‘Recession my ass’. I must have thought that a dozen times during the time I spent at the MPH&Classic car show. I know for a fact that at the NEC, all Live Arena times were sold out for the weekend, but I’d already nearly shouted that out of the car window as I’d pulled into one of the already full-to-bursting NEC car parks. Thankfully I was able to control the outburst.

It does me good to know that even though we’re still officially ‘in recession’, people have the time, money and will to go to a show that centres on the worlds most expensive cars. See, no matter what the Government does, it can put up tax on cars, tax on fuel and tax on just about anything else they can think of to do with owning a vehicle. but there’ll always be a (very large) hardcore group of devoted Petrolheads and I’m proud to say that that show was truly an excellent example of this.

There’s always a real buzz in the air from excited car enthusiasts going nuts at being able to get up close and personal with exotic cars such as the Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari Enzo or Pagani Zonda and todays show was no exception as maniacal fans crowded around them, there eyes taking on an alien-esque look as they widened to take in the sheer beauty of these vastly expensive exotics.

No matter how busy the NEC’s halls get though, there’s never any pushing or shoving to get to the cars, and it’s a great place to train your young kid in the art of the Petrolhead (in a Yoda stylie of course).

Off to the Live Arena for the Top Gear Live Show now. This is one of the highlights for me, and the lads from Top Gear don’t let us down. There’s the usual ribbing of each other, some mad (but weirdly ingenious) inventions in the way of garden furniture being made into vehicles of some form or another, throw in some great car driving stunts courtesy of The Stig, a race with some 3 wheeled Robin Reliant’s (which pirouetted beautifully over onto their sides no less than 13 times) and you’ve got yourself a hugely entertaining hour or so of quality show.

One thing that is highly appealing about the MPH&Classic Car Show are all the trader stands which line the halls. You can buy anything from Steve McQueen posters to model cars and racing suits to actually buying a real car (Audi R8 V10 anyone?), and usually you can get what you want cheaper than even the internet will provide. See, there are still non-eBay bargains out there.

Although the MPH show is good, the Classic Car show next door is also excellent. Whatever you’re into whether it’s old Leyland-built cars (that’s just plain strange though right?), pure American Muscle cars, Porsche’s or Lancia’s – there’s something for everyone to enjoy and drool over and again there are the traders selling stuff like original log books for nearly any car, to oils and cleaning products.

I really can’t think of a much better way than to spend a day with some of the world’s most revered and cool cars. The MPH&Classic Car Show gives you that glorious Petrolhead high by the bucket load.

I’ll definitely be going again next year. See you there then?

Ah yes. Burnt tyre smoke in my eyes and lungs, the smell of un-burnt fuel wafting past. It’s back to the track again to watch some more seriously powerful and equally seriously cool US muscle cars racing down that quarter mile strip of tarmac.

I arrived on the last day, Sunday, of the three day event at the end of July at Santa Pod Raceway in the south of England. The July weather had been been terrible, with high winds and lashing rain every other day. Fortunately the bad weather held off and it was merely a horribly dull and cloudy day.

Since I attended this event last in 2007, the atmosphere seemed to have changed. There were considerably less cars racing, and the crowd was a lot smaller and frankly, not an enthusiastic one. The most excitement out of them was when the Santa Pod Jet Car posted a sub 7 second time. I put the lower number of cars down to the recession and the slightly dull atmosphere of the crowd down to the not-exactly-Californian-weather. Maybe people were expecting the worst.

All photos taken with a Nikon D90 DSLR

Whatever though, the track was dry and the cars were lining up, ready to be put through their paces. I’ve stated it time and again, but I’m still going to say it, there’s nothing quite like the sound of a tuned V8 muscle car with a straight through exhaust. Lovely. Slick tyres warmed up, they race off down the track, jumping their front wheels into the air, the roar of the engine making the ground shake underneath my feet.

There’s sometimes a bit of a misconception that the classic muscle cars (and pick-ups) can be slow of the mark, sloppy handling beasts that light up the tyres on every given occasion. Okay sure, their handling around corners is not exactly train-like, but for a start, this is not a race circuit, and another point is that most of these cars are fully set up primarily for drag racing. They fly off the start line with not even a hint of shredded tyre, and are arrow straight down the quarter mile.

If you love cars and especially US muscle cars, the day or weekend out is great. Sack off what the weather is like, forget your ‘reserved British’ type attitude and get enthusiastically applauding these guys for bringing their vehicle-from sometimes hundreds of miles away-to race their pride and joys to the limit.

Click here for more information on Santa Pod raceway and the other events held there.

Although I’m at York Raceway, England, I could be in the USA right now. It’s a seriously hot day with some seriously nice muscle cars. There’s not a cloud in the sky and only the occasional patch of funny-smelling fog wafts past us. Wait, that’s not fog! It’s a heavily tuned 1960s Chevrolet Chevelle warming up its tyres. Ahh, the joy. I love the smell of burning rubber in the morning.

I’m all set and feeling Americanised for the day ahead. Hamburger for breakfast, toxic burnt rubber smoke in my lungs and my black ‘Crossville, (Tennessee) Pawn & Guns Shop’ cap on. Great stuff.

There’s a good turnout today and there’s dozens of beautiful classics lined up ready for the run down the quarter mile. It’s the 25th of May and the 3rd round of the American Super Stock and the pressure is on to get some good times in. And they certainly rose to the challenge!

Okay, so not all of the cars here are insanely tuned with twin nitrous tanks, roll cages and tyres as wide as an elephant, but they’re still putting in decent times of 12 and 13 seconds. Some though, are getting high 9’s and 10’s. Impressive.

