The thinking man’s Monochrome.

1920s Bugatti racer, with safety wire. 5D, 100mm Macro, Ring Flash.

No need to hide behind the forced abstractions of monochrome when color does it better. Just imagine how unspeakably dull this would be in black and white.

This small version cannot begin to do justice to the large print hanging on my garage wall. Only minimal processing (regular sharpening to offset the effect of the 5D’s anti-aliasing filter) was required, using Lightroom.

Cleaning up the clutter.

After my first serious venture into the world of macro pictures of vintage car details one persistent irritant was the clutter many snaps exhibited in the background.

So before venturing forth a second time, the occasion being the Monterey Historic Races, I dropped by that acme of capitalism and low prices, WalMart, and asked the nice lady in the haberdashery department for a couple of pieces of non-reflective cloth in black and red. These would serve as backdrops to clean up the clutter. I thought about getting some green for British cars but concluded that my love was closer to the Mediterranean than the English Channel, so plain black and Ferrari red seemed more in order.

Now a back drop is useless without a drop cloth manager, so I prevailed on friend and vintage racer Franklin Rudolph to accompany me on the two hour drive to Laguna Seca. This had several advantages. First, as I find driving the ultimate time sink and Franklin likes little else, he got to drive the car and I read the Wall Street Journal. Second, few know more of vintage racers than my colleague, so I had the best possible tour guide to the paddock area, replete with dozens of $5mm toys. If the arcana of 1954 Maseratis are your thing, Franklin is the man. Finally, Franklin not only helped with spotting interesting shapes and forms, he volunteered to be the back drop man, holding up the cloth or placing it under the cars as we saw best.

A win-win. He gets two 18″ x 24″ prints of his choice for his superb workshop and I get the best possible professional help on the planet.

Leaf springs on a vintage racer, red back drop in place

On the way home, going south on the 101 Freeway, we cut a two hour trip to what was seemingly a few minutes as we gazed with appreciation on the dozens of exotics making their way north from Los Angeles for the Historics while simultaneously keeping a careful eye out for cops writing speeding tickets, to finance their early retirement at the local doughnut store. Franklin’s choice was a gorgeous Dino with a V6, mine a late 50s tourer with a real Ferrari V12 in the front, where they belong.

Thank you, Franklin, for your friendship and easy expertise. Not to mention your back drop skills!

Lotus was not the first.

Ask any graduate of UC London’s School of Mechanical Engineering which alumnus they are most proud of and the answer is likely to be Colin Chapman of Lotus Cars fame. Chapman’s pioneering designs resulted in many victories in all forms of motor racing but most notably in the most demanding of all, Formula One.

When asked about his key design tenets, Chapman would answer “Just add lightness”.

1930s Alfa racer at the Laguna Seca Historics, 2008

As this pre-war Alfa Romeo grand prix racer’s suspension shows, he was not the first to have that idea.

What makes our former adulation of great engineers and designers so poignant today is that the US, desperately in need of engineering talent, makes it increasingly difficult to enter the profession. Domestic production of engineering graduates is stymied by the childlike attention spans and instant gratification generated by TV, populism and computer games. We prefer to encourage our kids to become pop stars, actors or sportsmen – all fields of endeavor with miniscule prospects for success. Or worse – we make fine brains into the mush that passes for lawyers, a business (it’s no more a profession than prostitution) that has done more to hurt US productivity and destroy wealth than even the government could. At the same time we place foolish cartels on immigration because we (rightly) fear that we cannot compete with Ivan, Lee or Yamamoto. Capitalism is truly hanging itself with its own rope.

From the 2008 Monterey Historic Races.

Back from the days when drivers were fat and tires were thin.

Late 1930s Talbot-Lago filler cap

The annual Historic races held at the Laguna Seca track in Monterey County, California, provide an orgy of viewing of some of the finest cars made. Insiders know that the race track is lousy for viewing and that all the real action is in the paddock. Further, go on the Thursday before the race weekend and you will not only get in free, you will also avoid the polyester set with its foul clothing and even worse taste. (N.B. For the best parking spot tell the fellow at the entrance that your are “pit crew”. Works every time.)

Instead, in a friendly and unrushed setting, you can chat with the drivers and mechanics and exult in the beauty of what once was.

Leather belt drive for the tachometer on a late 1920s Bugatti. Note the simple tensioner.

The charming owner of this Bugatti explained that the leather belt is actually a sandwich of leather with a Teflon ‘filler’. It looks fine and, unlike the original, lasts. Note the beautifully executed, diamond machined, firewall.

Door handle on a pre-war Delage. Pure, unabashed sensuality.

And forget all that rot about beauty being in the eye of the beholder. It’s absolute. You either get it or not.

I used the 5D with the 100mm macro for these, with a shadowless ring flash, which preserves the original shadows cast by the sun while dampening down the otherwise excessive dynamic range. If there is a better hand-held macro outfit with the certainty of sharp, large prints, I do not know of one.