Carroll Shelby In 1965, the Shelby American Company was far less famous than they are now. Carroll Shelby was a retired race car driver with a win a Le Mans under his belt, and a congenital heart condition that meant he often need to pop nitroglycerin tablets under his tongue while driving to manage his…
Indian Motocycle Back in the early part of the 20th century, Indian Motocycle were one of the most successful and prolific builders of both racing and road motorcycles in the world. Most people don’t typically associate Indian with racing, but the Indian factory team took the first three places in the 1911 Isle of Man…
The Yamaha TD3 The Yamaha TD3 is a two-stroke road racing motorcycle released by the Japanese marque in 1972. It’s powered by an air-cooled 250cc parallel twin, with a 6-speed gearbox (reducible to 5 if rules demanded it), it has a horizontally split crankcase, a slippery fairing, it produces 49 hp, and the whole thing…
The Colin Seeley-built Honda CB750 Phil Read Factory Replica is a very rare motorcycle, approximately 150 were made and they have the distinction of being the first fully faired race replica available to buy off the showroom floor from a Japanese marque. Colin Seeley The motorcycle frames developed by Colin Seeley in the 1960s and…
Between them, Glen Kyle and Beese Wendt won won 5 National Hillclimbing Championships aboard the heavily customised Vincent Rapide Series B Hillclimber you see pictured above and below. The Glen Kyle Era The bike started out as a stock 1948 Vincent Rapide Series B, but it was acquired by Glen Kyle in the late 1950s and…
In 1926 Ralph Mulford, one of the greatest of the early American racing drivers, drove a Chandler Six to an overall win in the annual Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Sometimes referred to as “The Race to the Clouds”, the Pikes Peak Hill Climb is a 12.42 mile track that winds up the side of Pikes Peak, with over 156 turns climbing 4,720 ft to a total elevation of 14,110 ft.
The 24 hour endurance race in 1953 at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France was a comeback year for Jaguar, after a disastrous performance the year before. The early overheating issues that had plagued the still-new Jaguar C-Type had largely been rectified, and 1953 would see the addition of disc brakes to…
The Jaguar XK120 was first shown to the public in 1948, it was just 3 years since the end of the Second World War and this new, sleek Jaguar was exactly what the British public needed. Even though the price tag was far beyond reach for most working class Brits, the fact that it was the fastest production car in the world was a source of great pride – Jaguar further capitalised on this by setting multiple world speed and endurance records with the XK120 over the course of its 1948 to 1954 production run.
This 1920 Hudson Super Six is a two-man racing car likely built to compete in the iconic American “Junk Formula” races of the early 20th century. The interestingly named racing series was named for the cars that raced in it, oftentimes older two-person vehicles with modified passenger car engines fitted to modified road car chassis.
This is the original Steve McQueen race suit and helmet from his now legendary 1971 film Le Mans. The last time it came up for sale it went for almost $1 million USD ($984,000 USD), and it’s likely to surpass that figure handsomely this time around. Le Mans is a movie that any self-respecting car…
The mid-engined Cooper-Climax Bobtail was an early part of a major global motorsport revolution. Its mid-engined layout combined with a space frame chassis and lightweight alloy body would form a template that would be copied far and wide – eventually becoming the de facto structure for almost all sports racing cars.
The Jawa 500 DOHC is one of the most successful speedway motorcycles of its time, largely thanks to its incredibly solid and simple construction. Jawa was founded in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1929 by industrialist František Janeček who had bought the remnants of motorcycle manufacturer Wanderer. The name “Jawa” was created by combining the first two…