I think that the majority of car fans, no matter what your preference or choice of vehicle is, enjoy the sound of a tuned V8. Warming up their tyres, the engine roars so loud that the ground literally shakes, and I’m finding it hard to hold the camera still when I’m kneeling to take the shot only 15 feet from the car. Thank goodness for the anti-shake function on it.

After the tyres are suitably warmed up, the drivers come off the gas and roll their car forward. At this point, the engine sounds like it has cut out, but then you hear it splutter and cough back into that slow tick over. It’s a beautiful sound, and you feel as if you can almost hear the individual pistons punching their way up and down inside their chambers.

One of the highlights of the day was seeing a jet car fire itself, down the quarter mile in around 6 seconds in a wall of searing noise and flame. I believe he didn’t have the throttle fully open either.

I also had the pleasure of meeting the deputy editor of Classic American magazine, Andy Craig, who willingly showed us around his lovely Pontiac GTO. He definitely knows his way around classic Yank cars and rightfully so, as he works for one of the UKs biggest American car mags.

The day at York Raceway was excellent, the atmosphere between the drivers was friendly, even if they were in competition with one another and I’m looking forward to seeing some of the day’s heat winners again at the MOPAR Nationals at Santa Pod in July.

If you love cars, you would really struggle to find a better way of spending the mere £10 entrance fee that York Raceway charges.

York Raceway holds many quarter-mile shootout events throughout the year, which a huge variety of different cars attend. For more information on these and York Raceway itself check out their website here.Thanks to all York Raceway’s staff for being so friendly, helpful and accommodating.

All photos taken with a Nikon D90 DSLR

To see more high quality photographs from the race day visit our Flickr photostream here

A visit to the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart, only the day after a trip to the fabulous Porsche museum?

This is almost too much to take. Almost, but then again can you really have too much of a good thing when it comes to cars? We’re about to find out.

After parking up in the Mercedes museum car park, your eyes are instantly drawn to the various models they have dotted around the car park. They look like scaled-up versions of say, the 1:18 sized collectors model they sell. The cars are in glass cases on stands, really alike to the smaller versions that you buy from the gift shop. So it’s a pretty good start to the day. It’s just small touches like that which really whet your appetite for what’s in store for you.

Again, it’s the very meagre sum (for what you get), of €8 to get in to the museum. As you enter, to the left further down the building, and just before the Mercedes in-museum dealership, are some of the ‘young classics’ on display. One model in that section caught my eye. It caught it so badly in fact, that it was watering. No, I was not crying. Okay, I may have been a bit. You’ll understand why when I say that the car in question was the 190E 2.5-16 Evolution in my favourite car colour of gunmetal grey. This was one seriously nice car. It was in amazing condition too. Not only that but it was sale for just over €47,000. Hence the watery eyes. I can’t afford to buy it.

After being dragged away, to stop me stealing it in a desperate attempt to own it for at least a brief moment before I was sent to a German jail, we moved on to the main part of the museum. Walking into the centre of the building, the sheer size and look of it is almost overwhelming. It’s all very futuristic. Not in a cheesy way at all though. Staring up to the ceiling, the inside of the roof looks like it’s straight out of a science-fiction film.

The structure is triangular shaped, to a certain degree, and in the roof are what look like three massive support beams, in white, which have blue lighting in the centre of them. Silently travelling up and down the three walls of the museum are three of the coolest lifts I’ve ever seen. They are hugely influenced by art deco styling. The only way that I can think to describe them is that they look similar to the front of the trains you’d see in painted posters from the 1940s and ’50s. Very smooth and rounded, with a small slit of a window for seeing out of. As they go up and down the walls, they project giant pictures, onto the opposite walls, of former racing heroes and cars. The shape of the building apparently helps if there’s ever a fire there, as it basically does the job of a chimney, funnelling the smoke out of the museum and into the sky. Handy when it’s housing millions of pounds of cars.

As with the Porsche museum, you can request an electronic audio guide for more in-depth explanations of the cars and displays. After picking one up, we enter one of the art-deco elevators and start ascending to the first part of the museum. The interior of the lift is decorated in alcantara or suede – the type you find some Mercedes car seats are made of, and the thin slit of a window allows you to see the pictures projected onto the walls opposite the lift.

As the lift gets nears the top of the building, galloping horse hoof noises are played in the elevator, much to everyone’s surprise. As the doors open though, all is explained. A full size stuffed horse is displayed, along with a quote from Kaiser Wilhelm 2nd with his statement from 1905. ” I believe in horses”, he says, “Automobiles are a passing  phenomenon “. Well I agree with him to a certain extent, and I believe in horses too, except the ones I’m talking about are shoe-horned into various engine bays.

The Kaiser couldn’t have been more wrong, as the Mercedes-Benz museum shows with a great deal of delight.

There’s so much to see that getting around it will take a full days exploring. It starts off with the very earliest Daimlers such as the 1889 Daimler Stahlradwagen and the 1907 Mercedes Simplex Reisewagen, which was built for successful businessman and investor in Daimler, Emil Jellinek.

Interestingly, as Herr Jellinek invested so much money in Daimler, the models from then on were subsequently named after his daughter Mercedes, hence the manufacturers name now.

