Elf Scan 7: Jackie Stewart

One of the all-time greats, and one of my all-time heroes.  Here he is as defending world champion in 1970, in a March Tyrell sponsored by Elf.

Martin Brundle drives us through 60 years at Silverstone

This excellent 7-part series produced in 2008 gives us some wonderful onboard footage of a racing car from each decade of Formula 1, and is narrated by retired F1 driver Martin Brundle, who shares his driving impressions of each machine. Each segment is about 5 minutes long.

Elf Scan 3: Jean-Pierre Beltoise

Jean-Pierre Beltoise gazes out of his blue and white helmet with the paradoxical combination of calmness and intensity that form the temperament of any great driver.  Having accomplished astounding success in motorcycle racing, Beltoise later became a fixture of the Matra team in the late 60's, piloting both F1 and Sportscar entries. Although he never equalled his motorcycle successes (11 national championships in 3 years!), he did succeed in winning the Monaco GP for BRM in 1972 before retiring from F1 in 1974.

A few interesting tidbits from the back of this Elf Oil promotional card: Beltoise's wife was the sister of Francois Cevert, who would also race for Matra and later Tyrell before he was tragically killed.  In addition to his successes as a driver, Beltoise was also a businessman in motorsports as well as author of an autobiographical book entitled "Defense de Mourir" (Loosely translated: Death Forbidden; sort of a pun on the French for "No Smoking"). 

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Beltoise is thankfully still with us today!

Announcing a new weekly series: The Elf scans

'Tis the season where one naturally thinks of elves, but I recently acquired a fantastic set of A4 sized photo cards that were printed as promotional items for french petroleum giant ELF.  These cards, each celebrating the cars and drivers of the Matra and Alpine teams, were available at Elf fuel stations in France circa 1970. Starting in January 2011, I will upload a high res image of a new card each week.  The photos are simply sensational, and there are many cool cutaway drawings and diagrams on the backs of the cards.  See below for my Saul Bass-inspired mosaic showing the whole series!

Porsche in Formula One - What could have been?

Throughout its history, Porsche has flirted several times with single seater formula cars, but never more seriously than in the early 1960's when Dan Gurney, Jo Bonnier, and Wolfgang von Tripps campaigned their Formula One cars.  The best result acheived was Gurney's 1962 French GP victory at Rouen. Gurney is shown above, at rapt attention behind the wheel of the 804.

At the end of the 1962 season, Porsche withdrew from F1 citing costs, and there is also a belief that they felt F1 was too far divorced from their road cars. Perhaps they just didn't like to lose, and they had never been in a truly competitive position with their air-coooled flat 8 engine, in a time where V-configured engines were far more par for the course.  All this makes one wonder what might have been had Porsche decided to double down on F1, and put the sort of technical and financial resources behind it that saw them develop their world-beating Sports Car prototypes as the decade progressed.  It is also interesting to consider that Ferrari, a smaller volume carmaker (also probably more mismanaged at the time!), was able to carry on simultaneous F1 and Sports Car programs in the 1960s, yet Porsche was not seemingly willing to shoulder the expense. We'll never know what might have been had Porsche gone head to head with Ferrari and  Lotus in the mid 60s. They coulda been a contender. For additional historic photos, click HERE. 

All photos credit: Julius Weitmann