Monte Carlo Rally 1949 Historic Photos

The Monte Carlo Rally (officially Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo) is an event organized each year by the Automobile Club de Monaco. This organization also organizes the Monte Carlo Formula One GP and a Historic Monte Carlo Rally.
From its inception in 1911 by Prince Albert I, this rally, which takes place under difficult and demanding conditions, was an important means of testing the latest improvements and innovations to automobiles. Winning the rally gave the car a great deal of credibility and publicity. With often varying conditions at each starting point, typically comprising dry road surface, wet tarmac, snow, and ice, sometimes all in a single stage of the rally. This places a big emphasis on tire choices, as a driver has to balance the need for grip on ice and snow with the need for grip on dry tarmac.
The photos above are from the 1949 event, the first to take place after WWII. The winning car was a French Hotchkiss. The results were as follows:

1949
Jean Trevoux / Marcel Lesurque — Hotchkiss
M Worms / E Mouche — Hotchkiss
F Dobry / Z Treybal — Bristol

A Hotchkiss 686 made 1936-1952

1937 Endurance Racing, Women Behind the Wheel

This is another photo of mine taken from a collection at the National Archives. In 1937 4 French women drove over 33,ooo km during a ten-day endurance trial. Three of the four women are depicted in this photograph.
We know relatively little about women in motorsports during the period before WWII. Indeed, women competed on amateur levels for decades, and this story needs to be told. There is one excellent book on the subject of women and their place in auto history, and that is Virginia Scharff's Women Behind the Wheel. Unfortunately, Virginia's story ends by about 1930, and much ground needs to be covered. There is a very preliminary survey in my book, The Automobile and American Life, but it is scattered throughout the pages. Any serious takers?

Bernd Rosemeyer at the Avus, Berlin, 1937, Audi

This photograph is part of a collection of photos that I acquired while at the National Archives in early August. It depicts one of Germany's (and the world's) greatest race drivers, Bernd Rosemeyer, on a newly opened part of the Avus Race track in Berlin. A former motorcycle racer, Rosemeyer knew none of the limitations gained by experience in racing automobiles that many of his contemporaries were limited by. He was a very fast driver, so much so that he would die in an accident later in 1937. Married to a famous German aviatrix, the couple had one son who lives in the vicinity of Munich. I have not read accounts of the Avus in English, although without doubt there exist German language histories.

I'll be shifting gears to the California scene shortly, as I just arrived in San Diego.

Follow Up -- Lisa, her Mustang Convertible, and a Groundhog

Hi folks -- when I posted Lisa's auto-biographical account with her Mustang, a groundhog, and the back end of a new Mercedes I did not have the proper photos of Lisa as a 17 year old and the Mustang. Well, here they are!

I purchased the Mustang convertible in February of 1991 at the Budget car lot at the Dayton airport. I had about 7,000 miles on it and came from a rental facility in Savannah, GA. Like Lisa, I loved that car. It was not a GT, and thus was underpowered with only a 4 cylinder engine and an automatic transmission, but I didn't care. You might call it a ladies, car, but I still don't care!

Sometimes simplicity and modesty are the best course to follow, and that includes when dealing with cars. The Mustang had many options, but it was anything but a fast car. I added a computer chip to give it a bit more oomph, Koni shocks and struts, and it was certainly faster than my old 1959 MGA. And it was reliable. It got me where I wanted to go. And nothing was better than after a hard day at work to put the top down and drive home. I was the best car I ever owned.

Summer is Over! Labor Day Weekend Holiday at Home Car Show, Kettering , Ohio

As Roy Orbison used to croon, "It's over!" In this case it is summer, and the annual Holiday at Home weekend in Kettering, Ohio marks this last big summer weekend. The event spans several days, includes several bands, numerous craft and food booths, and a car show, which frankly was disappointing this year. There were very few interesting cars, and indeed there were cars that were equally or more interesting in the parking lot than officially registered for the show. My favorite parking lot car was a 1966 Plymouth Barracuda that sported a huge hood scoop. There were mud jeeps, Fords including a 1946 and a 1957 Skyliner, a Lotus Europa, etc. etc., some military vehicles, but nothing in this viewers mind to make your blood move quicker.
There will be a few more fall car shows and events, but we have turned the corner here in Ohio, and cooler weather with more rain is on the way. In act, it is raining right now!

