Book Review: Top 25 Race Cars of All Time

We’ve got another treat for you guys and gals from Motorbooks.  This time, we take a look at Basem Wasef’s “Legendary Race Cars”.

“Legendary Race Cars” is Basem’s Top 25 Race Cars of all time.  I dig how he’s chosen cars from all corners of the globe and from all forms of racing.  The book includes an off-road race truck, a WRC Rally Car, a Pikes Peak turbo monster, Le Mans cars from various decades, F1, a Nostalgia NHRA dragster and a few cars from the early 1900’s.

The pictures and photography are excellent.  It includes shots taken by the author himself as well as old archive photography from the race car’s hey-day.  Here’s a few examples below of Basem’s quality work.

You can’t have a Top Race Car’s list without the legendary Ford GT40 can you?

Here’s a Jaguar D-Type which won the 1956 24 Hours of LeMans with a 200 HP 3,442 cc Dual Overhead Cam inline 6 cylinder.  The curvy lines of these 50’s LeMan’s cars are pure sports car perfection.

Another legend, the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, winner of the 1965 LeMans race.  The author explains the details behind that chopped off rear end design and the necessity of that duck-tail wing to keep it under control at high speeds.  Check out that exhaust tucked into the bodywork, all in the name of aerodynamics.  The poor drivers feet take a heating though.

This book helps continue the legacy these 25 race cars have left behind.  I really enjoyed reading this book and hoped it would keep going and going.  I hope Basem does more books of this type to showcase the many other race cars I think should be highlighted.  Top cars from Trans-Am and Road Racing, drag racers and land speed racers from the Bonneville Salt Flats.

What would you consider to be your Top 3 Legendary Race Cars of all time?  Leave a comment below with your favorites!

Hechtspeed

Arizona Auction Kickoff with RM Auction

RM Auction Press Release:

Preeminent international auction house, RM Auctions, will celebrate a decade of excellence in Phoenix, Arizona in January with their 10th anniversary ‘Automobiles of Arizona’ event. Returning to the luxurious Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa, the highly anticipated event will kick off the 2009 collector car season in grand style as 125 magnificent vintage motor cars cross the block before an international audience.

When the focus of the collector car world returns to Phoenix, Arizona, in January, all eyes will once again be on Canadian-based RM Auctions and their eagerly awaited Automobiles of Arizona auction event.

Long regarded as the most prestigious event of Arizona’s famed auto week, the annual multi-million dollar RM sale brings together some of the world’s finest vintage automobiles with some of the world’s most discerning collectors.

The grand tradition is set to continue in 2009 as RM celebrates their 10th anniversary sale in Phoenix, January 16th. “We are thrilled to be returning to Phoenix for our 10th anniversary sale and look forward to again welcoming collectors and enthusiasts from around the world to Arizona for what is shaping up to be another first class event,” said Ian Kelleher, Managing Director of RM Auctions.

“RM has been referred to as the barometer for the high end collector car industry, and as the first major event of the hobby calendar, enthusiasts look to our Arizona event for market indicators. Our recent auction results have proven the market for alternative investments remains strong,” he added.

For the car enthusiasts amongst us, the RM Arizona line-up will present 125 important and historically significant motor cars for auction. Notable early consignments for the event include: a rare and highly desirable 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport (chassis no. 002), the most important Corvette ever to come to market and possibly one of the most valuable American-built automobiles produced: an extraordinary, elegant 1937 Bugatti Atalante Type 57 SC, recognized the world over for its union of styling, engineering and sophistication; a unique 1914 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Boattail Skiff, well known-in Rolls-Royce circles and regarded as one of the most instantly recognizable of all Rolls-Royces; a 1950 Hudson Commodore Convertible, formerly owned by the legendary Steve McQueen; and an elegant 1937 Delage D8-120 Aerosport Coupe, the only known survivor of ten examples built by famed French coachbuilders Letourner et Marchand.