After this, you move around the museum down floor by floor, with two displays per level. The displays start with the earliest car and go forward in time. The cars are simply beautiful once you move into the early 1900s, the attention to detail is huge on these cars, making them all the more attractive. One of my favourite Mercedes of the 1930s is the 500 K Spezial-Roadster in Red. It is one of the best looking cars of the era and would have cost a staggering £86,000 (€98,000, $120,000), a huge amount back then. As Mercedes put it, this was “a car of the rich and the beautiful”.

Then there are some vehicles that are just too interesting to pass on. One such is the Mercedes-Benz Rennwagen-Schnelltransporter. This was a purpose-built transporter and was affectionally known as the ‘Blue Wonder’. It would chauffeur race vehicles in 1955 at speeds of up to 106 mph. The aerodynamics of it are wonderful, and it’s really nice just to look at. On the back of the transporter is a 300 SLR from the same era,  and what’s very noticeable is the similarities in styling of both vehicles. The technicians that built the Rennwagen very obviously made the rear of the transporter look much alike the 300 SLR.

Talking of the 300 series, that was another model that I was excited to see. The 300 SL Coupé, or Gullwing, as it’s commonly known. The interior itself is a work of art., and is very driver-orientated. The dials and milled switchgear are beautiful beyond belief. Another lesser known model from the 300 series is the 300 SLR ‘Uhlenhaut-Coupé’. Everyone knows the famous 1955 Mille-Miglia winning 300 SLR, which was driven to victory by Sir Stirling Moss, right? Well the SLR ‘Uhlenhaut-Coupé’ was a hardtop version and was built for the 1956 race-season, but was never used due to Mercedes ceasing its racing in 1955. The reason for the name was that Rudolf Uhlenhaut, head of the test department at that time, instead used it as a company car. Some company car eh! Slightly more exciting than a VW Passat or a Ford Mondeo. I like the guys thinking, ‘why let a good car go to waste’. Nicely done.

There’s floor after floor of interesting and unusual cars. Examples include the fully armoured 600 Pullman Staatslimousine, the ML 320 from Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park sequel and Ringo Starr’s (of Beatles fame) 190 E 2.3 AMG, which he had had converted from a standard 190E.

The last floor was excellent. All around the edge of the museum were row upon row of Mercedes-Benz racing cars from all different backgrounds. From their racing trucks to F1 cars to Le Mans and DTM racers. Occasionally, out of nowhere, the sound of one of the cars starts. It seems to start right where that particular vehicle is, say Sir Stirling Moss’s 300 SLR ‘722′. The ‘engine’ fires into life and blips a couples of times, then the noise sets off around the edge, changing gears and disappears off into the distance, reappearing in your eardrums, at a high speed and does a fly-by. The sound is seriously good quality, and you really feel as if you are there when the car or truck is doing a fast lap. Amazing. There were more than one or two grins in the crowds as the various models fired up their engines through the speakers. Whoever thought of that needs a round of applause. Well done Sir!

After finishing this, there’s a chance to have a coffee or a Coke break in the cool café (the seats have armrests, just like a car). You need the rest, as tackling the next part of the museum will seriously tax your feet (and wallet). The gift shop. A place where no-ones money is safe. Even the tightest of people will end up spending some money, whether it be a just a pen, a model car or some other piece of Mercedes merchandise, you WILL be sucked into the whole experience. Okay so I did admittedly buy a 1:18 scale 1960s 230 SL. Worth every cent of €50 too, I keep convincing myself.

This Mercedes Museum didn’t ever fail to impress, whichever display or floor level you are on. There’s something for all aspects of car fan. Racer, classic, supercar, unique or just concept.

So was it all too much to take in after all? No, and you really cannot have too much of a good thing when it comes to cars.

Click here to visit the Stuttgart Mercedes-Benz Museum website

All photos taken with a Nikon D90 DSLR

To see more details of the cars in the pictures, hover your mouse arrow over the photographs.

“Turn here! Yes, it’s definitely here. Look, there’s a Porsche 911 Turbo in the next lane to us heading down that road so it must be the right place.”

Oh flipping heck. We missed it. We were far too busy taking in the two huge Porsche buildings to notice we were in the wrong lane. We get the car turned around. This time we get it right.

Driving past the main entranceway to the Porsche museum here in Stuttgart, Germany, I’ve got an urge to jump out the car while it’s moving, and perhaps do some sort of Ninja-type roll through the doors in order to get into the place more quickly. I’ve been looking forward to visiting Stuttgart for ages now, and parking the car is just hindering our time in the museum. Stuttgart is a true Mecca for fans of both the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz marques, as the companies still design, test and make the cars here (Mercedes museum article coming soon).

The Porsche museum only opened in January 2009, so it’s brand new, with delivery milage only. This is one seriously clinically clean place too. When Porsche say it’s a museum, don’t think that this is some musty old place, where talking is hushed and people stand at a respectful distance from the displays. Quite the opposite in fact!

People love being able to be so up close and personal with cars that they’ve only ever seen in magazines or on the internet, or maybe in films, and they don’t hide their enthusiasm when they do set eyes on them. Good. It’s the sort of atmosphere that this place should have, and Porsche clearly encourage it.

The museum is a state-of-the-art building. Beautiful isn’t really a word to describe the look of it. It’s more a wonderful piece of design work than anything. Functional, smart-looking and serves its purpose perfectly. Very German, very Porsche.

After entering the museum, you’re first struck by just how cheap the tickets are. A mere 8 Euros (£7, $10), gets you into one of the most modern museums in the world. Inside, it’s all very Apple Mac. Clean-cut square and angular edges abound, with white being the primary colour, and the occasional splash of black thrown in for good measure. Very cool.

