Blogs

The GT Ferrari that turned amateurs into pros

If a racing driver at Le Mans hears that they have been described as “an amateur”, they are not likely to be best pleased. But as sports car racing flourished through the 1960s, being called an ama...

Surface to Air to Surface Missile

Porter Press author Ian Wagstaff has revealed there are depths to his character of which even his colleagues know nothing. Here we plumb the punning depths to reveal all. We begin this in-depth inv...

The Supersonic styling that put an Italian coachbuilder in the spotlight

Crashing and burning during its competition debut on the 1953 Mille Miglia road race might easily have been the end of the Italian GT nicknamed ‘Supersonic’, but the flames of that accident consum...

'Le Mans '66' reminiscent of Steve McQueen's 1971 movie about the race

The premiere this month of the movie Le Mans ’66 (titled Ford v Ferrari in the United States) brings the startling realisation that it’s almost half-a-century since the release of Steve McQueen's f...

The Mini, the Space Race, and Swinging Sixties scandals

The Sixties was the time of Sputnik satellites and Saturn rockets, of Yuri Gagarin going into Earth’s orbit and Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon, and yet today when people share photographs of t...

Matthew Field: My life with 'The Italian Job'

Above: Matthew Field speaking at the Royal Automobile Club during The Self Preservation book launch. Photo by Mark Lewis Photography. Throughout the summer I have been busy promoting my new book T...

Behind-the-scenes skullduggery with Porsche’s Group C racers

Did teams racing Porsche’s 956 sports-prototype step the wrong side of the line between technical ingenuity and cheating? And while the 956 and its successor, the longer-wheelbase 962, appeared to...

Ford versus Ferrari

In the 95 years since the first Le Mans 24 Hours, few battles have captured the imagination as did the Ford versus Ferrari saga in the 1960s. Ferrari had won the French classic seven times since 19...

The man behind those blue-and-orange Le Mans winners

The Gulf Oil logo. Powder blue and tangerine orange. Low-slung Ford GT40s, mighty Porsche 917s, open-top Mirage-Fords. All are synonymous with John Wyer, the Englishman who spent American oil-indus...

A Mini Italian Job Celebration in Cowley

Opening with a filmed message from Sir Michael Caine himself, the Italian Job evening at the MINI plant at Cowley got off to a cracking start. Sir Michael even revealed that he learnt to drive at t...