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Jim Sitz Remembers Phil Hill

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Phil Hill, World Champion. 60 years ago this week Phil won the Belgian Grand Prix for Ferrari. We celebrate his championship year. Photo of Phil Hill at the LA Times Grand Prix by Jim Sitz courtesy IMRRC.

Recently, working with Jim Sitz, we recalled that it was 60 years ago that Phil Hill won the Formula One World Championship. So why not put together something on Phil Hill, divide the photos up into four segments, each of which to be published close to the date of Phil’s remaining 1961 F1 races, culminating in the Grand Prix of Monza. And, in addition to Jim’s photos, we sneak in a couple from other photographers. But throughout we’ll get Jim to provide first hand recollections of his talks with Hill over the many years they knew each other. [Read more…] about Jim Sitz Remembers Phil Hill

A Reader’s Story: Ferrari Sharknose at Reims

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By Jean-Marc Creuset
Photos by Jean-Marc Creuset unless otherwise noted

Thank you for your highly interesting contributions, and for maintaining our spirits on a high level in these uncertain times.

Last September, “Les Amis du Circuit de Gueux” organized a meeting featuring, among others, both of Jason Stuart Wright’s Ferrari 156 F1 replicas – actually re-creations of the lost originals – and the ex-Jim Clark Lotus 21 which, according to its mechanics, was involved in the tragic Italian GP of 1961.

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Hot Laps with Phil Hill

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Phil Hill and Dale LaFollette returning to pits in the 1902 D50 Napier.

By Dale LaFollette
Photos from the collection of Dale LaFollette

In 1980 Road & Track scheduled a day at the Portland race track where I worked so Phil Hill could test some vintage cars for articles he would be writing. On the appointed day several important old cars arrived including my favorite, a 1902 D50 Napier Gordon-Bennett racer that had been assembled from parts of the actual winner of the race. At the time the car was owned by the Harrah Collection. [Read more…] about Hot Laps with Phil Hill

Phil Hill and the Alfa Disco on the Mille Miglia

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Story and photos by Dale LaFollette

Pete asked me for photos of the Disco Volante so I had to go back to the Mille Miglia Retrospective of 1986. Wow, what wonderful memories that dislodged!

The Disco Volante was being piloted by Phil Hill and John Lamm and I was in a C-Type Jaguar that was owned by my good friend Steve Earle. Our numbers were close to each other so we seemed to be in contact for at least the first full day of the three-day event. Phil and John told me that the Disco belonged to the Alfa Romeo Museum and they seemed a little concerned about the mechanical preparation if memory serves. [Read more…] about Phil Hill and the Alfa Disco on the Mille Miglia

Phil Hill: Racing the Jag at Carrell

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By Pete Vack and Jim Sitz
Photos by Strother MacMinn, copyright Bob Ames

As we have seen in the past, link, Strother MacMinn was photographing the automotive scene in Southern California and took many images never before seen or published. Bob Ames now owns the MacMinn archives, and through Dale LaFollette has allowed us to present these rare photos from Carrell Speedway near Los Angeles.

As we reviewed the photos, we realized that the first few sets of negatives told us very little. We knew that some were taken at the dirt track called Carrell Speedway, and others taken at an airport event, probably Palm Springs. And for the most part, the negs were of Jags and MGs, hard to identify or place.

We knew Jim Sitz could piece this together. “I was friends back then with Phil, McAfee, and Roger Barlow, who operated the dealership where Phil was the mechanic. We were all pretty young; Phil was 23, Barlow 38, John Bond (of Road & Track) also 38, Jack McAfee was 28, MacMinn 32 and real man- about-town, driving his Rolls Phantom II down to black neighborhoods for their jazz clubs.” [Read more…] about Phil Hill: Racing the Jag at Carrell

1957: When Heroes Raced

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By Pete Vack
Photos by Robert Pauley

A brief excerpt from “Cuban Grand Prix 1957”

When, in 1957, Robert Pauley wanted to go to Cuba “…to get a chance to see his heroes”, he may well have added “before it was too late,” for he would bear witness to the end of a very great era of motor racing. [Read more…] about 1957: When Heroes Raced

And How! Bob Temple at Palm Springs

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And How! features open and innovative formats for notices, articles and posts.

March 22, 1952, Palm Springs California. I was there cheering Roger on — wearing my specially-made Simca T-shirt that had amused Barlow when I came to his dealership earlier that same year.This is the first of the two Roger Barlow Simcas, seen here with mechanic Bill Pringle behind the wheel. Pringle raced this car in the event, while Barlow himself drove the new Simca special, #62, with right hand drive. Pringle finished second and Barlow fifth in the main event. Al Coppel won the class in his MG special.

As we have seen, Studebaker designer and part time photographer Bob Temple recorded sports car events at the Studebaker Proving Grounds and the Press on Regardless Rally in the early 1950s. Temple also went out west, and was there with Kodachrome for the Palm Springs races on March 22, 1952. Most remarkably, Jim Sitz was there as well and recorded all the cars on his invaluable set of index cards. He was therefore able to identify and comment on the cars and the personalities at the race. Our thanks to both the late Bob Temple and the very much still alive Jim Sitz.

