Prix, it seemed a good opportunity to visit the Super Swede’s official web site. Like the man himself, it is unpretentious and uncomplicated, but occasionally suffers just a bit in translation. Not that it matters.

All that aside, the site opens with the “Biography” page where we learn not just about Ronnie but his father Bengt—source of his son’s speed genes it seems—and the rest of the family while tracing Ronnie’s path from birth to Formula One.

The post Super Swede appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

When it comes to American racing cars, most followers of the sport reserve a special place in their hearts for Jim Hall’s Texas born and bred Chaparrals. These were cars that represented the best of what racing is all about—uniqueness, mechanical exploration and technological advancement, as well as success. The pure white road runners were models of innovation, always pushing old boundaries and making new discoveries while never forgetting that the ultimate mission was to win.

This site is organized by a fan by the name of Jan, and features a number of link selections at the top of the Home Page that conveniently allow visitors to explore everywhere on the site. Those self-descriptive links include headings labeled: From the Archive; Chaparral Drawings; A History of Innovation; Chaparral Chaps; Chaparral Cars; Rattlesnake Raceway; Chaparral Mysteries and Chaparral Revelations among others.

The post Chaparral Connection appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Few figures in American racing history have had as much impact as Harry Miller, builder of an incredible range of successful and groundbreaking racing cars over the early decades of the 20th century. Given this month’s Profile of a car from Miller’s primary era, we thought it would be good to take another look at his legacy.

From the home page, if you click on the link “Miller History” in the left hand column, you will go to a page with a central block of text just below which is found a link saying: “Go to Miller History.” Clicking there opens a page entitled (what else?) “Miller History,” where you’ll find an abridged biography of one Harry Arminius Miller, described as, “quite simply, the greatest creative figure in the history of the American racing car.”

The post A Foundation of History appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Seems unfathomable that we have never looked at this site (forgive us, Ferrari fans), but better late than never, and especially so given this month’s feature about the ex-Ascari Ferrari that enjoyed a long afterlife.

In any case, this link will take you to the History section of the main Ferrari site, where the information is broken down by decades beginning in 1950. Each year, of each decade, is covered in thumbnail sketches that contain links to profiles of each of the cars that helped the marque write its rich history. And, tucked into the 1986 segment, there’s even a brief nod to the unraced Indycar that Enzo created during a time of trial with the FIA and FOCA.

The post Prancing Horse History appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

The Historic Vehicle Association is developing a National Historic Vehicle Register that will carefully and accurately document America’s most historically significant automobiles, motorcycles, trucks and commercial vehicles. The HVA works in collaboration with the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine which vehicles meet the standard for recognition and documentation in a permanent archive within the Library of Congress.

On the home page are three windows to further exploration, providing links to either the “Department of the Interior,” the “Draft Criteria” or the “Prototype Project.” In the first of these, visitors can learn about the partnership between HVA and Interior, while in the second can be found the requirements for consideration that all nominated vehicles are subject to as their historic value is determined, and the third shows how a vehicle is certified after being inspected by a team from the Department of the Interior. The example shown, the Shelby Daytona Coupe CSX2287, was the first vehicle to be inducted, and on the page is a further link that will take you to a recitation of the car’s detailed history.

The post Significance in the Past appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

With this month’s feature story about the early sports car races at Goleta Airport near Santa Barbara, California, we thought a peek behind the curtains of a Universal Studios movie being filmed there at that time might be enlightening.

This site looks at that movie, Johnny Dark, starring Tony Curtis and Piper Laurie, which tells the story, probably familiar to most of us, of a young racer trying to make his mark in a risky profession. It includes footage taken at Santa Barbara to supplement the bespoke segments shot along the fictional race route from Canada to Mexico.

The post Going Behind the Scenes appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Anyone looking to learn about, service, purchase or sell a pre-war Aston Martin should find time to visit this site, as Ecurie Bertelli Ltd. seems to be the global specialists for Aston Martins built before 1940. Nearly 40 years of experience with these cars have given the company thorough knowledge of the ins and outs of all things Aston.

On the home page is a list of headings to take you to the various pages of information provided under the categories of: Parts; Shop; Car Sales; Restoration; Service; Videos; About Aston Martin; About Us; and Links. By investigating further you will discover that Ecurie Bertelli manufactures and stocks nearly every necessary part in its £300,000 inventory, so whatever your car might need, they will likely have it. In addition to parts and service, restoration projects are the heart of the enterprise, and Ecurie Bertelli can also provide brokerage services to help both buyers and sellers find the deal they want.

