Quick viewing(Text Mode)

Revsreview Spring2012.Pdf

Revsreview Spring2012.Pdf

Spring 2012 V OL 1, ISSU E 01

Revs I nstitute fo r Automoti ve R esearch REView

REVS Institute for Automotive Re search Elevating the study of the automobile, not only as a technological device, but as an agent for social and economic change, and worthy to be considered among the masterpieces of mankind’s creation. The Revs Review is a publication of the Revs Institute for Automotive Research, to keep you updated, informed and Revved Up! THE REVS PROGRAM AT STANFORD

Volunteers at The Revs Institute in blue shirts and Revs Program at Stanford personnel in red shirts pose by our 1966 Ford GT40. From left to right: Bill Blume, David Copeland, Phil Leonhard, Scott George, Prof. J. Christian Gerdes, Guido Koch, John Arsenault, John Kegelman, Dr. Lene Harbott and Jackie Laio (seated in car). A group of Stanford University students led by Professor Chris Gerdes conducted primary research on historic automobiles housed in Naples, FL, tapping into the vast array of information available at the private research library. The visitors are part of the new Revs Program at Stanford. The Revs Program at Stanford creates a unique opportunity to study the automobile Reading room in the library of the Revs Institute from a variety of disciplines. It bridges for Automotive Research, Naples, Florida the perspectives of the humanities, social sciences, engineering, design, law and he Revs Institute for Automotive Research, Inc. is a not for business. This year the Stanford team is profit 501(c)3 private operating foundation. It is a growing focusing on the collection’s 1966 Ford. It Tleader as an information destination and image resource for has been fitted with telemetry to not only an international community of transportation and automotive understand the cars’ performance, but also professionals, enthusiasts and students. We draw upon more to study the driver’s experience. than 300,000 original images, 400,000 primary documents, 20,000 books and 80,000 issues of periodicals. The Revs For information visit: Stanford/edu/group/revs Institute continues to grow. Among other recent Whether your interests additions, we are privileged to now include concern a particular automotive marque, a the acclaimed and authoritative colorful period in motor Ludvigsen Library from Great Britain sport history or the technical aspects of into our offerings. We welcome the car today or in the serious researchers, authors, distant past, our vast historians, media representatives and store of magazines both delight and enrich any collectors to use our resources. research endeavor. John Morton pilots the Collection’s 1960 -Carrera GTL at Laguna Seca equipped with Stanford’s Revs data acquisition gear.

The places WE

2012 Future EVENTS! he Collier Collection celebratesGO! the single most important technologic object of the 20th Century: The Automobile. Simply put, the automobile formed the modern era in its image. The cars in the Collier Collection are not stagnant as seen from the 2011 April 18 – 22: National Council season highlights: on Public History Annual Meeting, Milwaukee, WI. T www.ncph.org 2011 season highlights: ● The 2011 season started with the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in March. Three cars were displayed for the more than 50,000 attendees: the 1962 Cunningham Jaguar E May 5-6: Keels & Wheels Concours d’Elegance, Seabrook TX. , which finished 4th overall at , and Type the 1935 Ex Gary Cooper SSJ Duesenberg www.keels-wheels.com the 1933 Fred Frame built Duesenberg powered racer, which took the coveted IMS/Tony Hulman Award for most significant Indy car. June 24: Palo Alto Concours ● In May, the Collection’s 1913 L3 Coupe de l’Auto returned to Indy for the track’s d’Elegance, Palo Alto, CA. centenary celebration. It was the first time back there for the Peugeot since 1914, when it www.paconcours.com finished second. ● Roger Mandeville piloted the Collection’s 1965 250 LM, 1967 and the 1971 June 28-July 1: Goodwood Festival of Speed, Chichester England. /3 at the Legends of Motorsport Event at the in May. www.goodwood.co.uk ● In June, students from the Revs Program at Stanford presented a short biography at the Palo Alto Concours on the Collection’s 1938-8CTF and the 1913 Peugeot. July 6-8: Le Mans Classic, Circuit ● The Collection’s 1919 Ballot was invited to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June to join del la Sarthe in France. fellow Indianapolis racing cars for a special Indy centenary celebration. www.lemansclassic.com ● The Collection’s 1924 Miller, 1927 Delage 1-5 8S and the 1935 Collier MG PA/PB Special were exercised at the famous Race Track during the annual Milwaukee Miller Club Aug 11-19: Monterey Pre Reunion & Reunion, Monterey, CA. Event in July. www.laguna-seca.com/rolex-monterey- ● August was exceptionally busy for the Collection with a trip to the Monterey Reunion and motorsports-reunion Pre-Reunion. The 1950 Cadillac Le Monstre was loaned to Cadillac for the Quail Event and the 1955 Ex Cunningham D Type and 1962 E Type Jaguars were part of the 50th Anniversary Aug 19: Pebble Beach Concours display of the E Type at Laguna Seca Raceway. d’Elegance, Carmel, CA ● Also at Monterey, Stanford used telemetry to measure the performance of the Porsche 910 www.pebblebeachconcours.net

