As the Hunt vs Lauda documentary has now been withdrawn from YouTube we are sadly unable to show it on these pages. It is available, though, on the BBC iPlayer and it will be screened again on BBC2 in the UK in near future. We will publish dates of those screenings via Twitter @peterdwindsor. Richard Wiseman, the archivist responsible for the video sourcing of the documentary, will also be our guest on The Racer’s Edge on August 22.
Solitude. The name is enough to suggest that this was more than just another circuit – and indeed it was. The Solitude Grand Prix, held on a sweeping, undulating and therefore very demanding road course under the shadow of the Schlosse Solitude, near Stuttgart, Germany, was in reality the Grand Prix of the German Motor Industry. Massive crowds flocked to the circuit when it opened pre-war – and continued to do so in the 1950s and 1960s, when over 350,000 people attended the July F1 races. It was bigger than the Nurburgring; only Indianapolis, on a global scale, attracted a larger race crowd than Solitude. Mercedes did their share of winning, as did Porsche. Bosch was based at Stuttgart, too. Motor-cycle races were a huge success at Solitude; and the post-war F1 non-chamionship Grands Prix, and also Formula 2 races, held at a time when Porsche were on the ascendant, were no less spectacular.
The drivers and key team people stayed at the nearby Eis hotel; it still exists today. Legend has it that Innes Ireland once shot a loaded pistol there at a post-race party. It’s probably true, because Innes in later years became quite irritated when anyone mentioned it. Baron Fritz Huschke von Hanstein, the wonderful Porsche Team Manager, was the early 1960s Solitude Grand Prix in much the same way that Geoff Sykes would be Warwick Farm, or Mrs Topham ruled Aintree. It was Huschke’s home race. He hosted parties at both the Porsche factory and at his residence – often for 400 people at a time, including royalty. He was everybody’s friend back then – and he was a friend to me, too, in the very early 1970s, when I was starting my F1 journalistic life. I met Huschke through the indefatigable Bernard Cahier, who described Huschke thus in his magnificent two-volume autobiography (entitled, appropriately, F-Stops, Pit Stops, Laugher & Tears): “Huschke had been a very talented driver before the war and as a result of his racing successes he’d become an honorary officer in the SS. This was all well and good before the war but when conflict broke out his status became official. Huschke wanted nothing to do with the war or the SS and for a time took refuge in Budapest, where he hobnobbed in high society while living with a beautiful Hungarian countess who was part-Jewish. He was eventually caught and sent to prison in Spandau, where he found himself in real trouble. Luckily, he had connections everwhere. It didn’t take long for him to pull some strings and get himself released. He contacted one of his old girl-friends whose father held an influential position in the German army, who in turn told the authorities that Huschke was going to marry his daughter! He was very lucky because, a short time later, the plot to kill Hitler was uncovered and there were wholesale executions in which Huschke might very well have been swept up.
“When he was released from prison, Huschke was assigned the job of driving an armored vehicle to the Russian front. He was happy to do this as it gave him the opportunity to meander around the country and visit all his friends. He started working for Porsche in the early 1950s as a salesman and, being an avid racer, he was the person most responsible for pointing Porsche in the direction of motor racing.”
Huschke operated from “Factory Two” within the Porsche Stuttgart compound and employed an attractive assistant named Evi Butz. It was in 1962, by which time Dan Gurney had won Porsche’s first Grand Prix victory, that Huschke asked Dan if he would give Evi a lift home, after a long day in the office, in Dan’s “Unsafe At Any Speed” light blue Chevvy Corvair. Dan naturally obliged and got to know young Evi in the course of a 45min traffic jam that clogged downtown Stuttgart. For their 25th wedding anniversary, Evi gave Dan another Corvair…
Dan won the Solitude Grand Prix that year, heading a Porsche one-two, and would never forget his victory lap, in an open Carrera, when thousands of caps and hats filled the air like leaves in an autumn wind; in 1963, though, with Porsche out of it, he didn’t race. Instead, he flew straight back to Indianapolis after the British GP in order to drive Frank Arciero’s Lotus 19 at the Hoosier Grand Prix at Indianapolis Raceway Park. He won – and then flew to Germany for the next round of the Championship at the Nurburgring. Such were the schedules of F1’s front-runners in 1963.