Additional highlights set to cross the block include: a race-bred 1958 Ferrari 250 GT Tour de France Berlinetta; a speed record-breaking 1954 Dodge Firearrow III Coupe Concept car by Ghia; a one-of-a-kind 1948 Mercury Custom Bob Hope Special; a 1955 Cadillac Series 60 Special Fleetwood Sedan, as used in the Academy Award-winning film ‘Driving Miss Daisy; and a magnificent selection of vintage motor cars from the distinguished Dr. Barbara Mae Atwood Collection.

RM’s Automobiles of Arizona auction event will be held at the luxurious Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa, 24th Street & Missouri, Phoenix, Arizona on January 16th, 2009. An auction preview will be held January 15th from 9am to 5pm followed by the auction on January 16th from 11am. Admission to the auction is by catalog only, which admits both the catalog holder and a guest. The full-color collectible catalog is available for $100 U.S. (plus shipping), by calling (800)-211-4371 or visiting www.rmauctions.com.

About RM Auctions, Inc.
Celebrating nearly 30 years in the collector car industry, RM Auctions Inc. and its associated companies are responsible for acquisitions, restorations and sales of the world’s rarest and most valuable vintage automobiles, including record-breaking sales in Maranello, Italy and London, England. RM’s restoration division achieved unprecedented accolades in 2006, when the Company earned “Best of Show” honors at the world’s top three collector car events in a single year. www.rmauctions.com

End Press Release.

I grabbed the pictures of the cars I think you’d dig. Of course, the 63 Corvette Grand Sport is a show stopper (anyone else wondering who’s got chassis #1?) but what else is going on the block? Just picking these few with special appeal to me, I’ve tallied up over $1.5 million in cars! This is excluding the 63 Vette. Nobody’s sure what that car will sell for!

Over My Shoulder… Making Hot Rod Art

Please enjoy your brief, but meaningful and entertaining, look “over the shoulder” of painter Tom Fritz as he makes what I think is my favorite piece of Hot Rod Art to date (and he’s got alot to like!).

Over My Shoulder… Making Hot Rod Art
Written By Tom Fritz
(Car and Motorcycle fine art)

One of the side benefits of working at my art is that I’ve been blessed with the development of an extended family of very close friends, a rich variety of both men and women who support me in my self-inflicted torture. And as sit here in front of yet another blank canvas trying to figure out the combination of what I am and what the world needs, I’m reminded of all the conversations in which I’ve been asked, how hard is it to make my art, or how long it takes me to make it — in which they try to get a handle on how I put a painting together.

These questions invariably come up at shows and in order to portray the illusion of credibility in a compressed time frame, I use convenient phrases like “it really isn’t so hard.” But honestly, it really IS hard work. After all, evolving an image and style can take a long time and can be, at times, a hellish nightmare.

So, I figured I’d allow you to sit and watch over my shoulder for the first time ever in a published format as I weld together a story of image, paint, color, and technique, and hopefully do so with a forceful result. I’ve never done this before, and the one thing I don’t want to do is give you all a step-by-step, here’s-how-I-mix-this-color art lesson. I’ll leave that to the television artists.

To begin, I’d been scouring events earlier this year looking for an example of a front engine dragster typical of those I remember from my youth. I REALLY want to put something together with one of those.

Remember I mentioned that my process could be painful? How painful can it be to put an image together? Well, it seems to be ingrained in the motor sports arts that every painting has to “be of someone or something” – that every painting has to contain specific history and other incidental baggage, which is something that I really don’t care to drag along. When I was young, the thing that really kicked me in the zipper about the whole wang dang doodle was simply this: metal making noise. To this day, it remains the prime visceral element that I respond to and the main thing I try to accomplish in my work. I’m presenting a time capsule that contains the same raw, core experience I remember and digested as a kid. In fact, I think this is still the thing that sucks us all through the turnstile. After all, I can’t believe we just go to the races to enhance our memories of who was driving what, when, and where so we can go hot-dogging at the bench races.

The point for me, then, is to find a middle ground between form, content and story telling that I feel comfortable with. I’m trying to put on canvas something intangible, invisible, and something that exercises my observational sensitivities and aesthetic taste. And I want to create an exciting image no one has ever seen before – an image with a point-of-view no trackside photographer could have snapped.