and the 1960 Porsche Abarth Carrera GTL as well as measuring the actions of its drivers, Aug 31-Sept 3: Lime Rock Historic John Morton and Bruce Canepa. Festival 30, Lakeville, CT ● For September, Roger Mandeville drove the 1971 Porsche 908/3 and the Targa Florio winning www.limerock.com 1960 Porsche RS 60 at Lime Rock Park. Once again, in honor of the Jaguar E Type’s 50th the Cunningham E Type was part of the festivities and the Concours, and also the following Sept 14-16: Goodwood Revival, weekend at the Fairfield County Concours. Chichester England. ● In October, we ended the season back in Monterey for the Porsche Rennsport Reunion and www.goodwood.co.uk

the Porsche Quail Classic, with piloting the RS60 and the 908/3 at Rennsport Oct 20: Lake Mirror Classic, races, and taking celebration laps with the Collection’s 1971 917K, 1953 550 01 Coupe and Lakeland, FL the 1967 Ex Gerard Larrousse-Tour de France, Tour de Corse, winning 911R. For the Quail www.lakemirrorclassic.com Classic, the 1960 Abarth Carrera GTL, RS60 and 550 01 coupe were part of the major display of classic gathered to raise funds for Lung Cancer Research. Revs I nstitute fo r Automoti ve R esearch MEDIA REVIEW The library at the Revs Institute grows constantly. Here is a look at two selected newly published works: Sebring 12 Hours: The Official Record Book Introducing of America’s Greatest Race by Ken Breslauer, Raceway Press, Sebring, Florida, 2012. the REVS Institute Order from, www.sebringraceway.com, $40 plus s&h In each issue of the Revs Review we’ll introduce one of the key Historian at the famed Florida sports car people involved in making this a foremost center for automotive circuit. He had written the definitive his- tory of the event in 1995. The current work is research. Now we meet Mark Patrick, the Managing Librarian. not properly a second edition but rather an updated reference book. Indeed, data and photos are the book’s raison d’etre, as there is little text of note apart from a brief but in- formative introduction. The centerpiece is the complete compendium of results for each of the now nearly 60 editions of the twelve-hour race. The answers to nearly every pub table argument can be found within its 144 pages. Breslauer’s 1995 edition remains the source for text summaries of each race while this one does bring the story up to date with further result tables. A key feature here, not published before, is a posting of photographs of the top ten finishers for each year beginning with the first race in 1952. Scanning past those images provides a wonderful capsule history not only of the technical development in race craft but also changes in livery styles as well as a compen- dium of famous car models. The soft cover book concludes with a directory of every driver to have participated in the event. The work is one of pure reference and is indispensable for any racing historian.