Brabham were thus represented in the 1963 Solitude Grand Prix only by Black Jack. Team Lotus, by contrast, entered three cars, enticed no doubt by copious starting money. Jim Clark was in his regular Lotus 25 (prior to racing it the following weekend at the Nurburgring); Trevor Taylor drove the second car – and Peter Arundell, the FJ star, would finally be having his first race in a Lotus 25 (having briefly practiced at Reims.) A full grid of 29 cars started this 13th Solitude Grand Prix, with Jim on the pole from Jack Brabham and Jo Bonnier (a former Solitude winner, now driving Rob Walker’s ageing Cooper-Climax). The two other Lotus drivers filled the second row, Peter ahead.
As it happened – as it frequently happens in Championship Years – Jim went nowhere in this race that didn’t count. Team Lotus tried a new drive-shaft design which promptly failed as Jim dropped the clutch at the start. His race prospects may have been over; still there were over 300,000 spectators at Solitude, crammed into the natural grandstands around the circuit, all hoping to see the maestro at work. Jim’s 25 was pushed back into the pits and re-fitted with the older-type drive-shafts. Jim waited patiently, helping the mechanics with pit signals to Trevor and Peter (who were running second and third behind Brabham). Then, donning his Les Leston gloves and lowering his goggles back around his peakless Bell, Jim climbed back into R4 for a few demonstration laps of high-speed precision motoring.
Amazing all who saw it, Jim smashed the lap record with a time of 3min 49.1sec – a full 1.1sec faster than even he had managed in qualifying. Solitude was as dangerous as you could make it, with its exposed trees and walls; it was very fast, particularly on the 3.5-mile serpentine return stretch; and Jim was so far in arrears that he wasn’t even classified as a finisher. And yet he drove those laps at 100 per cent. Ten-tenths. Flat out. His fastest lap, when the tanks were at their lightest, was but one of 17 that were similarly on the limit.
Black Jack, who had had nothing but mechanical problems from the start of the year, meanwhile breezed home without a worry to win his first F1 race at the wheel of a car bearing his own name. (Jack won the ’63 Australian Grand Prix in a similar car fitted with a 2.7 litre Climax engine). Peter Arundell drove beautifully to finish second ahead of Innes Ireland (and also to win the Formula Junior race that morning from Denny Hulme and Frank Gardner); Trevor retired with a broken crown-wheel-and-pinion; and Lorenzo Bandini, the young Italian pushing hard for a genuine chance at Ferrari, finished a spectacular fourth in the two-year-old Centro Sud BRM. I should also make mention of Chaparral founder, Jim Hall, who again drove well with his Lotus 24, qualifying on the fourth row and finishing sixth on Sunday. Jo Bonnier won the big-bore support GT race with his Porsche; and Teddy Pilette, son of Andre and future F5000 winner, headed the smaller GT race with his Abarth.
From Solitude it was but a short autobahn blast to the Nurburgring, for the August 4 German GP. Jim had never won at the ‘Ring but had been phenomenally quick there in 1962 (in both the Lotus 25 and the little Lotus 23 sports car). An enjoyable, if frustrating, Solitude weekend now over, Jim’s thoughts turned to making it five World Championship Grand Prix wins in a row. 