Photos by Bob Temple courtesy Vintage Motorphoto
Story and captions by Jim Sitz

I had the good fortune to attend the March 22, 1952 event at Palm Springs, California. The photographs were taken by Bob Temple. I also had attended earlier events there in April and October of 1951.

The April 1951 event featured Jim Kimberly’s Ferrari 166 Barchetta and a young mechanic named Phil Hill, who drove his old Alfa 2.9. What a car! What a sound! The memory of Hill’s Alfa prompted me to follow his career. Race fans also saw and heard a Ferrari V-12 for first time on west coast. [Read more…] about And How! Bob Temple at Palm Springs

Phil Hill, On Record

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Phil Hill with a Peugeot in a R&T ad. Now listen to the recording below.



Below, we give our readers a chance to hear a rare 33 1/3 rpm recording, sent to us on a plasticized square piece of cardboard which measures seven by seven inches. It is about four minute long. It is simplistic, it is advertising, and it is not particularly well executed, even for the late 1950s. But it offers us a unique insight into what was then a new world for Americans, that of sports car racing and strange foreign cars with even stranger names. Despite being scripted, it says something about Phil Hill we may not have been able to ascertain elsewhere, and Hill explains his affection for Peugeot, which stems from his childhood. Most telling, even though it is obviously a bought and paid for commercial, it is honest, as honest as Phil Hill always was. [Read more…] about Phil Hill, On Record

Gauld at the Monaco Historics

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Derek Hill sits in the Ferrari Dino his dad Phil used to win the Italian Grand Prix fifty-four years ago.



Story and Photos by Graham Gauld

You have got to hand it to them; the Monaco Automobile Club put on a real spectacle with their bi-annual Monaco Historic event held last weekend. Monaco has been a gem in on the International racing scene since 1927 when William-Grover Williams, an Englishman in Monaco, won the first Monaco Grand Prix in his Bugatti. This week it was time to forget about the modern computers on wheels that are todays F1 cars and wallow in the nostalgia of racing in the past. The Monaco event always attracts interesting cars and people; let’s meet some of them. [Read more…] about Gauld at the Monaco Historics

Denise McCluggage: The Tale of a Transporter

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Denise Transporter

[Denise McCluggage passed away on May 6th of this year. A great fan of VeloceToday, she contributed several articles; below is one of her best. We miss you, Denise.]

By Denise McCluggage

At the time whereof I write, the late 1950s, Modena was the real home of Ferrari. Maranello, a sleepy hill town, boasted the low, gated factory but little else. No test track, no museum, no shop. No tourists. No Il Cavallino, the posh ristorante opened in 1962 across from the factory on a slight rise set back from the road. Cavallino Bianco Bar, a working man’s bar of the type found in every Italian village, occupied the site.

Memory has me coming out of the factory gate and looking up at the bar. A few tables are topped with the ubiquitous Martini & Rossi umbrellas and scattered on the beaten earth before the dark entry. At the tables, singly and in pairs, sit somber working men in earth-brown coveralls. Some wear the odd pill-box-shaped hats common in a pre-baseball cap world. They wrap their hands around glasses of that clear stinging stuff called grappa. Or maybe a nearly purple Lambrusco, the local wine. There is nothing for tourists in this Maranello of the working man’s bar because there are no tourists. And that’s because there are very few of the tourist-spawning Ferraris; in 1958, if every Ferrari owner in the world chose to make the pilgrimage to the Emilia countryside where his car was built, the few hotels in Modena – down this winding road out of Maranello, down the long and lovely hillside – will likely have room for every one of them.

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Denise McCluggage: Ferrari Makes a Point

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copyright protected copyright Denise McCluggage By Denise McCluggage

I don’t know when Enzo Ferrari decided not to go to races in which his cars ran but to attend practice days instead, but such was his habit when I was covering the Grand Prix circuit. More often than not he was at Monza, sort of the home ball park, for the late summer Formula 1 races. And so as you see in this photograph shot at practice for the 1958 Grand Prix of Italy is “il Commendatore”, as he was usually referred to then, performing for my camera.
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The Constant Search, Part 1

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By Brandes Elitch

Collecting Automotive Books and Literature

In 1982, a British book dealer named Charles Mortimer published a book called The Constant Search, Collecting Motoring and Motorcycling Books. Mortimer started his business during WWII, and spent half a century doing research for this book. At the time, he believed he had chronicled, in 40 different categories, everything published to that date on this subject. In addition to this bibliography, he included chapters on how to start a collection, whether to specialize or not, and how to store and display printed material. Mortimer started at the dawn of the automotive age, so this was an ambitious project. Today, I wonder if it would even be possible to chronicle all the published material on this subject in just the last 30 years. There weren’t a lot of new books about what we call “automobilia” in the sixties and seventies, but starting perhaps 20 years ago there has been a veritable explosion in published material. In this brief article, I would like to touch on some interesting aspects of automotive journalism and book collecting for the car enthusiast. My sense is that almost every car collector has also built up a book, periodical, manual, and literature collection, at least that has been my experience. [Read more…] about The Constant Search, Part 1

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