You can request an electronic audio guide at the desk if you want. As you walk around the cars, there are numbers on the information boards which you put into the audio guide. These then give you a more in-depth descriptions of the cars and displays through your headphones. They also contain soundtracks to the various films which are dotted about.

Taking the steep escalator up to the first part of the museum, you gets a real sense of excitement and you almost will the escalator to go faster. Finally, coming up to the top of it, your eyes catch sight of the first car on display. The famous Porsche Type 64. It has an all-aluminium body, which is un-painted. The look of the 911 was clearly inspired by this car, which was built in 1939 for the Berlin to Rome race. It could hit an amazing (for the era) 99 mph.

The museum is laid out so that the earliest cars are featured first, like the Type 64 and the Ferdinand Porsche-designed Volks Wagen (meaning ‘peoples car’) Type 1, or Beetle, as it’s commonly known, which was also first built in 1939.

After that you move on to the later race cars built in the 1960’s and ’70s. What is amazing about this museum is that the cars are not protected by barriers. You’re free to look closely, feel the lines of the bodywork and take in the fact that at any minute a small army of security personnel will come and drag you off the Porsche 917 sporting the Gulf colours, like the one that Steve McQueen drove in the film Le Mans, that you’re currently (literally) drooling over.

Another great thing here is that, in Porsche’s own words, the museum is a ‘museum on wheels’. In other words, the cars are still used and participate regularly in various events such as the Mille Miglia and the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

On some of the race cars with open engine compartments, you catch a rich scent of petrol and oil coming from them. It just makes the cars a lot more real and alive, and you can easily imagine them noisily firing up just before the start of some race, throttles being blipped to keep the engines from stalling, a haze of heat rising up from the track and the cars.

Some of the vehicles that really stood out to me included a beautiful dark green 911 Turbo 3.0 Coupé. The first production car that Porsche made which used a turbocharger on the engine. We’re talking 260 bhp on car that weighed nothing and had no ABS or traction control. It would do the 0-60 run in just 5.5 seconds. Not bad for a car from the 1970’s eh.

A few other crowd-pulling models that also stood out were the insanely fast 959, 911 GT1 and the Carrera GT (production number 0001). All three of these are road-legal cars for the track. Particularly the 959 and the 911 GT1 though. These are 2 cars that Porsche produced for the road, just so that they could compete in races, so you know that they’re going to be completely mad.

There is so much more to the Porsche museum than described here, and the displays are constantly changed and updated to keep the museum ‘alive’. It’s an experience just to be around some of the most successful racing pedigree cars ever produced.

As we leave there’s about 20 or so Porsches, ranging from 944’s and 928’s to 911 4 S’ and Turbos, parked up outside the entrance, and their drivers are just getting into them,and starting up their engines, so we wait around for a while. After they’ve all warmed them up they set off in a line.

They don’t hang about though. Flooring the accelerators, they wheel spin off one by one, using the cars as they designed to be treated, and as I watch them disappear off into the distance I can’t help but feel slightly envious.

One day though, one day…

We have 100+ more photographs of the cars from the Porsche museum. We’ll be adding them to our Flickr photostream over the next week, so keep checking it.

For more information on the Porsche museum click here.

All photos taken with a Nikon D90 DSLR

Guest writer Louis Galanos continues his account of the Sebring 1970 12 hour race.

The response to my story about the legendary 1970 Sebring race was better than I had hoped.

One response from a reader peaked my interest because he believes that the Steve McQueen – Peter Revson Porsche 908/02 may have actually won the race. The reader in question is a Mr. John Bradley who currently works and lives in the Washington, D.C. area. However, in 1970 he was living in Florida and, like me, was a volunteer race official for Central Florida Region of Sports Car Club of America. My specialty was as a licensed SCCA corner worker and John’s specialty was as a licensed SCCA timer and scorer.  As such we both worked driver’s schools, as well as Regional and National races.

To raise money for Central Florida Region the licensed workers were hired out to work professional events like the 24-Hours of Daytona and the 12-Hours of Sebring.  Over the years we must have crossed paths many times but never formally met.

At the 1970 Sebring race John was scheduled to work timing and scoring and arrived early with a rental truck to get a good parking space in the paddock, which he did. John then ran into a friend from Fort Walton Beach, Florida who had a Z28 entered in the race. He had trailered down by himself.

The friend needed to get to the FIA physical at the firehouse in Sebring and had to use the tow car to do it.  At the same time the race car had to be at tech inspection at the shuffleboard court, so John drove the Z28 from the track into town to get inspected. According to John it was a “fun drive” with spectators along the road encouraging a bit of speed.

John pulled the Camaro into the tech line immediately behind the Porsche 908/02 of Steve McQueen and Peter Revson. John was racing pro MX at the time on Maico and he had read in Cycle News that McQueen (on a Husky) had broken his foot at a race in California so he went over and the two started talking.

John worked timing and scoring for Thursday night’s practice and by Friday the club members from MacDill Air Force Base arrived to work the races and relieve him. In that group were Roger and Gerlinda Newman from Tampa who had been recommended to Steve McQueen’s production company (Solar) as people who could do lap charts for them.

The Newmans and John were good friends and he went to see them in the tower at Sebring before the start.  John had full credentials as a worker and could go almost everywhere as a result. On one of his visits to the Newmans he met Steve McQueen again and they talked.  While talking to Steve someone from the Solar team asked John to be a runner between the team and the course officials.  As a result he stayed with the Solar team for the rest of the race.