Captions, from top: Lotus 25 re-fitted with standard drive-shafts, Jim Clark lights up Solitude with a lonely but record-breaking display of precision driving; Huschke von Hanstein in his element – organizing a group photograph at the 1961 German GP. From left to right – Jim Clark, John Cooper, Innes Ireland, Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, Huschke (in glasses), Jo Bonnier, Dick Jeffrey (Dunlop), Prince Metternich, Bruce McLaren and Dan Gurney; the 1961 von Hanstein-created “tractor pull” at Solitude – Jo Bonnier does the driving for Dan Gurney, Colin Chapman, Peter and Wolfgang Porsche (sons of Ferry), Huscke and Jim. That’s Julius Weitmann, the excellent photographer, running up alongside with the long-lens Leica. The “flag” was actually made from Huschke’s race passes and for years stood in his house as a form of welcome to guests; Jim is all smiles after taking the pole at Solitude in 25/R4 Images: LAT Photographic
As some of you will know, I was raised in Sydney, Australia, where, looking back now, the sun usually shone, the air was scented by eucalyptus and Warwick Farm was the heart and the soul of motor racing in all its forms. I grew up in the knowledge that, every summer, I would see a bunch of F1 drivers competing in the International 100 and that, in between times, I would see five national race meetings of extraordinary quality. Drivers like Frank Matich, Leo and Ian Geoghegan, Greg Cusack, Kevin Bartlett, Niel Allen, Bib Stillwell, Johnny Harvey, Spencer Martin, Max Stewart, Brian Foley, Peter Manton, Norm Beechey, Allan Moffatt and Bob Jane were my “national” heroes; Sports Car World, Modern Motor and Racing Car News were my regular fare.
Then there were the F1 drivers in their Tasman-engined F1 cars.
I still find it hard to capture accurately what motor racing was like back then. Was it the way the Warwick Farm paddock was laid out, by the lake, with the marshalling area opposite the huge grandstands? Was it the colour- and word-perfect attention to detail of the Australian Automobile Racing Club (AARC)? Was it the relatively safe circuit layout, designed by the immaculate Geoff Sykes? I know not the answers, even now. All I know is that it was motor racing. Nothing, since, has compared. Not even Monaco on a good day. Not even a packed Brands Hatch. When I was at The Farm, first as a young kid, smuggled into the paddock area in the boot of a car owned by a marshal who worked with my Dad, then as a marshal myself and finally as Press Officer, I was at one with the world. Flags would flutter in the breeze. Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart, sun-tanned and shirtless, would laugh their famous laughs. Then the sun would set, the beer cans would pour and, over the PA, they would play The Long and Winding Road.
I have lots of photos from that era. Some I took with a black-and-white Kodak Box Brownie. Then, in 1967, I bought a half-frame Fujica. The quality from both was not great, but for me that didn’t matter. I had captured the moment, cut a slice from time. That was all I needed. I had been there, seen it happen.
Kevin Bartlett, in blue Nomex, sits on the front wheel of Alex Mildren’s 2.5 litre Tasman Brabham-Climax.
The Mildren team was a mid-1960s staple at The Farm. The cars were always painted yellow; Glenn Abbey, the team’s Chief Mechanic, was a master. Kevin’s car control was superb. To this day I’d put him up there with Le Mans winners and GP2 front-runners. He could balance an Alfa GTA on the outer extremities of opposite lock through Paddock Bend and then in the next race glide the Tasman Brabham through Homestead with fingertip precision. That’s actually the Mildren Alfa GTZ behind the Brabham; and there, in the background, smiling, is Fred Gibson, whose yellow lightweight Elan (shown here, not Mildren yellow) was both gorgeous and very fast.
I don’t recall its inside front wheel touching the road very often. I know you think the cars in the background have not been parked with FOM-like precision but that’s what I liked about The Farm: it was neat but natural and retained lots of grass. Note the Mini Cooper S and the two Holdens. You were in one of two sectors back then: the Mini brigade or The Rest.
And here’s a shot of said Alfa GTZ lined up and ready to go. The genius that is Frank Matich is on the pole in one of his first races with the big Elfin sports car he developed in 1966; Alan Hamilton, who always seemed to have access to exotica, is in the middle of the front row in his Porsche Spyder; and KB is there in the Alfa.
Two lovely, white Lotus 23Bs fill the second row (I think driven by Frank Demuth and Niel Allen) and on the outside of the third row you can see David McKay’s famous Ferrari 250LM, driven by Spencer Martin. From memory, Hamilton jumped this start by a mile and was leading by about 100 yards when the flag dropped! This is a typical Warwick Farm scene: packed grandstands, perfect weather, stunning collection of cars and drivers.
