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Post by René on Jun 7, 2019 14:28:28 GMT
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Post by Carl on Jun 7, 2019 17:35:50 GMT
A nice article in Road & Track from the mid 70s.   Thanks, Rene! I remember this and also a later test of a Ligier. I still have the same impression of Phil Hill as too academic in his analysis, a great driver somewhat removed from his glory days.
It's wonderful to see the specification page that for many years accompanied every road test. I would often spend more time poring over them than reading the articles.
Cheers, Carl
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Post by mikael on Jun 9, 2019 13:09:31 GMT
Thanks a lot for posting that test, René; it's a fascinating read. There's a lot I wish to comment on (when the pressure from various deadlines has evaporated ...) With best wishes.
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Post by René on Jun 11, 2019 16:10:24 GMT
Thanks a lot for posting that test, René; it's a fascinating read. There's a lot I wish to comment on (when the pressure from various deadlines has evaporated ...) With best wishes.
Thanks Mikael. It is interesting, certainly realizing this article was published in 1976 and the test was with a 1974 car. I like this: Phil Hill: "One of my reactions to the car is that the machine is more in the picture now than ever before…
The cars are so sophisticated and up to the hypothetically perfect point that the driver isn’t able to develop that way." |
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Post by charleselan on Jun 12, 2019 16:23:28 GMT
A great post René, thank you. Those articles and race reports in "Road and Track" from that period were superb and stand up today with some majesty.
I find it interesting that Phil Hill looks no different in the photos without helmet than he did in his championship winning year of 1961. Also I find it quaint that he like Stirling Moss insisted in wearing their old style helmet and goggles when driving modern and contemporary cars. I wonder if Nuvolari, had he been alive, would have driven in his cotton or leather skull cap while testing say a Lotus 25.
Also of note in the spec chart they price the Ferrari 312B3 at 150,000 usd, cheap at that I would say.
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Post by Carl on Jun 13, 2019 22:41:13 GMT
Reading again, I still think Phil Hill uses too many words to convey his great knowledge, but his insights are wonderful. Many newer race fans even when the article was written may not have known how hot and painful racing could be just a short time earlier. The technology developed to measure performance was pure innovative genius. Hats off to Paul Lamar of Manhattan Beach. The last paragraph is priceless: "There was one little problem. The acceleration curve showed a sharp, mysterious spike as it first started to climb. The answer: the car was actually lifting its front wheels off the ground when it left the line."
Wonderful!  |
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Post by mikael on Jun 14, 2019 3:44:17 GMT
A nice article in Road & Track from the mid 70s. Thanks, Rene! I remember this and also a later test of a Ligier. I still have the same impression of Phil Hill as too academic in his analysis, a great driver somewhat removed from his glory days.
It's wonderful to see the specification page that for many years accompanied every road test. I would often spend more time poring over them than reading the articles.
Cheers, Carl
Carl, when reading about Phil Hill one gets the impression that he really was quite different from the other drivers at that (absolute top) level, and that his way of thinking really might have been more, say, academic. While other drivers a that level typically thought that racing was the very essence of their existence (as expressed by the character Michael Delaney in "Le Mans", “Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting.”), for Hill, it seemed that racing was more like an addiction (like to alcohol or tobacco) than it was a calling - it was something he thought he ought to get out of but just couldn't, always "not just yet" - mostly because he happened to be so very good at it. If he hadn't been a racing driver he might perhaps have become a great academic and scholar - or an author ... |
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Post by Carl on Jun 14, 2019 4:52:46 GMT
Mikael, Well said. He was soft-spoken, came from a world of social refinement and academics, and was an unlikely candidate for speed-demon. He loved classic cars from an early age and dived into the exciting realm of high performance sports cars being imported after World War ll.
I attended a film presentation on his early career which he narrated at a sports car club in Santa Monica, and his manner was casual, reserved and professorial.
Cheers, Carl
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