Most of the time during the race John was upstairs with the Newmans chatting.  With them were Steve’s wife, Neile, and Jack Reddish of Solar Productions and his wife.

To this day John feels that the #48 Porsche won by almost a full lap.  He thinks that the Andretti Ferrari 512s passed the #48 car to get on the same lap between timing and scoring and the finish line. But the clock ran out before Mario crossed the finish line (trailed by the Revson/McQueen Porsche).  The flagman waived the checker flag believing that Mario’s  Ferrari was the leader.

Although not critical of timing and scoring, John believes they were caught out early in the day when Peter Revson spun out and stalled thus missing a half-lap on the watch but a full lap according to the timing and scoring flip clock. After the Victory Lane celebration and ride to the airport hanger on the Porsche; John, the Solar crew and the McQueens returned to Mr. McQueen’s motor home (a real luxury in those days.)

The group asked if Steve wanted to protest the results.  He said (roughly), “I had a blast.  We finished second overall and won our class. NO!”. And that’s the way Steve wanted it – no turmoil.  He thought he’d be made out to be a spoiled movie star instead of a racer and the latter was far more important to him.

Huge thanks to Louis Galanos (aka. Nigel Smuckatelli) for providing the article. Please take a look at his amazing Flickr photostream.

#19 Ferrari 512s of Mario Andretti and Arturo Merzario side by side with the Porsche 908/02 of Steve McQueen and Peter Revson

In 1970 my fiancé and I were college students and also race officials for Sports Car Club of America. We volunteered to work the Sebring 12-Hour race and arrived at the track two days before the race so we could get a good camping spot in the paddock as well as see some of the fabulous cars and drivers before the hoards of fans descended on the track on race day.

Once we were settled in at the paddock and got our work assignment for the race we decided to take a tour of the paddock and pits. We marveled at the variety of cars from the large super fast 5.0-liter factory Ferrari 512’s and Porsche 917’s to the very small Austin Healy Sebring Sprite that was driven by an all woman team of drivers.

On one of our walking tours we came across actor and racer Steve McQueen. He was in the pit area talking to a gentleman I assume was a journalist. McQueen had entered a 3.0 liter Porsche 908/02 in the race along with co-driver Peter Revson.

Steve McQueen in the Pits at Sebring

Being a huge fan of the actor I didn’t want to be intrusive so I waited until he was done talking to the other gentleman.

Then, when I was able to make eye contact with McQueen I pointed to my camera and asked, “Can I take your picture?”

However, what came out of my mouth was not English but gobbledygook. I had become so tongue tied at seeing this movie legend that I couldn’t speak intelligibly.

McQueen must have thought I was a foreign photographer who couldn’t speak English because all he said to me was, “OK, but don’t ask me to pose.” This was also spoken rather gruffly.

Now this is not the first time I have met a celebrity like Steve McQueen. In 1969 I met James Garner at the 24 Hours of Daytona. He was there with a team of Lola T70’s that he had entered in the race as part of his American International Racers (AIR).

James Garner was very friendly and accommodating and went out of his way to accede to fan requests.

In all fairness to Mr. McQueen he may have had a good reason to avoid fans and photographers; he was in constant pain from a broken left foot suffered in a motorcycle accident two weeks earlier in California.

Steve McQueen in front of his pit with his foot propped up on the pit wall while head mechanic Haig Altoonian makes an adjustment to the leather and metal boot they fashioned for him.

During the practice sessions prior to the race I noticed that McQueen would frequently get his crew to make adjustments to the leather and metal boot that he crew created to help make driving with a broken foot more comfortable.

At one point the crew spray painted this boot with black paint to make it look like a driving shoe and less obvious as a cast.

Fortunately for McQueen he had a very capable co-driver in Peter Revson and Revson would assume the lion’s share of driving time as the 12-hour race wore on and the pain in McQueen’s foot became more intense.

Once the race started the big 5.0 liter Ferrari 512s and Porsche 917’s dominated the race with the Mario Andretti – Arturo Merzario Ferrari holding first place for almost ten hours.

As the race progressed the rough 5.2 mile airport course took its toll of cars and drivers and one by one both big and small cars retired with a variety of mechanical problems.

As a result, by the 10^th hour, the McQueen/Revson Porsche was running 1^st in the 3.0 liter class and a surprising third overall behind the second place Porsche 917K of Pedro Rodriguez and Jo Siffert and the first place Andretti/Merzario Ferrari 512s.

Peter Schetty on the left and Mario Andretti on the right. Mario is looking at a paper with lap times for the cars in the lead.

What was to happen next has become the stuff of legends. With two hours left in the race the leading Andretti/Merzario Ferrari pulls into the pits with the same bearing problems that sidelined another factory Ferrari. The Rodriguez/Siffert Porsche 917K takes the lead with McQueen and Revson second and the Ferrari 512s of Nino Vaccarella and Ignazio Giunti third.

With 27 minutes left the Rodriguez/Siffert 917 retires with suspension problems and the McQueen Porsche is amazingly now in first place.

Ferrari team manager Mauro Forghieri gambles that the now second place Vaccarella/Giunti Ferrari 512s can use its big 5.0-liter engine to overtake and pass the slower 3.0-liter Porsche 908/02 of McQueen/Revson.

To accomplish this he decides that Mario Andretti is the driver to do this and when the Ferrari pits, Andretti takes over as driver.

Andretti drove flat out and eventually passed Peter Revson’s Porsche and won the race for Ferrari with 23 seconds to spare in what at that time was the closest race in the history of Sebring and what many, even today, say was the most exciting Sebring of all.

