This feature was written by Jo-Ann McEwan, the editor of In Venus Veritas and a well-known fixture of the vintage motoring scene in Australia. Follow them on Instagram – Kate Peck – Jo-Ann McEwan For those unfamiliar with motorsport or Italian food, targa florio may sound like something one could expect to find on a…
Armed Forces Rally in Land Rovers is a short film by the team at Patina that covers the Armed Forces Rally Team (AFRT), a racing outfit made up of serving British military personnel competing in lightly modified examples of the UK MOD-specification Land Rover Wolf. The Land Rover Wolf is essentially a Land Rover Defender…
The legendary NCR workshop played a significant role in the early competition life of Ducati, perhaps most famously they built the special 900cc race bike that Mike Hailwood piloted to his seemingly impossible comeback win at the the 1978 Formula One TT at the Isle of Man. NCR was founded in 1967 as a small motorcycle…
The Triumph Trident and its BSA Rocket 3 sibling were, in a way, a last hurrah for the previously globally dominant British motorcycle industry. The Rob North Triumph Tridents A racing effort funded on a shoelace budget was launched in 1970 to promote the 750cc triple being used by both Triumph and BSA. Frame construction was…
This Husqvarna Model 30 A is a custom motorcycle of sorts – it was built by a privateer racer before Husqvarna offered their own factory-built version – the Model 350DT (DT for “dirt track”). The 1920s and ’30s were an important, formative time for dirt track racing – also called flat track, circle track, and…
Max Balchowsky Max Balchowsky, alongside his wife Ina, was a self-taught race car builder and racing car driver who raced his own junkyard creations in the 1950s and 1960s. Originally from West Virginia, Max and Ina set up shop at Hollywood Motors in California to work on sports cars and enthusiast cars. Max spent his…
The Racing Scene is a 1969 film presented by James Garner, interestingly it’s a personal favorite of Quentin Tarantino who showcased it at the New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles alongside the Steve McQueen classic Le Mans. The film covers a wide array of different racing series and formats including sports car racing at the…
Ol’ Yaller Mark IX is a race car built by Max Balchowsky and his wife Ina largely from junkyard parts to a design he sketched out on the floor of Hollywood Motors – their Californian performance garage.
Once Upon A Wheel is Paul Newman’s iconic 1971 racing documentary, it’s a fascinating window into the period and it includes appearances by the likes of James Garner, Kirk Douglas, Mario Andretti, Stirling Moss, John Surtees, Richard Petty, Jackie Stewart, Hugh Downs, Dick Smothers, Dean Martin, Denny Hulme, Cesar Romero, Al Unser, Jackie Oliver, Pedro Rodriguez,…
The Honda S800 Racing was a special and very limited edition model developed by Honda France as a turnkey high-performance model for aspiring amateur racing drivers. The Honda S800 The Honda S800 was directly based on the Honda S600, which itself was based on the Honda S500 – the latter being Honda’s second-ever production car…
The Ligier JS2 is a car with a remarkable story, dual French/Italian heritage, and competition history in many of Europe’s great races. That said, the low production volume of the JS2 has resulted in it being a largely unknown cult classic only rarely seen at shows and rarer still on the road. The Ligier JS2…
In motor racing circles there are a few things that are invariably spoken of with only with deep reverence. Two of those things are Paul Newman, and the Porsche 911 Carrera RSR 3.0. Paul Newman – Race Car Driver (And Part-Time Actor) Although it isn’t commonly known outside motoring circles, Paul Newman had a career…
