Entries in GT40 (3)

Wednesday
Nov302011

Demonstration Day at the Simeone Foundation -- Gallery

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we checked out the "People's Choice" Demonstration day over at the Simeone Foundation in Philadelphia.  They had the 250TR, the 917, and the GT40 opened up for all to see, and they took the Corvette Grand Sport and Shelby Daytona Coupe outside for a spin! There was a great enthusiast crowd, and Dr. Simeone gave a very informative lecture about the cars beforehand. For anyone on the East Coast who hasn't been over to see this collection, you really need to go. Now. The cars are not only top notch in curation and originality, but almost all of them have some significant provenance. Case in point: There are were only 6 Shelby Daytona Coupes built. Simeone has one of them. But this is the ONLY one that was actually built by Shelby in the USA. The other 5 were made in Italy to save time and money.  See what I mean?

Click the photo below for the entire gallery.  I shot these on my cel phone, so the quality isn't up to my usual standard!

This image taken from the foundation website: http://simeonemuseum.org/

Sunday
Jul242011

Highlights from Goodwood - Exclusive Photo Set!

Our intrepid man in the UK, Davide de Giorgi was kind enough to selflessly attend the Goodwood Festival of Speed on our behalf, so that those of us on this side of the pond could enjoy some captivating imagery of the event.  Davide has a huge flickr stream of photos from Goodwood, but we've chosen our 50 favorite photos for our gallery here on Automobiliac.  Click any picture below for the full gallery.  Does anyone out there know the history of this spectacular 250TR hardtop coupe below?  The streamlined roof does not seem like something Enzo would have done, so the question is: "Who did it?" A quick google search did not yield an easy answer.

All photos copyright Davide de Giorgi and used with permission.

Tuesday
Jul272010

Unearthed!! Original color 8mm footage of the 1966 Nurburgring 1000km!

A friend of a friend posted this fascinating period footage on youtube! His now-deceased father shot this footage back in the 60s, and he believed it to be from the Le Mans 24 hours. In fact, the footage depicts a Le Mans style start (around 1:48), with drivers running to the cars, but the venue in question is actually the infamous Nurburgring! Among the plethora of fabulous cars present in this color footage are early Ford GT40s, Porsche 904s and 906s, Ferrari 330 P4s and 250LMs, as well as the Chapparal 2D that won the race, driven by Phil Hill and Jo Bonnier. The actual moment of victory is captured here in this film, taken from close to the start-finish line! The movie is silent, but if you are a classic car junky, it will get your heartrate going! I am also excited to say that this is the first place you're going to hear about this video, as it was just posted 2 days ago! Thanks for the tip, Gabe!