Can you now understand why it’s pretty easy for us artists to work from a photo taken by someone else? I understand this, because lets face it – starving can become a nuisance. But besides surface-level copyright infringement, there are even bigger issues for me.

First, I’m an artist. I need to create. I don’t want to just color an old photograph. Sure, I use the old pics for reference, whether it be historical tidbits, a “jumping off” place, or for inspiration… but not as the basis of my image. Photographs record detail. My job is to take elements from a photo, and from them make a subjective, aesthetic statement to evoke a particular emotion or mood. Besides, the old photos (which in the motor sport realm are mostly “snaps”) hold visual traps that most artists unwittingly fall into, unknowingly painting in distortions and compositional weaknesses inherent in the image.

Another thing. That lucky artist that went through the shoebox first snagged the most dramatic images, leaving the chaff to the rest of us. So, then I have to ask myself if I’d really want to paint something someone else already painted? (Sheesh, how many renderings of Bob McClurg’s 1972 photograph of Wild Willie Borsch in the “Winged Express” have we seen?) And then, I wonder why I’d want to paint all the leftover images that aren’t really all that great to begin with?

Therefore, I brutalize myself to come up with the hard stuff.

Enough talk. Time to squeeze out some worms of color, sharpen the brushes, and bring on the pain. Pull up a chair, kick back and join in the madness. Watch out… some say the oil paint fumes make them intoxicated (you’ll notice I don’t hold my breath while I paint).

One more thing. I’ve got my camera here, and understand I’ll have to “pull” myself out of the altered state of consciousness I fall into when I paint every so often to take a picture of the emerging image. Sort of like waking up from a dream state. Lessee how this goes…

Pah-rooz these reference photos I took…

What a mess, right? They’re black n’ white photos, there’s nobody straddling the rear axle, the throttle plates are closed, the tires are obese, and the header tips are covered. Also, there’s a lot of stuff in the background like park benches and trees. And this isn’t a “hero” car, for chrys-ache. Where’re the stands with all the people? Where’s the Christmas tree, the fire extinguisher, the tower? (Just about now, that “path to temptation” pointing to the shoebox of old photos is starting to look better and better…)

Back in the studio, I take a rare free moment between projects and put out a small quick-n-dirty thumbnail to see if I could translate the image I see in my mind into reality.

Usually I don’t take this step, opting to go direct-to-canvas instead. But this time I wanted to verify my intention to limit myself to a decidedly monochromatic, cool color scheme. In my sketch, the left front wheel protrudes beyond the image boundary, which compositionally stabilizes the subject, tying it into the frame. You can see that I have to work out issues of lighting, as I now have multiple light sources (two spectacular white plumes of burning hydrogen as well as ambient lighting) as opposed to the one light source I have in my reference photos (the sun). Some parts of the car in my sketch stand in front of my perceived light sources, some are beside a light source, and other parts are just filled, again, with ambient light. And to top it off, I have to translate how my eyeball experiences violent motion in buttery oil paint, without relying on convention (Dang! That shoebox of old photos just keeps looking better all the time…)

After preparing the canvas, I lay in my image, keeping my line work loose and broad, preventing me in being too much of a slave to my reference. Once I’ve done my sketch, I start applying my initial washes. I don’t do this tentatively; I really hunker down on that thing. These washes are laid in with thinned paint and a big brush, and the tones are lightly washed in transparently to cover the whiteness of the canvas.

Here in these detail photos, you can see some of my initial line drawing and washes, done both with pen and brush.

(click images above for a better look, and a snazzy Viva Zoom effect)

I work on the whole canvas at once. It’s pretty direct. Every stroke relates to the whole. I don’t start in the upper right and work to the lower left, after all, there’s a great joy in watching the painting come together all at once. Now here’s a look at the canvas on the easel, the morning after the first session. The painting is 42 inches wide by 21 inches high.

At this point, the painting is going together pretty smoothly. I constantly keep things moving around, making sure nothing calls attention to itself. However, something is up… look at the top of the right front tire in the progression images. Notice there is a ghosted tire that disappears, only to reappear later?