Huge thanks to Louis Galanos (aka. Nigel Smuckatelli) for providing the article. Please take a look at his amazing Flickr photostream.

Addendum To The McQueen Story – Steve may have actually won the 1970 Sebring race!

Another Day, Another Beautiful Fjord

After a good rest up at Hildal, we awoke to discover it had rained heavily in the night. The first sign of this was that the waterfall on the mountain opposite our hut had swelled to almost twice its size and so had the noise of it too. It was still warm however and we set off for our next goal, which was Vikoy, around 90 miles (144 km) away. The road we travelled on mostly ran alongside several fjords, and the scenery was like something out of a dramatic film. Traffic was nerve-wrecking and harrowing, as the volume increased to around a massive 30 cars per hour at its peak. Still, we bravely pressed on, knowing this nightmarish scenario would eventually end and it would be back to the usual 10 cars per day seen.

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We arrived at Brimnes, a ferry crossing point to Bruravik on the other side of the Eid fjord. The ferries are heavily subsidised by the Norwegian government and they run 24 hours a day, every half hour. They cost around 100 Kroner (about £10), and are reliable, efficient, well maintained and clean. After that we set back off on the road, but rather than drive the more direct route, which was through a 7.5 mile (12 km) long tunnel, we took the (much) more scenic road to Ulvik, where we then drove into the mountains and eventually dropped back down to meet the tunnel on the other side.

Not long after that, we stopped for a coffee. There seem to be plenty of welcoming family run cafes that have great drinks and home made cakes in Norway, and it’s always a relief to find one, as it takes a long time to get anywhere, with the narrow and winding roads where average speeds tend to be very low. The exception to the rule are a few mad Norwegian drivers that you occasionally come across, driving like they have lemming-like tendencies and want to plunge themselves and you into the nearest fjord.

After 8 hours travelling, Vikoy hove into view. We managed to book ourselves into a large chalet, which was more expensive than usual (around £60) but it was the only option for us as we were tired and just wanted to get settled down. It was a nice comfortable place, set high up in a forest on a hill side where a couple of black horses were roaming around.

The next morning, we woke early to plan our route for the day. This one looked like it was going to be a truly epic and hugely tiring days drive. And so it proved to be!

It was raining heavily as we set off, the first proper rain we’d had since we’d arrived really. We drove 15 minutes to the ferry crossing point at Torvikbygd, and crossed to Jondal. From there we set off to drive up to the Folge glacier, where there was a ski and snowboarding centre. The road to get there was extremely narrow and steep, with sheer drops on one side that, should we have gone off, would have had us disappear into deep, ice covered water in seconds. The Mitsubishi had a real workout on this road, which was far from the excellent standard we had become used to. It was a mixture of broken tarmac and gravel and we climbed over 1350 metres in under 20 minutes up to the base of the glacier.

When we got there the rain and wind had intensified, and was now howling and beating down on our Pajero. Having been there and done that one for the record, we beat a hasty retreat back down to the fjord, and thus began what seemed to be like an unending journey of 170 miles (275 km) of twisting, torturous roads. The drive was dramatic and spectacular, but way too long and tiring to really enjoy it.

An unusual highlight of that day was passing through a small town or village named Sauda, where the local hydro-electric system provided the place with heated roads and pavements, thus keeping the snow and ice off them in the wintertime. The nasty weather really took it out of us that day and we were glad to reach our next stop-over at the easily pronounced Skjoldastraumen. The accommodation we found was situated right on the Skjolda fijord, and was a nice, airy place with a full kitchen and a T.V-just what we needed to relax!

After a very lazy start, which we needed to recharge our energy levels, we set off in heavy rain to travel to our next point in the journey, which was an island named Vestre Bokn. The journey was only 30 miles (48 km) away, and was uneventful, along flat roads. We discussed the fact that the scenery was a bit dull, but only because for the last few days, we had been spoiled with some of the most spectacular views we had ever seen. The views around us were very like Devon (in England). Soft rolling countryside, marked with inlets, coves and bridges connected small islands together.

We stayed in a wood cabin on a farm, where they didn’t seem to grow anything, have any animals, or even proper farmers clothing (I never saw an item of John Deere clothing anywhere. That farmer needs to have a word, he’s a let down to farmers in general). What they did have were bees and Dad foolishly bought some of the worlds most expensive honey, after which the farmer sold up and moved to the Caribbean on the proceeds, never to be seen again.

The following morning Dad had a severe hangover from lack of money, and we had to work our passage on the ferry by being supplied with a 1 inch paintbrush and some modelling paint, where we had 35 minutes to paint it from stem to stern. Having completed this mad task (I blamed the flipping convincing honey farmer), we were allowed to disembark at Mortavika.

After this we drove to Stavanger, our original port of entry to Norway. To get to Stavanger though, we drove through a 10 mile (16 km), tunnel which connected the islands to the mainland and went through mountains and under the sea at some points.

We then drove through Stavanger to our final accommodation in Haland. It was the most luxurious place we’d been in yet, and was very large, with a huge kitchen and bathroom. The entire building was made of wood and the walls and ceilings were bare and unpainted, showing the natural beams and slats.
It was a great end to a really amazing road trip, and one that won’t be forgotten. If you ever get chance to do it, take the opportunity and go for it, no matter where you travel, it’s one of the most exciting and fun adventures you will ever have!

All photos taken with a Canon Ixus

Thanks to the Pajero Owners Club UK for the inspiration.