The post Elder Astons Are Us appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

With this month’s cover Profile of the King Cobra, it seemed only natural to access this site where one can find out almost anything about the man who created it, Carroll Shelby. In that context, when reaching the home page, click on the period 1961-1964 on the blue bar across the middle of the page to get to “The Cobra Years,” but the rest of Carroll’s life is also dissected in similar segments stretching from his birth in 1923 to his death in 2012. Interestingly, however, no mention is made of transforming Cooper Monacos into the King Cobras.

Each section provides a timeline of relevant activity, as well as selected photographs chronicling the various aspects of Shelby’s life, from chicken farmer to racing champion to car constructor to race team owner to cultural icon. Given that stature in this industry, we may all think we know everything there is to know, but perhaps a visit here can still prove illuminating.

The post King Maker appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Ford’s Mustang is the stuff of automotive legend: selling more than 20,000 cars on the first day of release; delivering nearly half a million in the first year; fitting the bill for everyone from secretaries to CEOs; being at home on street, track or forest and still going strong today—half a century on.

This month’s feature story chronicling the very earliest competition efforts with Mustangs turned our attention in that direction, so we thought this site might allow you to dig a bit below the surface.

The post Mustang Mania appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

The first Studebaker vehicle, a farm wagon, was built by brothers Henry and Clement Studebaker in South Bend, Indiana, in 1852. The first electric-powered Studebaker was introduced in 1902, and the production of gasoline-powered Studebakers began two years later. Although the electric line was discontinued in 1912, gasoline-engined Studebakers continued to roll off the production line until 1966.

The post Gone but not Forgotten appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

As you will no doubt have noticed in this issue devoted to Maserati on the occasion of the marque’s centennial, it is a company ruled by typical Italian passion for the motor car, and as such has marked many milestones along the road to this anniversary.

This link will take you to the 100-year history section of Maserati’s main U.S. web site, and there you can learn about all those things that have made Maserati great. There are initially seven photo panels that will lead to much more under topic headings such as: Maserati 100 Years; Iconic Cars; Today; Concept and One-Off Cars; Heroes; Racing Milestones (the good one); and Innovations.

The post 100 Passionate Years appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

The six Vanderbilt Cup Races held at Roosevelt Field on New York’s Long Island between 1904 and 1910 were the greatest sporting events of their day. They were the first international automobile road races held in the United States, and they had a far-reaching impact on the development of American automobiles and parkways.

Later Cup races were contested at other venues, but the ancestral home of the events remains Long Island. On this site, visitors will discover comprehensive information on those races, the Long Island Motor Parkway and current Long Island automotive events and news.

The post Vanderbilt Cupping appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

The family is an integral element of human life, and in many instances this is also true of racing. In that context, fathers, brothers, sons, grandsons and even great-grandsons from families with names like Petty, Andretti, Allison, Hill, Jones, Villeneuve and Unser spring quickly to mind, and it is the museum dedicated to the last of these that we turn to this month.

The post A Family’s History appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

In many ways the racing career of Dave MacDonald embodies the image of the light glowing twice as bright, lasting half as long. We will never know what the quietly brilliant Southern Californian might have accomplished had he escaped fate’s fickle finger at Indianapolis, but anyone who saw him race knows how deep the instinctive talent he possessed went, and understands how extensive his achievements could have been.

This site is dedicated to the all-too-brief career of the man known as “The Natural”, and chronicles the successes he did enjoy, from his early days in Corvettes through his tenure with Shelby American driving Cobras, Cobra Coupes and King Cobras, his stock car escapades and on through to his fateful involvement with Indianapolis.

The post A Lost Hero appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Triple World Champion Sir Jack Brabham’s youngest son, David, having won back the rights to the Brabham name in 2012, has recently launched a new web site chronicling the exploits of three generations of family drivers, as well as 30 years as a car constructor and Formula One team.

The post A Family Jewel appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

The Porsche 356 Registry is the world’s largest classic Porsche club, and this web site will tell you as much as you may have ever wanted to know about one of the most popular models Porsche has ever produced. Founded in 1974, the Registry is a non-profit group with more than 7,000 members worldwide that’s dedicated to the preservation and perpetuation of the 356.

