Monday, January 09, 2017

a load of Blue Streak Goodyears and Cobras arriving at the Sept 1963 Bridgehampton Double 500


on the left, Briggs Cunningham. The guy that was a few years before Shelby in fielding an American racing team, and making his own sports cars. On the right, Carroll has his name misspelled on his jacket. 



Burkey pointed out that the sticker on tire says "Sports Car Special" and yet the sidewall of the tire says "Stock Car Special"




 Since the photos are not in any logical order at the source, but the way the tires are in the bottom of the hauler, I'd guess they were being delivered, I'll suppose these photos were before the race.



https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/cd447vn6491
https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/jf565wj2129
https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/jv705xj5587
https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/cc228kb5093
https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/pn969gp6382
https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/mf903md1873
https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/qn069wk9419
https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/tm848tv5781

13 comments:


  1. Throw a chain around the knock off and lock it down with a turn buckle.
    Crude but effective.

    The link is a fantastic resource, as frustrating as it is with such little accompanying information.
    I did laugh when I first had a look, I thought I know what Jesse's doing for the next couple of weeks. I've been stuck here for two nights already.

    Look up the Lola T70 Mk 3 GT of Lothar Motschenbacher and Ed Leslie. Its running a spare out back too. Must have been a second hand European car.
    https://revslib.stanford.edu/catalog/kg367sw2046

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    1. I've been looking through the Revs Library gallery for the past week, and have hit it up in the past... but right now I'm going through all the photos they have for one particular photographer, who was equally interested in the track action and what was going on in the pits. Well, hell, the cars are boring on the track in photos from a distance. If a photographer is an artist with a zoom lens, hey, magic happens.
      But when they have one lens, and too much film, it's boring as a guy looking through photos. Just more small cars at some track. Too small to be interesting, as most of my interest is in the details.
      So like usual, all day long I goof off with other places and websites, and at night while watching movies or tv, I stick to looking through the archives of some website that takes many days or weeks to get through. I call it mining. Long process of going through a lot of trash to get the gold nuggets.
      I happened to have worked with Ed Leslie's grandson. He and I got to talking about cars, and he said that his dad raced cars. No shit I says... what cars? He replied, the Cobras of Shelby's team. GTFOH... no shit? He says, yeah, you can look it up online and see that grandpa Leslie was a Shelby guy, did a lot of racing for him... well crap. Think I wasn't just polaxed? Like that camel Yosemite Sam beat up when yelling WHOA! So, I asked, well, did he pass down cool cars or racing stuff to your dad, and family? Nope. That 60s stuff was all fast and loose, and went away as fast as it showed up, and nothing was held onto.

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  2. Oh by the way, Grandpa raced cobra's for Shelby....How cool is that. Grand Tour For Our Holidays indeed.

    Try the Full Citation page. Zoom in on full screen mode. Its a real testament to Film.
    In the third image you can see the dimple things on the new 'sticker' tires.
    On the side wall it says Stock Car Special, but the sticker says:
    E
    Blue Streak
    Sports Car Special
    Good Year
    6.50/6.70-15

    Fun for the whole family.

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    Replies
    1. ok, I got lost and confused... what is the Full Citation page?

      6 inch tires, 70 series? wow, pizza cutters

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    2. Now I see what you mean, the sticker vs the tire markings! I had not noticed that before! I'll add that to this post! thanks!

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  3. Bottom Right corner of screen when on Revslib under actions....

    In the 1963 annual of Road and Track. There is a road test/ review of the AC Ford Cobra. The car tested was the proto type.
    The AC Ace came with 16" wire wheels but Shelby wanted 15" triple laced deep dish rims.
    12" disc brakes with no booster. And a Jaguar type salisbury rear with inboard brakes. The speedo had been removed because it only went up to 120 mph.

    A good quote.....
    " One facet of the handling that made us feel a trifle wary at first was the extreme angle(relative to its true line of travel) the car assumes when drifting. There is some oversteer, and when the Cobra is shoved into a turn with brio, the rear wheels creep right out. Treated with any finesse at all, the Cobra will hold its tail-out attitude without trying to spin, but a clumsy foot could give you a thrill."
    OR
    " Our test car had the 'street' engine. Which is virtually stock Ford but equipped with solid lifters and a cam shaft of non-specified timing. We were somewhat surprised to find that it would idle with little trace of lumpiness, pull strongly at almost any speed, and buzz past the 5800 rpm power peak to 7200 rpm before it began to sound distressed. Also surprisingly, the power did not appear to fall off much even at 7000 rpm-- 1200 rpm over the point of maximum power."

    Its a good read.

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    1. Ah! I hadn't tried that feature of the Revslib page, I went and clicked on the viewer feature, then hit the zoom in button until it was big enough to save for sharing here on the blog
      Thanks!

      Delete
  4. Use the scroll wheel on this page full screen....
    https://purl.stanford.edu/mf903md1873
    Snipping tool works on window but may not full screen.

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    Replies
    1. Dang that is a lot of magnification, you can even read the address for Shelby's shop in Venice

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    2. I'm impressed with the resolution of these photos and the ones on Shorpy.com. Like Burkey says, it's a testament to the quality of the film, cameras and scanning technology used.

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    3. Someone was telling this guy to waste all the film needed to get the shot, this photographer, Blumenthal I think, took a dozen photos of things, instead of photographers like Eric Rickman, who took one. I can see while looking through the gallery of photos that he was adjusting focus, then aperature, then depth of field/focal length, and moving just a little to one side to get better composition... etc. He really was spending a lot of time and effort to make sure he would get the right photo somehow. The resolution, like you said, wow!

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  5. I was at this race. Hard to emphasize to anyone not involved back then, but two transporters showed up with TEN Cobras loaded. Up to that time I had not seen ten Cobras in total on or off a race track. Add to this that many famous-but-not-often-seen cars like Allen Grant's yellow Cobra were there. It was astounding.

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    Replies
    1. Wow,... that must have been cool! Did you take any photos of your trips to racetracks?

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