My last picture today is one I’ve always treasured. I watched the 1965 International 100 from the spectator bank at Creek Corner. Jim Clark won the race in his green and yellow Lotus 32B-Climax, with Frank Matich a brilliant third in the Total Team Brabham. All was right with the world. Then came The Moment: as one, the crowd jumped the wooden fences and swarmed onto the track, there to greet the winner on his parade lap. I remember standing there, hot and sweaty, so nervous that I could barely breathe. I was going to see Jim Clark! He was going to be driven right past me, mere feet away!
The white Sprite shimmered into view. I could pick out the light blue overalls of the winner, black hair glistening in the afternoon sun. Who was that next to him, though, in the red-and-white checked shirt? I was mystified. I didn’t know whether to line up the camera or to keep peering at the slowly-approaching car, trying to identify The Other Guy. Then suddenly it hit me: Mike Spence! Mike Spence! Jim Clark’s F1 team-mate. He hadn’t raced at The Farm that day. I didn’t even know he was in Australia. In a panic, I raised my camera and fired. The result wasn’t very pretty.
It was, though, The Moment.
Perfectly balancing smaller diameter rear Dunlops on an oily Silverstone track surface, Jim Clark wins the British GP
After a whirlwind start to the year Jim Clark was able to relax for a few days. Three successive wins enabled him to enjoy the farm like never before; and, back in Balfour Place for a few days before the run up to Silverstone, Sir John Whitmore was full of Rob Slotemaker’s antics and all the recent racing news. In between, however, there was the little matter of the Milwaukee test. The Indy Lotus 29-Fords had basically been garaged at the Speedway since the race but, in the build-up to the Milwaukee 200 on August 18, rebuilds and further fettling took place at Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. Jim flew to Chicago on July 10 and on July 12 completed a successful day at the one-mile Milwaukee oval, running through Dunlop tyre compounds and in the process raising the average lap speed – over one mile! – by nearly 5mph.
Dan Gurney, who also tested at Milwaukee, had meanwhile shared a Ford Galaxie with Jack Brabham in the Six-Hour Race at Brands Hatch on July 7. A massive spin at Paddock in the rain (due to having to run Firestone wets on the front and Goodyear dries on the back) had cramped his style somewhat. Mike Parkes had cleaned up at Silverstone in his GTO Ferrari but, worryingly, the day had been ruined by two fatal accidents – one (John Dunn) at Abbey in the Formula Junior race and another in the pit lane (Mark Fielden, whose stationary Lotus was hit by a car spinning its way out of Woodcote). The excellent Sheridan Thynne, who would later become Commerical Director of Williams F1, won his class and set fastest lap at Snetterton in a Mini and a few days later wrote poignantly to Autosport, suggesting that a Safety Committee be convened to look into all matters of motor racing safety “before they were underlined by fatal accidents”. Sadly, as ever, his words went unheeded: a third person (a pit lane scrutineer, Harald Cree) would be killed at Silverstone on British GP race day when the very talented Christabel Carlisle spun her Sprite into the Woodcote pit wall. In another Woodcote incident, former driver and future Goldhawk Road car dealer, Cliff Davis, 
would exhibit immense bravery as he leapt onto the track to clear it of debris after an MGB rolled itself to destruction. Davis was later deemed to have saved several lives. Lorenzo Bandini, who would finish an excellent fifth at Silverstone in his the old, red, Centro Sud BRM, had not only won for Ferrari in the big sports car race at Clermont-Ferrand but had also been a part of the first all-Italian win at Le Mans on June 15-16. He co-drove a Ferrari 250P with Ludovico Scarfiotti; and, in the Formula Junior race at Clermont, Jo Schlesser had won from an amazing line-up of future stars – Mike Spence, Peter Arundell, Tim Mayer, Richard Attwood, David Hobbs, Alan Rees and Peter Revson. John Whitmore himself had won the Mini race at Silverstone after a big dice with Paddy Hopkirk – and Tim Mayer, that FJ star and future McLaren driver – had even raced a Mini at Mallory Park, door-to-door with Paddy Hopkirk. Whilst up in Scotland, Jim had been able to catch up with young Jackie Stewart, who had won at Charterhall in the Ecurie Ecosse Tojeiro on the same day as the French GP; and, finally, with the London premiere of Cleopatra set for July 31, Jim had thought it a good moment to ask Sally Stokes if she might be free for a night on the town…