ur Managing Librarian has spent his adulthood working with historical collections of books and manuscripts. Before he earned degrees from the University of Michigan, Mark was raised in the shadow of the Detroit auto plants. “The car culture in Detroit is Opervasive—it seemed like we always talked about cars. If we were Group B – The Owner’s Edition in a Little League baseball game and a Mustang drove by, we called by Reinhard Klein and John Davenport, McKlein Publishing, Köln, time to watch it,” Patrick chuckles. But, there is a serious side to Germany, 2011. Order from, www.thegroupbbook.com, €999 automotive history also. Group B—The Owner’s Edition is the title of a new two volume history of the Group B class of wide open . From 1982 On assisting the scholar: through 1986 lightweight, blazingly fast production based cars “I enjoy bringing history to the learner. There are so many great criss-crossed the globe to challenge each other over varied terrain stories yet to be told in automotive history. I think the scholars who and climates. As the FIA placed few technical restrictions on analyze this history will give us ways to better forecast and plan this class, , BMW, , Peugeot and, it seems, the rest of the industry all tried to one-up each other by introducing more for the global economy and deal with cultural and environmental horsepower, composite materials and advancements in all-wheel politics in the 21st Century. “ drive and suspension. Group B became more than rallying—it was a real-time testing facility for novel automotive technology. Racing enthusiasts of all stripes caught the excitement and soon On digitization and libraries: Group B had a cult following –drawing spectators in the many “In a diverse world, images are a kind of lingua franca for the thousands. Group B also directly influenced the 80’s Yuppie Car human family. I mean, think of the pre-historic cave paintings and craze in the States and made BMW and Audi popular with the then all the art down through the ages. People record knowledge upwardly mobile. Arranged chronologically, the authors draw upon interviews, photographs, official documents and race reports by picturing it. Images are the reality part of the memory bank and they have done so comprehensively. Chapters focus on driver and that is why the digital horizon is so magnificent. 500,000 and team profiles and specific rallies. This remarkable, elegant photographs is a lot of history to share. That is why the Revs- publication is lavishly illustrated and has a limited edition of only Stanford University library partnership is an important history of 500. It comes hardbound in a slip-case and weighs a whopping 30 lbs. It will also set your wallet back 999 Euro. technology digital initiative. ” Steve McQueen, 1962. The film star to Revs turned racer was a few years into his NEW racing career when he drove this formula n each issue of the Revs Review, we will provide highlights car. This was an SCCA Nationals event of materials new to the collection. One of the collections at Cotati, California. The now defunct circuit predated the nearby and better currently being cataloged is the Geoffrey Hewitt known Sears Point venue. photo archives. Hewitt is an Ohio based motorsports photographer who was particularly active from the mid- I1960’s through the mid-1980’s. He specialized in SCCA and IMSA races both nationally and with particular emphasis in the Northeast and Midwest. The Hewitt collection comprises some 220,000 images. Most are transparencies. Hewitt’s high-quality work covers that important period when American racing was making a transition from a modest professional exercise to the major business that it is today. Another recent addition to the collection is the library of Helmut Schroers. He was a leading motorsports journalist in Germany from the early 1950’s through the 1970’s. Schroers predominantly covered motorcycle events and automotive rallies, as well as most of the major Privateer Porsches, 1972. Today even backmarker teams arrive at car races in Europe. He kept copious notes and retained race paddocks with multiple transporters, but such was not the case in the all of the race data, press notes and programs from past. The California based team of Vasek Polak ran two older /10 each venue. Eventually both the Hewitt and Schroers Spyders in the Can-Am series against the factory backed turbocharged collections will become part of the versions. Milt Minter would take No. 0 to 4th place at Laguna Seca. Revs Institute’s digital archives. 1958 Berlin Grand PriX. This program is from the premier event held for sports cars on the old AVUS circuit. In the next issue of the Revs The course consisted of lanes on either side of a divided Review we will feature the history public highway. It was closed for races and was also used and background of an important extensively for vehicle tests and record attempts. The car, person or other aspect of cars are shown on one of the hairpin bankings that were located at either end. This particular race was won by automotive history. in a Porsche RSK.

1957 Hanseat Rallye. The rallying discipline was a particularly important proving ground for touring cars during the 1950’s and 1960’s. The Schroers Collection retains very detailed records of each stage 2500 South Horseshoe Drive at each event. The Hanseat Rallye was run Naples, Florida 34104 • 239-643-5783 primarily at the Nürbugring circuit. www.revsinstitute.org

Miles Collier, Chairman & President | ScotT George, Vice President Mark Patrick, Managing Librarian | Bill Blume, Shop Foreman Jayme Moore, Executive Assistant | János Wimpffen, Editorial Consultant Maria Writesel, Consultant | Tim Kling, Art Director

Top View