The Klemantaski Collection

Here is a view of the Camoradi International team garage at Sebring before the 12 Hour race which will take place on March 25, 1961. The cars are each receiving a lot of attention. The n 24 is the Maserati Tipo 63 which will be driven by Masten Gregory, Camoradi owner Lloyd “Lucky” Casner and Stirling Moss. Next to it is a Maserati Tipo 61 for Moss and Graham Hill. beyond these two Camoradi cars…

Here is the 4.9 liter Maserati 151 from John Simone’s Maserati France and driven by André Simon and Maurice Trintignant braking for Arnage Corner during the Le Mans 24 Hours on June 20, 1964. They would retire in the 9th hour with electrical and braking problems. Simone’s latest version of his Maserati 151, originally built for the 1962 Le Mans, had uprated and fuel-injected performance with more…

This is one of those rare 1950s color photos and shows an early lap of the Le Mans 24 Hours on June 22, 1957 as a large group of cars enters the famous Esses left-hander. Leading here is the Ecurie Ecosse Jaguar D-Type driven by Ron Flockhart and Ivor Bueb being followed closely by the Scuderia Ferrari 315 Sport of Stuart Lewis-Evans and Martino Severi. Behind these two leading cars are two more…

At Silverstone in the 1960s many race photographers stood right bring the low solid walls on the inside of the fast corners. This got them close to the action but those walls might as well have been cardboard for all the protection they might offer from an errant F1 car. Here, during the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on July 15, 1967, is the great Jim Clark in a Lotus 49 closely followed by…

This is an artistic photo of the Ferrari 512S owned by Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team. Here the 512S is in the pits at the Mid-Ohio circuit for the fifth race of in the 1970 Can-Am Challenge Cup series which took place of August 23rd. This NART 512S would be driven by Pedro Rodriguez for this 80 lap (about 193 miles) contest. Rodriguez qualified a respectable fifth fastest, about…

Standing in front of their Ferrari 166 Spyder Corsa with its two liter V12 motor  are the experienced prewar Le Mans winner Luigi Chinetti (left) and the car’s probable owner and possible co-driver Lord Selsdon (right). Selsdon was the second Baron Selsdon of Scotland who also used the name Peter Mitchell-Thomson although his full name was rather longer. He was a wealthy amateur British driver.…

Hete we see John Surtees in his own F1 car, a Surtees TS7-Cosworth, at the International Gold Cup race at Oulton Park on August 22, 1970. The Gold Cup in 1970 was a non-Championship race for a combination of F1 and F5000 cars run in two 20 lap heats with the placings determined on the aggregate time for the two heats. A qualifying session determined the grid of Hear 1 with the placings in Heat 1…

Here is a rare color photo of the then upcoming British F1 driver Piers Courage turning into the Station Hairpin during the Monaco Grand Prix on May 10, 1970 in the De Tomaso-Ford entered for him by Frank Williams. Courage was the scion of the Courage brewing family and had started racing in the early 1960s in his small Lotus 7 sports car. He had immediately shown talent and quickly graduated…

It is quite rare to show a photo form a Formula Junior race, but this image is not only lovely but rare. It shows us Tim Mayer in a Works Cooper T67 FJr., here driving for Ken Terrell, entering Druids corner on the Brands Hatch circuit during the Anglo-European Trophy of September 14, 1963. Tim Mayer was the younger brother of Bruce McLaren’s partner Teddy Mayer. The field was notable for the…

Here we see an ex-works Porsche RSR 3 liter, the famous chassis R6 at the Watkins Glen 6 Hours on July 21, 1973. This RSR was had been loaned to Roger Penske and was driven by Mark Donohue and George Follmer. They finished 6th overall an excellent result given their class placing. This RSR was put into the three liter sports class rather than GT because of its numerous modifications versus a…

Here is a wonderful image of a Ferrari Daytona, officially a 365GTB/4, climbing up the hill from Eau Rouge to the Raidillon hilltop left hander at Spa-Francorchamps during the 1000 km. race there which took place on May 7, 1972. Scuderia Ferrari had entered three of its 312PB sports racing cars of which two took the top two finishing positions with the third delayed by an accident. This…

On a quiet country road in Belgium near the town of Chimay is the starting line for the Grand Prix des Frontières on May 25. 1947. This was a Formula Libre race which meant  colloquially “run what you brung.” On the left is a Maserati 4CL driven by Prince Bira with George Asecassis on the right in a Bugatti T59 with the remains of the 18 starters behind them. Note the crowd of enthusiastic…

The Ferrari 275P n. 20, its drivers Nino Vaccarella and Jean Guichet and two Ferrari mechanics celebrate having just crossed the finish line as winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 21, 1964. This team from Scuderia Ferrari set a new race record for distance covered, winning by five laps, and also won the Index of Performance, a calculated result usually the domain of much smaller cars.…

This is a smiling Maurice Trintignant sitting in his Ferrari 625F1 in the pits before the Monaco Grand Prix which would take place on May 22, 1955. Trintignant came from a wine-making family in the Vaucluse area of southern France and continued in that profession during and after his racing career. Trintignant was never viewed as a front line driver although he won two Grand Prix and the Le Man…

We are looking here at the Swiss driver Christian Kautz with a 1,5 liter supercharged Maserati 4CL flat out on the main straight of the Reims-Gueux circuit approaching the entry to Gueux village during the Reims Grand Prix on July 6, 1947. Although a prewar car, the 4CL was popular with private entrants in the postwar years, this example being entered for Kautz by the Swiss team of Scuderia…

We are in the paddock at Monza before the Italian Grand Prix which would take place on September 4, 1960. This somewhat ungainly-looking Ferrari was called the 246P but had a rear-mounted 1.5 liter V6 motor and was a prototype for Ferrari’s grand prix car for the new F1 regulations which would govern the 1961 season. Ferrari had first race-tested the prototype at the earlier 1960 Monaco Grand…

Here is the famous French racer Louis Rosier driving a Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport through the so-called Indianapolis corner at Le Mans during the 24 Hour race there on June 24-25, 1950. Rosier shared his car, but only a little, with his son who raced as Jean-Louis Rosier. Jean-Louis was almost a standby driver as he drove for only 22 laps while his father took a short break. This father-son…