The British Grand Prix was held on Saturday, July 20, (oh for a return to Saturday racing!) which meant that the big event of the weekend would undoubtedly be Graham Hill’s party at his Mill Hill house on the Sunday. Prior to that, there was a little bit of business to which to attend. Most of the F1 teams began testing on Tuesday, prior to practice on Thursday and Friday morning, and Jim was almost immediately on the pace. I say “immediately”: a loose oil line lost him time on Thursday morning but he was quickest by a whole second from Graham Hill (spaceframe BRM) later that day and fractionally faster than his Indy team-mate, Dan Gurney (Brabham), on Friday. Jim thus took the pole with a 1min 34.4sec lap of Silverstone, equaling Innes Ireland’s very fast practice times with the BRP Lotus 24-BRM at the International Trophy meeting on May 11. (Years later, when I chatted to Jim Clark at some length, he re-iterated what he frequently said about the space-frame Lotus 24: it was an easier car to drive than the 25 and in Jim’s view could just have capably have won races in both 1962 and 1963. Indeed, Innes’ Goodwood-winning Lotus 24 was actually being advertised for sale by the time of the British GP, viewable at BRP’s headquarters in Duke’s Head Yard, Highgate High Street, London N6. It wasn’t sold that year, as it turned out, and was raced again, in Austria and Oulton Park, by Innes. Jim Hall then drove it – for BRP – at Watkins Glen and Mexico.)
Still running a five-speed ZF gearbox (whilst team-mate Trevor Taylor persisted with the six-speed Colotti on carburettors), Jim’s trusty, fuel-injected Lotus 25/R4 had now blossomed into its ultimate, legendary 1963 form: Colin Chapman had decided to run a wide yellow stripe down the car, front to rear, co-ordinating the yellow with the wheels and the “Team Lotus” lettering and pin-striping down the cockpit sides. The car also ran the Zandvoort-spec aeroscreen. Jim, as ever, wore his Dunlop blue overalls, his peakless Bell helmet, string-backed gloves, Westover boots and, for when he was out of the car, helping the mechanics or strolling over to the Esso caravan or the paddock cafe for a cuppa, his dark blue Indy Pure jacket. The 25, meanwhile, finally wore a new set of Dunlops – around which revolved the usual number of discussion points. On this occasion it was gear ratios: as part of the compromise with the five-speed (but more reliable) gearbox, Jim and Colin decided to race smaller-diameter rear Dunlops.
Bruce McLaren, driving the beautiful, low-line works Cooper-Climax, stopped practice early on Friday to begin preparation for the race. 
While John Cooper supervised the job list, Bruce, as was his style, took his new E-Type Jag down the infield runway to the apex of Club Corner, there to watch his peers. At this point I can do no better than to record the words he later gave to Eoin Young for Bruce’s wonderful, regular, Autosport column, From the Cockpit:
“Dan Gurney had got down to a time equaling Jim’s best, and Jim was out to see if he could do better. Graham was in danger of being knocked off the front row so he was out too, and for 15 minutes, while Jim, Graham and Dan pounded round, I was graphically reminded of the reason why people go to see motor racing.
“When you’re out in an F1 car you haven’t got time to think about the fact that you’re moving fast: you’re concentrating on keeping the movement of the car as smooth and as graceful as possible, getting the throttle opened just that fraction quicker than last time and keeping it open all the way when you’ve got it there.
“At Silverstone you concentrate on shaving the brick walls on the inside, just an inch or two away, and you hold the car in a drift that, if it were any faster, would take you into a bank or onto the grass. If you are any slower you know you are not going to be up with those first three or four. You know perfectly well you are trying just as hard as you possibly can, and I know when I’ve done a few laps like this I come in and think to myself, well, if anyone tries harder than that, good luck to them.
