Your Golden Epoch?

A few rough daubings below depicting different ways in which designers reached a compromise between the need for slick aerodynamics and directing cool air to water, oil and metal.

Today's F1 supremos would probably 'feed' these designs into a computer, and tell us why they were wrong, but I would have to ask in reply: "So what?"

Very "Err Oh Dynamic"?

Perhaps the most famous (infamous?) american version by Ford, the Edsel.

On 5 July, 1937, Porsche and the Auto-Union team travelled to New York for the Vanderbilt Cup. Held on the Roosevelt Raceway, from whence Charles Lindbergh took off on his 1927 solo Atlantic flight, Bernd Rosemeyer won the 300-mile race in the C-Type Auto-Union.

For that occasion, his car carried a swastika emblem on both flanks. Extraordinarily, perhaps, this was at the behest of the event's American race organisers. The same symbol today is now considered to be so offensive by some countries that its display is illegal.

Anyone building a slot model of Rosemeyer's car today would, presumably, have a difficult decision as to whether the swastika should be included, therefore. Historical accuracy versus evil symbol.

The same difficulty might apply to tobacco advertising on later cars, of course.

Views anyone, please?

For this child of the sixties, the best of times for racing were...
1981 - 1991 for Group C racing

and for Formula 1 1989 t0 1999 the 3.5 ltr and 3.0 ltr era

Those were the best times I.m.o.
Pre-1960 F1, or GP call it what you will, leaves me cold especially those post 1950 dinosaurs in the jet-age.
Love the 1.5ltr F1 of '61 to 65 and the 3ltr cars that followed, but was to young to appreciate them really. I followed F1 starting around '72 so yeah I saw the originality of 70's and the 80's turbo cars, but the '90s cars are the ones I love most.
Similar story regards sportscars, grudging admiration for the late 50's early 60's, but this sportscar prototypes came of age with the GT40.
I have enduring fondness for the GroupCs and for the LMPs prior to the hybrid-era.

The 1990's period F1 cars look so clean and 'aerodynamic' when seen against the current over-finned monsters to my mind.

I recall the FIA took steps to minimise the number of extra fins and stuff sticking out of the cars at one stage, but that seems to have gone by the board recently, the current Ferraris looking like a serious hazard to health with their vastly complex bargeboards!

A few more Auto-Union pics taken during a truly golden era of motor racing. Apart from advanced engineering from Auto-Union and Mercedes, there were other manufacturers who produced masterpieces of the art of mechanical engineering, but for me, none really equalled the Porsche-designed supercharged V16.

Have agree with Phil C, Group C sportscars were totally epic.


And WRC in the late 90's culminating in 2001 would be my favourite rallying era.

For instance I saw Colin take this cut in Margam park,


and thought, that's a different line. A few minutes later the PA guy comes on.

"Message from Colin McRae, will all spectators and Marshall's stand well back from the road."

I was living in Swansea then, working in a big building overlooking the Felindre Service area. I was sailing on Margam reservoir, so as it was easy to get time off in November, I was out on as many stages as I could reach for Rally GBs in 97, 98, 99, 2000 & 01.

I didn't get into F1 until the late 70's and for me the death of Colin Chapman was the first nail in the F1 coffin, and Enzo's death the final nail. I still watch every race, but I not sure why any more.

Just ten years before Bernd Rosemeyer won the Vanderbilt Cup at the Roosevelt Raceway, New York, Charles Lindbergh took off from the same venue in his Ryan monoplane and flew to Paris, thus becoming the first person to make a solo Transatlantic crossing.

As aviation often goes hand in hand with motor racing, a few pics below, taken during a period when Bugatti and Alfa usually ruled the roost in GP racing.