Across the top of the Home Page are the site’s basic divisions: About Us; Magazine; News & Events; 356Talk Forum; Classifieds; Resources; Goodie Store and Membership. To each their own, but the most attractive of those destinations seem to be the Magazine, News & Events, 356Talk Forum and Resources. In the first of these you can access issues of the Registry’s bi-monthly magazine, while News & Events keeps members up to date on happenings within the club, the 356Talk Forum provides a conversational link to members who may have experience that will benefit others, and under Resources one can find photo galleries, technical articles and a travel assistance network as well as links to relevant vendors.

The post 356 Reasons appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Thanks to our South Pacific Editor Patrick Quinn for discovering this one, a(nother) lap (or two) of Germany’s notorious Nordschleife circuit at the Nürburgring. The clip runs just under 10 minutes and comes from a film produced in 1962 when driver Hermann Lang and competitions boss Alfred Neubauer took a 1937 Mercedes-Benz W125 back to the track for a demonstration run complete with multiple cameras rolling.

Narration by that year’s World Champion, Graham Hill, superbly enhances the video as the Englishman describes not only what you are seeing as Lang traverses the 14-plus miles, but some of his own experiences at various points around the lap. It is, of course, not a lap at speed, for this is a 25-year-old car and a driver long retired from the heat of competition, but the slower pace lets us see exactly what the track looks like instead of just being a blur as we find ourselves simply hanging on at higher velocities.

The post Ring Around The ’Ring appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

This is the site of the Endurance Rally Association, organizers of the Peking to Paris Rally featured in this month’s Profile and Interview. On the Home Page is a rotating segment previewing upcoming ERA events and other aspects of the organization. In a Links Bar near the top of the page are six primary categories. Under “News” are further links to Association activities, and reportage from previous outings. “Past Events” offers looks at individual events, and further links provide information “About the ERA” and making “Contact.”

Look under the Past Events tab for retrospectives of more than 65 previous events, but since our interest is the 2013 Peking to Paris, click there. Again a number of options similar to the Home Page exist, with the Links Bar offering insights about The Route, The Participants, Rally Reports, Results, a Gallery, Video offerings and Links.

The post Roughing It appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Here’s a site dedicated to the technical side of Formula One, where the home page offers daily news and, not unexpectedly, technical insights. Included among the latter—at least when this was written—is a look at the nifty thermal-imaging cameras presently adding great insight to the F1 TV shows.

Beyond the home page, other information is available by clicking the menu bar to access further pages for News, Technology, Database, Gallery, Forum and Interactive, each with sub-links to greater detail. For instance, under News you’ll find: Regulations, where rules and rationales are discussed; two different Calendars; and a Glossary. Under the Technology heading are: a “Development Blog” where recent developments are noted (this is where the thermal cameras are discussed); Technical Updates; Aerodynamics; and Mechanics.

The post Formula One Tech appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

We haven’t sent you to YouTube for some time now, but feel that this clip, for those who may not yet have seen it, will prove quite worth the effort, as it is both enlightening and educational. For many years, companies that were involved in the sport for commercial or technical reasons would produce films to tout that involvement and their achievements, and it is thanks to Shell Oil that we can here review the 1955 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

The post Through the Past Quickly appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Billing itself as the “British Car Web Directory and Online Classifieds,” this site offers a variety of ways to get involved with cars from Mother England. For starters there’s a quick link to Classified Ads right there in the middle of the home page, followed immediately by buttons for the link index and a number of “additional features” ranging from a Buyer’s Guide, through Tech Articles to a British Car Bookstore.

Scrolling down takes you past the obligatory sponsors listing and into The British Car Gallery, where various readers have posted stories and photos about their particular cars. This is followed by The Junkyard Jewels, with stories of lost treasures reclaimed from the ignominy of the wrecker’s yard, and a “Mystery Car” feature where owners pose the question “what have I got here?”

The post Anglophile Heaven appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

As the Corvette celebrates its 60th birthday, highlighted by featured marque status at a broad array of vintage events, demand for information about America’s iconic sports car is running high. This site offers what it claims to be “the world’s largest resource of data and photos for Corvette racecars.” The site’s stated mission is to preserve the heritage of the racing Corvettes while helping keep the legend alive by making research, data and photos available to all.

On the opening page, under the three main headings of Histories, Photo Galleries and Driver Entry Listings, visitors can find information by model type—C1 through C6 and a C7 preview—as well as other categories of interest covering SCCA Club Racing, SCCA Pro Trans-Am, IMSA, ALMS, FIA including Le Mans, the Corvette Challenge, European series, NHRA Drag Racing and more. Be sure also to click on the “Home” page link in the upper left corner.