“But you haven’t thought about the people who are watching. At least I haven’t, anyway, but there at Club Corner the role was reversed and I was watching…
“Jim came in so fast and left his braking so late that I leapt back four feet, convinced that he wouldn’t make the corner, but when he went through, working and concentrating hard, I’m sure his front wheel just rubbed the wall. I barely dared to watch him come out the other end.
“It struck me that Clark and Gurney’s experience at Indy this year may have had something to do with their first and second places on the grid. Silverstone is just one fast corner after another, taken with all the power turned right on and the whole car in a pretty fair slide but, nevertheless, in the groove for that corner. Something like Indy, I should imagine.
“I’ve seen a lot of motor racing and if I could get excited over this I can imagine how the crowd of 115,000 on Saturday must have felt.”
Saturday was one of those great sporting occasions in the United Kingdom. One hundred and fifteen thousand people were crammed into Silverstone by 10:00am; and by 2:00pm, by which time they’d seen Jose Canga two-wheeling a Simca up and down pit straight; Peter Arundell win the FJ race from “Sally’s MRP pair” (Richard Attwood and David Hobbs); Graham Hill demonstrating the Rover-BRM turbine Le Mans car; an aerobatic display and the traditional drivers’ briefing, everyone was ready for the big event. Dan Gurney settled into his Brabham with Jim Clark to his right in the Lotus 25. To Dan’s left, Graham Hill, the World Champion, lowered his goggles under the pit lane gaze of young Damon. Making it four-up at the front, Dan’s team-mate, Jack Brabham, sat calmly in his BT7. With but minutes to go, Jim asked for more rear tyre pressure: Silverstone had felt decidedly oily on the formation lap. The 25 had never been more oversteery.
Jim was slow away on this occasion: wheelspin bogged him down. He was swarmed by the lead pack as they headed out of Copse and then onwards to Maggotts and Becketts. The two Brabham drivers – showing how relatively closely-matched the top Climax teams were in 1963 – ran one-two; then came Bruce McLaren in the svelte Cooper, then Hill and then Jim. They were running nose-to-tail – and sometimes closer than that. Gurney pitched the Brabham into oversteer at Club; Jack, helmet leaning forwards, kicked up dirt at the exit of Woodcote.
The 25 was also tail-happy; you could say that. Jim felt the car to be little better than it had been before the start – particularly now, on full tanks. Around him, though, everyone else seemed to sliding around. Maybe it was just the circuit after all…
Jim began to dive deeper into the corners, to gain a tow – and then to pull out of that tow under braking. By lap four he was in the lead and pulling away…whilst Bruce McLaren was pulling up on the entry to Becketts Corner, the Climax engine blown in his Cooper. There was no quick rush back to the pits for Bruce, no beat-the-traffic early departure. Instead, as on Friday, he stayed and watched, for that is what great athletes do.
Bruce: “Jimmy came through with his mouth open and occasionally his tongue between his teeth. The tyres were holding a tenuous grip on the road with the body and chassis leaning and pulling at the suspension like a lizard trying to avoid being prized off a rock by a small boy. Then Dan arrived, really throwing the Brabham into the corner, understeering and flicking the car hard until he had it almost sideways, then sliding through with the rear wheels spinning and the inside front wheel just on the ground…”
It was a demonstration of four-wheel-drifts; it was Jim Clark rhythmically poised like never before in an F1 car, the small-diameter Dunlops combining with the surface oil to produce a slide-fest of classic proportions. There was no need for a score of passing manoeuvres to make this British GP “work” for the crowds; there was no need for forced pit stops or for overtaking aids. It was enough, this day at Silverstone, for the fans, and for drivers of the quality of Bruce McLaren, merely to see a genius at work.