Labor Day Thoughts -- Auto Workers and the Cars We Love -- HBO's "The Last Truck."

When the first Model T rolled off Henry Ford's assembly line, the automobile forever changed the economic and cultural landscape of America.
But as Americans, we have taken for granted the folks who toiled to make automobility viable. Cars and trucks are not made by singing, cobbling gnomes.
The Last Truck: The Closing of a GM Plant reminds us about these everyday working people. They are the often under-appreciated, blue collar workers who for generations have struggled with fatigue, monotony and less-than-understanding supervisors to assemble the vehicles we drive and sometimes love.
Yet, at the same time, those working in the industry – both labor and management – took for granted the love that we had for our cars. Indeed, during the past 30 years, the American car consumer looked for love, but Detroit rarely supplied it. And like any neglected love, it can easily die.
The Last Truck contains a number of truths, it also contains some distortions not congruent with the historical record concerning workers and the assembly line.
The truths are reflected in the lines etched on the faces of a group of blue collar line workers. A few of the dozens of workers interviewed emerge as stars: Paul "Popeye" Doyle, Kate Geiger, Rick Stacy, Darlene Henson, Kim Clay and Louis Carter. In virtually every case, working for General Motors not only helped define their lives but made a far better life possible.
As much as one might criticize Henry Ford's assembly line, it did result in an unprecedented engine of economic growth that resulted in higher real wages across all class lines. And in the film we learn that relationships more than compensated for the long hours and bodily aches and pains anyone working on the line experiences. The tears shed in the end, on the last day, are not simply for the loss of a job, but for the loss of friendships that helped make it all worthwhile.
What happened in Moraine on Dec. 23, 2008, shouldn't surprise anyone. The economic factors leading to the automobile industry's decline have been well documented. But economic matters aside, something far more profound happened culturally to hasten the closing of the Moraine facility.
Starting in the early 1970s, America's love affair with the automobile began to wane. Almost imperceptible at first, it has now come to the point where most Americans view the automobile more as an appliance than as an object of desire. And while there are still enthusiasts, the average person thinks of his or her vehicle only in terms of convenience, rather than style, status and individuality. Camrys and Accords rule. Thus, when the economy began to turn sour, folks walked away from dealers' showrooms, and the industry brought this calamity on itself.
The film hints at GM's incompetent management, and there is more than a bit of truth to this assertion. Worker wage, health care and pension differentials cannot alone be responsible for the closing of the Moraine facility. Labor is not responsible for the decision to make large, gas-guzzling SUVs without considering future petroleum shortages, energy dependency and fluctuating consumer demand. There was a lack of vision among Detroit Three executives, and we are now reaping the consequences. Everything rises and falls on leadership, and GM has had a dearth of effective leadership for a long time.
But while the film has its obvious strengths, it also has flaws. Filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar inordinately romanticize the blue collar worker. Their portrayal is certainly at odds with the view of assembly line work at GM Ben Hamper characterized in his 1991 memoir Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line. Not every worker loved his brothers and sisters, nor did all take pride in the job. Worker alienation was a reality. Undoubtedly workers came to work stoned, drunk and disaffected, but we see none of this in The Last Truck. In fact, when one listens carefully to the interviews, the job was not seen by many as so important until it was about to go away.
Is it inevitable that these jobs are gone forever? Perhaps not, for history provides us with many lessons from the past where unlikely outcomes happen. In the meantime, Americans would do well the next time we buckle up in our car or trucks to remember the people like those we see in The Last Truck who make what we use and love possible.