Brumos Porsche Swap Meet

DSC_0354, originally uploaded by Murph32256.

Brumos Porsche - a name long associated with Porsche racing cars and winning at long endurance races across the United States. Today at their Jacksonville, FL dealership they held a swap meet for local Porsche enthusiasts - over 400 strong according to one PCA member across the 5 nearby counties. Being a BMW guy - I dropped in just to snap pictures before they took off on a cruise out toward the beaches and on to Ponte Vedra.

I arrived late but managed to snap off a few pictures of some rare cars - namely:

- 1986 Porsche 959 modified by Canepa Design to produce about 600HP
- 1964 Porsche 356C
- Heavily modified Porsche 930 Turbo
- 550 Spyder
- Nearly new 1978 Porsche 924(for only $12.8k!)
- 944
- A handful of 911's and Boxsters from different years and of different specification
- Brumos-Copenhagen Porsche 962 - I think late 1980's
- Brumos Porsche Grand AM Prototype

I've included the set here on Flickr and a few shots here but feel free to check them out. Seems I need to buy a 911 - strangely I didn't see many if any Caymans today.

Steve McQueen does the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring...with a Broken Foot

Everyone knows Steve McQueen loves cars and can make great films about racing. However, this quick clip is great - a quick interview with McQueen after a stint talking about driving with a cast on his left foot. Apparently, strapping sandpaper to your cast gives traction enough to make the drive doable. Incredibly, with a co-driver and fellow 'Merican Pete Revson - who also ran in Formula One - the pair came in first in their class and 2nd overall in a Porsche 908/02 just a few seconds behind Andretti's Ferrari 512 for a controversial finish.



Photos credited to The Selvedge Yard and an awesome article they've got posted up from last year. Click here to see the article and accompanying pictures.

Take that Frankie Muniz.

1968 Monaco Grand Prix

I saw this a year or two ago on Axis but ran into it on YouTube this morning. Cool video shot by an 8mm camera during the practice sessions prior to the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix. What's interesting is that its the crown jewel Monaco race and it shows a lot of the quirks of the 1968 season. You get to see Bruce McLaren - alive and walking with the slight limp he had due to one leg being longer than the other, the Gold Leaf Team Lotus - the first time a car had been fully adorned with a main sponsor - and Lotus was exclusively powered by the venerable Ford Cosworth DFV for the last time as the 1969 season opened it up as a customer engine.



This was also a post-Jim Clark era for Team Lotus as Clark was killed just a month earlier with Jo Siffert stepping in and the introduction of the a very small front wing on the Lotus - something that would be common place on the grid and similar to the wings that would land on the nose of the incredible Lotus 72 - only a few short years away. You can see a clear juxtaposition of the older, pre-aerodynamics cars versus the futuristic Lotus 49B. It's also great to see the McLarens in their original Papaya Orange livery and the pre-Tyrrell Racing group of the Matra-Fords.

Heir Lauda

The boys of Axis of Oversteer posted up their recap to the 2010 Chinese Grand Prix which was won by comeback story of the decade Jenson Button. Axis compared Button to one of my favorite Formula One drivers of all time, Niki Lauda. However, I disagree with them - Lauda was way more bad ass than Britian's newest favorite - though I agree to some parallels in their style of driving.

Lauda was the guy who told THE Enzo Ferrari that his race car was a "piece of shit" but he would help him sort it out because he's a nice guy like that. Lauda's also the guy that nearly died in a horrible accident at the Nurburgring in '76 then came back from death's door to get back in a car 6 weeks later and still remain competitive for the World Championship right up until the last laps of the last race at Fuji. Oh yeah, he also quit for 3 years, came back and ended up winning a championship in his 3rd year back in 1984. Check out the tribute below to the "Super Rat"- once you skip passed the Sade music. Before that is a tribute by Murray Walker for Lauda during his first retirement.

RUF Yellowbird Storms the Nurburgring

Running a modified 3.2L flat-6 tuned to 469HP, lightened body and revised gear box - the 1987 Ruf CTR was all balls. It was affectionately nicknamed the Yellowbird - and it set all sorts of top speed records and managed to show up the ultimate production Porsche of the time: 959 with its lowly 444HP.

Here we see what happens when Ruf decides to take its ultimate car of the 1980's and put it around the ultimate track of all time: der Nurburgring. Enjoy the full tail-out joy of a light weight, near 500HP, rear wheel drive Porsche.

(Sorry for the poor quality - this has been on the net for a while and is a recording of the original VHS of the lap that was released by Ruf)

Back Online - Back on Duty

I'm back...again. Primarily due to a problem I continue to run into. I have a host of websites that I read regularly which, at the end of the day, means I've probably run out of content to look at by the time the evening gets around I've run out of new, interesting car content. Not that it's a bad thing, but I've come to a point where the most interesting car stuff I can find is usually offbeat, old cars, motorsports, car photography etc...

So, I've decided that instead of bitching about running out of content for a given day I thought I should put my money where my mouth is and start supplying content that I come across and enjoy and provide it to anyone who happens to come across this little site.

Hopefully, any readers will find the content as enjoy as I do - covering things from motorsports, to cars to motorcycles to German cars to Italian cars...everything I enjoy, I only hope that you all will enjoy the ride as well!