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Off the wall stories about drivers and such.
Grand Prix drivers in the sixties were a "free-booting" group. In the mid sixties Ford of England produced a car called the Cortina. They gave one to Colin Chapman at Lotus and said put a good engine in it and a good suspension under and we'll sell it as a special model. Thus was born the Lotus Cortina. Which just happened to rule British saloon cars (that's sedan's to us colonials) for several years. Which brings me to the to the topic of this discussion. It was about 1966, I think, Ford of England wanted to celebrate the success of the Cortina, so they invited a bunch of drivers, who had racing and rallying wins in the Cortina, to Cortina, Italy. home of the '56 Winter Olympics. It was late spring and while there was still snow on the ground, most of the facilities were bare and dry, including the bobsled run, well you can guess what happens next. Some got out a tape measure and measured the width of the bobsled track and determined that the Cortina would fit inside the track with about 6-8 in. to spare on each side. So.... a very informal competition started, to see who could get down the hill the fastest without crumpling the bodywork. You had people like Sir Jack Brabham, Graham Hill, Jimmy Clark, Dan Gurney was there I think, a bunch of rally drivers. Eventually "wiser" and cooler heads prevailed and shut down the fun. :-( Well, to take the place of that, they started a snowball fight. Which soon developed into a snowball war. This is a true story. I only wish there some fotos somewhere of that. Maybe someone could find some on youtube.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gilbert K. Arnold on -
Actually, I think the "wiser" and cooler heads prevailed before they could actually get a car on the bob run. But it would have been a real hoot to see if they actually did get to make at least one run.
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Permalink Reply by xorpheous on -
I wonder how much money was being wagered between the drivers on the outcome. ;)
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Permalink Reply by Gilbert K. Arnold on
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Here's another bit of off the wall stuff about drivers. I think it was in the mid fifties, and the Grand Prix circus was in Reims, France for the French GP. In those days, the drivers all stayed in hotels near the track. Anyway, they were all staying at a hotel in Reims, and Fangio was in a room on one of the upper floors. One night, some of the drivers (probably under the influence of too much champers), got a Fiat Tipo 500 sedan and managed to get into the elevator and took it up to Fangio's floor and left in the hallway outside his room. The story goes, the management wanted it out of the hallway. Someone suggested that Fangio drive it down the stairway. But even the great Fangio demurred on that one, saying he didn't think he could get it down the stairwell without doing grevious damage to the stairwell or the car. So, they had to put the car back into the elevator and return it to the ground floor. Personally I would have liked to have seen Fangio attempt it.
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Permalink Reply by Gilbert K. Arnold on
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Hey All: enjoy this video clip...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_XyqpD1_O4
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