The post Registry of Corvette Racecars appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Readers of this magazine should be familiar with the work of Jesse Alexander, one of America’s foremost motorsports photographers. As he puts it, his career let him combine a pair of personal passions, photography and automobiles, and the imagery he’s produced has been magnificent.

This site allows access to the many facets of his work, some of which we may not be fully acquainted with. The home page opens with a brief video presentation showcasing motion pictures he shot during his early years, but evidencing his same sense of style and substance. There are other illuminating videos available inside, both automotive and not, but you can find those on your own.

The post The Eye of the Beholder appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Safe Is Fast is a site presented by the Road Racing Drivers Club and supported by the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety and Sustainability that provides advice and answers to common (and probably uncommon) questions faced by aspiring racers. In this case, the word “safe” is really an acronym for Skilled, Assured, Fit   and Empowered, qualities the RRDC believes can make you a champion, or at least improve your game.

Under the activist presidency of Bobby Rahal, the 60-year-old club continues to lead the way in racing safety and driver development, and the highlight of this site is its “Ask a Pro” section, where various members of stature in the sport make themselves available online to answer questions posed by site visitors about various aspects of racing reality. Video explanations are also part of the package.

The post Learning From The Best appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Aficionados of the Riley marque, particularly devotees of the Riley Specials raced prior to World War II, will find a good deal of information here about the cars from the company that began trading as the Bonnick Cycle Company of Coventry, England, in the late 19th century. The site is bilingual in German and English, and does its business in typical Teutonic fashion with a minimum of fuss and distraction. There is a bit of suffering with translation in places, but nothing that can’t be overcome.

A menu of selections along the left side of the home page offers visitors a number of options for finding what they may be seeking with categories such as: the Gallery, where a listing of various Specials provides photos of each along with specifications and data as well as other facts; the Register, where one can register their own Riley; information about the Riley Prewar Special Association; Spares, where parts of all kinds can be listed for those either selling or seeking; Literature, which catalogs available books on the marque; and Links to various dealers, clubs, shops and events of interest.

The post Special Treatment appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

The subject of this month’s VR Profile, Bugatti, is one of the legendary names of automotive history, and this link will take you to the official company site’s history section. There you can either learn about, or refresh your knowledge of, this great French marque.

As the page opens, beneath the main graphic are links to: Bugatti Stories; The Bugatti Family; Molsheim and several others. Selecting the Bugatti Stories link will take you to a page titled “Bugatti: The Origins of a Legend,” which provides a brief overview and links to eight other pages ranging from the First Driving Report published about a Bugatti in England’s The Motor magazine, through vignettes of Bugatti history attributable to famous names such as Raymond Mays, Louis Chiron, Pierre Veyron, Isadora Duncan, Elisabeth Junek and Rene Dreyfus.

The post Inside the Legend appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

The broadly experienced Bill McGuire, whose several careers in the automotive world include consultancy, troubleshooting, education, negotiations and, of course, journalism—with long stints on the mastheads of both Hot Rod and AutoWeek—launched this site last June to provide readers with a daily dose of behind-the-scenes industry news, information and photography they likely can’t get anywhere else.

His mission statement mentions pulling back the curtain on the “real” auto industry, and whether that means revealing secrets or just helping visitors remember significant facts they may have long forgotten, he manages to do it in fine style. Subject headings are numerous, with a full list of the various “Departments” along the left margin of the home page, so there should be something of interest for almost everyone.

The post Detroit Doings appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

With this month’s main feature story looking at the Alpine Renaults that played a prominent role in the World Rally Championship during the early 1970s, we thought a good rally-based site might be of interest. This one, based in the Netherlands, allows you access to results and clarifications from the WRC’s 1973 beginnings through its first 35 seasons.

It’s not just the WRC, however, as results listings can also be found for Rally Championships in Europe, the Asia-Pacific zone, the Middle East and various other National championships, as well as several additional short-lived series. Further, there’s a search function for drivers or co-drivers where one can discover career information about specific individuals, or drivers from a certain country.

The post Rally Base appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Here’s a site dedicated to chronicling the first 50 years of Formula Three racing. It covers the formula from its beginnings in 1950 as the 500-cc cars until the Dallaras became the de facto spec car in 2000.

F3 has always been a training category where drivers with their sights set on bigger things came to learn their craft, and the list of F3 graduates who went on to those higher achievements is astounding, including: Jackie Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi, Niki Lauda, James Hunt, Jody Scheckter, Alan Jones, Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve and Mika Hakkinen, to name only those who went on to win the World Championship.

The post The History of Formula Three appeared first on Sports Car Digest.