[Trisha]

Most motor racing folk look back to their favourite eras from time to time because we have brains that store memories. Like all 'disciplines' motor sport, in all its forms, has gone through highs and lows, but even during troughs, we can often reflect on something that has been stored in our minds with affection.

As usual your views and images will always be of great interest. And thanks.

A few memory joggers below.

 

[Trisha]

A few more memory joggers.

 

[Trisha]

A few 'oops' moments from bygone eras below in which cars and pride got a trifle dented.

 

[Trisha]

Another couple of minor 'oops' moments. 😳

 

[Trisha]

The Auto-Union team below preparing for the French Grand Prix at Reims, 1939. The event was won by HP Muller in his Auto-Union not long before mankind entered one of the darkest periods of history.

 

[Trisha]

Looking back 65 years ago when Mercedes also dominated GP racing. Today, there are occasional aero 'upgrades', but Mercedes took a different approach in 1954/55. They went all the way and built a wholly different body. Horses for courses.

 

[Trisha]

Louis Chiron in the Lancia D50 at Monaco, a shot that shows the pannier tanks rather well.

 

[Trisha]

An Isotta en route to second place during the 1907 Targa Florio. Although the first Targa road race started a year earlier, the presence of these thundering, relatively new machines must have come as a surprise to many in Sicily.

 

[Trisha]

Stumbley and Ken

I've raced the D50 below regularly for a very long time. It almost never deslots and looks fabulous in my view.

Look forward to your D50 build, Ken. The only other authentic colour is yellow, of course, but I've often thought that the D50's styling rather lends itself to metallic silver, or even the same shade of blue used on your Type 50B Bugatti.

 

[Trisha]

A few more pics for D50 tifosi.

 

[Trisha]

More D50s.

 

[Trisha]

Le Mans, 1971. A distance record by the winning 917, and a field of powerful, fast and exciting cars.

Motor Sport gave little space for its report, and recorded that the event was dull and uninteresting - a reflection on Motor Sport rather than Le Mans.

 

[Trisha]

A few more photos from days of old.

 

[Trisha]

1934 was a busy year for Prof Porsche, especially after the launch of the first Auto-Union. In the same year an enormous German workforce began construction of the autobahn network.

 

[Trisha]

1961, an Austrian bishop, seen here blessing traffic on a newly-opened road, used a Porsche police car to get around his congregation faster.

 

[Trisha]

Prof Porsche and son, Ferry, drove to the 1931 German GP, and slept in a tent. Can't imagine today's grandees doing likewise, despite the need for cutting costs in F1.

 

[Trisha]

1969 and the arrival of the 917. In the same year, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon.

 

[Trisha]

Monaco, 1956. Just 10 years later, the world had changed.

 

[Trisha]

Ferdinand Porsche's birth certificate issued in September 1875, and the last known picture of him in 1951.

 

[Trisha]

A few images from the 1920s depicting rampant inflation in Germany, the 'swinging' advent of jazz, Charles Lindbergh's first solo crossing of the Atlantic and the SSK Mercedes, which served as a sports/GP/road car.