This is What We Came to Norway For

It was June 2008, and the fuel prices were the worst they’ve been for years. At that point it was £1.31 per litre for diesel. Not good when you’re running a 1994 LWB (long wheel base) 2.8 litre Turbo Intercooled Mitsubishi Pajero. Unfortunately, I’d bought the Pajero in January 2008, just as fuel prices were unexpectedly starting to rise quickly, thus dropping the resale price of them to almost nothing, so I had to keep it.

Pre-trip. The Pajero waits for the big drive around Norway.

I’d been running it mostly around town, and going off-roading only occasionally, but using it like this made me feel like I’d bought a Husky dog and kept it in an apartment, not letting it stretch its legs.

The months went by and it got to late April, when fuel was hitting £1.29 a litre, and I was stuck with a vehicle that was only getting around 55 miles to £20 worth of fuel, and one that I couldn’t use to its full potential, so I was considering cutting my losses and getting shut of it. I felt like it would be a real waste, as I had spent weeks and weeks trying to find the right one for me. It was the right colour, the right condition and had low milage too.

I was moaning about this to my Dad, and he suggested taking it to a place where we could really use it properly. On a road trip in other words. Great idea! For me, road trips are fun, and it’s exciting not knowing what’s around the next corner or what stunning piece of road or scenery you’ll drive on or through.

I was thinking Scotland – beautiful, rugged and wild. But we’d been there and done that before, we needed to be in another country altogether for this adventure. We planned for a while, suggesting Switzerland, Spain, France and other places, and eventually landed on Norway. It’s got some of the most amazing scenery in the world, and great roads that lead off into huge valleys and mountains – just what we wanted in fact!

The campsite at Gilja

We booked the ferry that runs from Newcastle to Stavanger, on the West coast of Norway, and arrived there in mid June. Contrary to common belief, Norway isn’t freezing all year round and actually gets quite warm at that time of year, and it was around 23 Celsius when we got there.

After arriving in Stavanger our first port of call was to find somewhere to stay the night. We drove 30 miles (48 km) to a place called Gilja, and found a campsite there. The next the morning we awoke to the sight of the beautiful scenery around us. We were next to a fjord (which means a long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between high cliffs), that was so still that the reflection of the scenery in it was almost mirror-like.

The weather was sunny and hot in the valley and we set off driving. We planned on visiting a waterfall that was not far away, called Manafossen. We had to walk about 20 minutes from a car park up a mountain to visit the water fall itself. The walk was well worth it, and it’s certainly a thing to behold. Water rushes out a hole in the side of the mountain and drops 92 metres down. The noise is spectacularly powerful, almost like a permanent roll of thunder.

Manafossen Waterfall

After that, we set off back on the road again. Our first real impressions of the roads there were that they were in excellent condition and that there was virtually no traffic to be seen. The only real thing congesting the road the road up for us that day was a herd of goats.

We drove 78 miles (127 km) to Flateland, winding through mountainous roads over 900 meters high that had ice still floating in the lakes and packed snow by the roadside. We then dropped back down into a valley again, where the first inhabited place we came across was the funnily named Nomeland. After laughing ourselves down the road for a few more miles we came to our destination, which was Flateland.

Rush hour traffic

We noticed that on the campsite there were a few smallish wooden huts, and we decided to take a closer look at them. It turns out that the Norwegians are very trusting, as on the door of each hut was a notice in English (which is their second language, and is widely spoken), asking people to just take the key to an empty hut and give them the money for it the next day. It’s generally about £23 a hut, per night to stay in these, and they are always clean and tidy with comfy beds (you provide your own duvet and pillow), and cooking utilities.

After a decent nights sleep, which was only disturbed by the noise of my dad throwing up due to some strange hot chocolate drink, we awoke to another glorious sunny day. We were in no rush, mainly because we wanted to enjoy the amazing scenery, but also to get the best mile-per-gallon possible. To do this we tried to keep the revs at around 1800 rpm, which meant travelling at about 40 mph. In fact, if I went over 2000 rpm I was verbally beaten by my dad, who was paying for the fuel. This happened a lot on the more hilly sections, even though I tried to explain to him that a 2 and a quarter tonne truck needs a few more revs to climb a mountain.

The destination this day was 90 miles (144 km) away, called Hildal, near to a large town called Odda, which has around 7,000 inhabitants and is very typically Norwegian and picturesque. To get to it we again drove on some magnificent and deserted roads that wound past huge ice covered lakes and high cliffs. Some of the scenery was very much like the Rockies in America and Canada, and you could imagine bears wandering about between the rocks and water.

In Hildal we stopped the night in another wood hut, and used the same procedure as the others before. ‘Key in the door, pay tomorrow please’. The view from the hut was excellent, being situated opposite a huge waterfall that cascaded all the way down a mountainside, through massive boulders and clumps of trees. The waterfall is fed by the Southern Folgefonna glacier, which is the third largest in Norway at 65 square miles (168 Km2).

Read Part 2 of Road Trip on the Wild Roads of Norway

Hildal - Another Breathtaking Campsite

All photos taken with a Canon Ixus

Thanks to the Pajero Owners Club UK for the inspiration.

In Your Face - The Cervini Mustang

The MPH/Classic car show? It’s just another same-old same-old motor show isn’t it? You walk around several huge halls, look at cars-the best ones of course being roped off from the public, eat over-priced food and then go home with lots of photo’s of supercars on stands protected by thick red ropes.
Well some of that is true in a way. The over priced food and the looking at cars bit are the same. The rest though is entirely different from your average motorshow.