Jim won the British Grand Prix by 20sec from John Surtees’ Ferrari and Graham Hill’s BRM (for both Brabham drivers also lost their engines after excellent runs). Graham, who, like Innes Ireland, was always fast at Silverstone, ran short of fuel on the final lap and was pipped by Big John, the lone Ferrari driver, on the exit from Woodcote. The race was also notable for Mike Hailwood’s F1 debut – he finished an excellent eighth (or, in today’s parlance, “in the points”) with his Parnell Lotus 24, and for the seventh place of his exhausted team-mate, the 19-year-old Chris Amon. Chaparral creator/driver, Jim Hall, also drove well to finish sixth with his Lotus 24. For this was a tough, hard race – 50 miles longer than the 2013 version and two and a quarter hours in duration. Jim Clark waved to the ecstatic crowd on his slow-down lap (no raised digits from James Clark Jnr) and, to the sound of Scotland the Brave – a nice touch by the BRDC – and to the lucid commentary of Anthony Marsh, bashfully accepted the trophies on a mobile podium that also carried the 25. Colin Chapman wore a v-necked pullover and tie; Jim looked exalted. He had won again at home. He had won his fourth race in a row. He had the championship in sight.
To Mill Hill, then, they repaired – and then, for a change in pace, to the following weekend’s non-championship race at Solitude, near Stuttgart.
Captions, from top: Jim Clark drifts the Lotus 25 on the greasy Silverstone surface; racing driver/flag marshal, Cliff Davis, whose selfless action at Silverstone saved several lives; Bruce McLaren finds slight understeer on the Cooper at Stowe; the two Brabham drivers, Gurney and Jack, together with McLaren and Hill, crowd Jim’s 25 at the start; classic four-wheel-drift from Jim Clark. The low apex walls were always a test at 1960s Silverstone; Scotland the Brave heralds the winner of a long, fast British Grand Prix. Two hours, 14 min of brilliant motor racing Images: LAT Photographic. Our thanks to AP and Movietone News for the following superb, colour, video highlights:
It was nice to walk into a Sainsbury’s car park this morning and see….this. 
Fiat 850 Coupes are these days rare by any standards; and this red one, it turns out, is used regularly in and around London by a cool guy who bought it for just £300 over 20 years ago. It took me straight back to my past, of course. I learned to drive in my Mum’s dark blue Fiat 850 Coupe (ERE 710) and celebrated passing my test on my 17th birthday by half-spinning the 850 down the fast esses of New South Head Road, near my old school. 
The 850 was gorgeous in every dimension and ours was rock-solid reliable. There was no rust, either – although we did clean it regularly due to the salt in the air from the nearby Pacific Ocean. It was joined later by my Dad’s dark blue 124 Coupe (AJJ 949).
Is it me or is it real? Were cars genuinely more beautiful back then? And why – the 500 aside – is the Fiat range today so relatively mundane? What is today’s Fiat equivalent of the 124 Coupe?
I haven’t had much time for neg-scanning recently but managed to squeeze some in a few moments ago whilst watching a replay of Ashton Agar’s amazing innings at Trent Bridge in the first Ashes Test (cricket, for those of you unfamiliar with this sport of sports). The idea was to scan a further ten pictures or so but I have to confess that I stopped after only two or three: the sheer natural talent of this 19-year-old Australian spinner-batsman, combined with his humility, is just captivating.
Cricket? Motor racing? Jim Clark was an excellent cricketer; let’s not forget that.
Anyway: back to motor racing. Here’s some more from the glorious days of the Kyalami Ranch, South Africa: 
That’s Alain Prost, now looking up from his copy of L’Equipe; 
and this is something you wouldn’t see today – two Italian F1 drivers having a laugh (Riccardo Patrese and Andrea de Cesaris). Back then, the concept of there being no Italians in F1 was about as laudable as an F1 season without the Kyalami Ranch.
Here are some de-briefs, too: 
Alain Prost lunches with McLaren’s John Barnard; 
Tyrrell’s Brian Lyles confers with the brilliant Stefan Bellof on the Detroit pit wall; 
and we eavesdrop behind Frank Williams as Neil Oatley (right) takes notes and Jacques-Henri Laffite and Keijo Rosberg think Williams-Honda
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