Either I’m overdosing on fumes, or this is clear and present evidence of rampant imagination not being tied down to a paint-by-number approach. Try something here. No, take it out. Wait, I liked that – bring it back. Just me peeling another layer of ass off myself as I paint. Oh, the agony…

Look how various other parts of the image evolve, how the shape of the exhaust plumes develop. Notice how I translate the spinning front wheels into paint. I try to create something authentic, not derivative, so I disregard cliché and try to find my own answers. The brush strokes become smaller in those areas I’d like your eye to pay attention to. I’m not much for painting every slot in every screw head. That level of detail just calls attention to itself. Rather I activate areas by placing small, colorful paint strokes that are tied to intelligible forms and resolve into suggestive detail in the viewer’s eye.

Check out how the decal arrangement on the side panel below the headers has progressed. These are merely color hits that “read” as decals and text (we call it “greeking” – you can’t read it, but you know it “says” something). I’ve brushed in a light colored circular element on that panel because my eye tells me it needs to be there. Also, you see incremental changes. “Tightening up” the front end and front wheel areas, and also around the rear tires.

Finally, the long chain of decision-making comes to an end, and here’s the result. How do I know when the painting is completed? When there’s nowhere to put the next stroke. It just subtly let’s me know it’s done. The actual brush-to-canvas on this one took about 40 hours.

What’ll I call it?

“Quick Sombish”

Lean it up against the wall, rest the eyeballs a bit, then on to the next one!

Another story about my friend, Tom Fritz:

Mellow Artist Paints Nostalgia and Speed at Barrett Jackson

2 GTR’s at Stillen Day

Even if you are only slightly interested in Nissan and Infiniti cars and trucks the Stillen Nissan/Infiniti Customer appreciation open house is a great show to see. Set right behind John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa, California is Stillen. The performance shop owned and run by the most successful driver in IMSA history, Steve Millen. Steve was a factory driver for Nissan in the 90s and has special place in his shop for Nissan/Infiniti vehicles (Ford too but that’s another blog!). Steve had heavily discounted Nissan/Infiniti parts on hand for customers as well as discounted dyno runs and free installation on anything purchased that day.
All of the streets directly in front of Stillen were closed down by Costa Mesa PD and opened up for customer cars. Now I am not too good at counting and easily get side tracked when the bright and shiny are in front of me, so I lost track at the number of cars around 150 or so and that was easily only a quarter of the number of vehicles on display. There were vehicles from the last 30 years on display, a first generation Prince motors Skyline, 240Z’s, 240sx’s, Titans, a whole mess of 350Z’s and G coupes as well as a heavily pimped out 2000 Q45 to name just a few of the models on display. Steve also had his engineering cars on hand to show customers some ideas and offerings for everything from the Sentra and Versa to the new Altima coupe, Nissan/Infiniti FR cars (front engine, rear drive) and all of the Nissan/Infiniti truck and SUV line up.
Nissan even had a few employees head out to answer questions about the newest offerings from Nissan/Infiniti: First there’s the GTR! Two GTR’s were on hand; a white engineering prototype and a Red press car. Then there’s the new FX50 and the newly unveiled Maxima which holds to its roots as a sport inspired sedan with new flowing lines and bulging fenders. The white GTR showed up a little late, still 20 minutes before the show officially kicked off, as the street were shut down and people were already lined up around the block. It had a little trouble pulling in to the open space right in the Stillen parking lot set aside for it as people immediately surrounded the car for photos and glimpses of Godzilla as it pulled in. Reaction to the GTR was absolutely amazing! There were 2 guys walking around with the sales sheets to show they had a GTR coming to them and had Steve and the Nissan Staff sign the order form. In my 29 years of existence I have rarely seen anything have such an effect on such a large mass of people as the GTR did pulling in. This is true auto enthusiasm at its best.

This story is the first from my friend and huge MyRideisMe.com supporter Joe Nagy. Joe’s been working on the GTR for about 4 years now. Yea, I know, that kicks ass. Big thanks to the guys at Stillen for the great event and for letting us use a few of their pictures. There are alot more pictures HERE. There’s also a great story about Steve Millen driving the GTR for a press event. Video’s too!

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