I will warn you folks now though, get your tickets at least 3-4 weeks in advance, whether you are going to the London MPH or the Birmingham N.E.C MPH/Classic show! This year I foolishly left it until one week before the show (at the N.E.C), before trying, and failing, to purchase a ticket.

We, being the devoted petrolheads we are, decided to try our luck and drive the two and a half hours to Birmingham. We got there an hour before the show opened just to have more of a chance, and I’m glad we did! The Classic car show still had ticket into their side of the show, and you could also use it to get into MPH.

The only annoying thing was not being able to get into the Live Arena, . which I’ve been into every year since I found out about the show, And which held the legends that are the Top Gear lads – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

Group B Rally Audi Quattro

After handing over my ticket (£19) and walking through the entrance of the Classic Car Show, I came upon a sight that almost reduced me to tears. Row upon row of grade 1 condition classics.
From Group B rally cars such as the ultra fast Lancia Stratos and the Audi Quattro, to American Muscle cars like the Plymouth Barracuda and the Ford Mustang GT 350.  This is just a taste of things to come though-after that I wander around gazing lovingly at Aston Martins, Ferraris, Chevrolets,  Porsches and numerous other great marques.

At the the back of one of the halls was a section behind barriers that held at least 100 cars, these you could actually get taken for a drive in for charity. There were quite a few replicas of cars there such as a Ford GT40, a Ferrari Dino and a Ferrari 250 GTO race-replica. Prices ranged from £15 to £75 for a 20 minute drive.

The great thing about this show is the way you can talk to the owners of any of the cars, and you don’t get the cold shoulder off them. They are more than happy to chat. I talked to the owners of  Ferrari’s F40, Daytona, and California, a Maserati Quattroporte and a very helpful salesman of the £230,000 Bristol Fighter which has 525 hp 8 litre V10 engine (straight out of a Dodge Viper), will go to 210 mph and finish 0 – 60 in 4.0 seconds. That is unless, of course, you buy the tuned twin turbo version that has over 1000 bhp and will do 230 mph. I questioned him about price, upgrades, tyres, engine tuning and even the drag coefficient, which apparently is down to only 0.255, a record low for a production car, and he answered them with no hesitation (or thought for the fact I could obviously not afford one). I did see him after however, having several cigarettes, two double espresso’s and several energy drinks, to recoup from his interrogation ordeal. After spending most of the day wandering around the Classic show, it was time to move onto the MPH side of things.

Here there are extremely exotic cars like the Netherlands designed £189,000 Spyker C8, the beautiful British built Invicta S1-600 ( a snip at £150,000) or the weirdly named Gumpert Apollo from Germany (£190,000 respectively), which is built around the science of downforce and aerodynamics, so it’s not a looker at all. According to the makers of this car, you could (in theory) drive one of these Gumperts upside down because there is so much downforce. Hmm, any volunteers? Thought not. All three of these beasts will all hit at least the 200 mph mark so you do get what you pay for in these cases.

Ferrari 275 GTS

Scattered around the hall there are the usual array of lovely Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Rolls Royces’, TVRs, Porsches and Lotus’ to name a few. The amazing thing about this show is that 95% of all the vehicles are right there in front of you, or at the side of you, or, if you want, the back of you-why? Because you’re free to wander around, take pictures of, touch or sit in most them ‘til your hearts content.

As well as the car stands, dotted around the edge of the hall are stalls and exhibits selling anything from model cars, pictures and posters, car cleaning products, wheels (get your 24 inch ‘rims here) to track days. Also among them are tuning companies like Cervini’s Auto Designs, which tune up, put on new, mean-looking bodykits, and make better the suspension and handling of the Ford Mustang GT and GT500.

Throughout the day there are performances in the Live Motoring Theatre (which I flipping missed this year), where you can watch around 75 minutes of pure motoring joy. The Arena is basically a big enclosed arena with various props and amazing lighting to complement it. Presenting were Top Gears Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. Last year the Live Arena was my favourite parts of the show.
They drove out some stunning cars, like the Invicta I mentioned earlier, and gave the audience a demonstration of what the 5 litre, V8, 600 bhp ehgine sounds like at maximum rpm. In two words ‘Beautifully LOUD’.

Other types driven around were the new Jaguar XK (gorgeous!!), the monster that is the Pagani Zonda F (its V12, 7.3 litre Mercedes AMG engine should see you okay), and a lot of Vauxhall Astra VXRs being driven by some highly skilled blokes, though one obviously not-so-lucky car was clipped at the rear by another VXR, the airbags went off and it plowed straight a concrete wall. All in the name of entertainment I say and so the show carried on (after the stricken Astra was towed off and the radiator water moped up).

More highlights included some mad off road ‘karts that, if given enough space will do a 0-60 mph time of two, yes you read that right, that’s two, seconds. Then it will go on to upwards of 140 mph-not bad for an off-road vehicle. One of these beasts was being driven (or more like guided, as in guided missile), by the extremely talented ‘The Stig’ off of Top Gear.

We were also provided with some 3-D glasses before we went in and these were used when viewing a computerised ‘Black Hawk’ helicopter trying to destroy a very real Lotus Exige, that was dodging and power sliding on the floor below the ‘copter. I was assured by some of the lucky gits that got in that the show was easily as good as 2007s Live Arena.

All in all it’s the  most enjoyable indoor motorshow event around for car enthusiasts-but if you want to see (and hear) more then I recommend highly that, like me, you get yourself a ticket to next years excellent MPH/Classic car show.

Remember- book 3 – 4 weeks early early to avoid disappointment!

MPH show