JA Prestwich Industries
JA Prestwich Industries, was an English manufacturing company named after founder John Alfred Prestwich, formed in 1951 by the amalgamation of J. A. Prestwich and Company Limited and Pencils Ltd. John Prestwich, an engineer, commenced manufacture of scientific instruments in 1895, when he was 20 behind his father's house at 1 Lansdowne Road, London. By 1911 he had moved to new premises in Tariff Road, within the Northumberland Park area of Tottenham and which still exists as of 2015. Prestwich was best known for his cinematography cameras and projectors He worked with S. Z. de Ferranti and the cinema pioneer William Friese-Greene. In about 1902 J. A. Prestwich and Company started the manufacture of motorcycle engines which were used in many famous motorcycle marques; the motorcycle engines were associated with racing and record success and were still used in speedway bikes well into the 1960s. Prestwich made some engines for aeroplanes. In 1919 Prestwich formed Pencils Limited to exploit his invention of new machinery and the company made Master Pencils in Tariff Road.
In the nineteen thirties engine production focused on small industrial and agricultural engines. During WWII Prestwich produced around 240,000 industrial petrol engines in support of the war effort, together with millions of aircraft parts, etc. In 1951 the assets of J. A. Prestwich and Company Limited and Pencils Ltd were taken over by J. A. Prestwich Industries Limited, registered on 23 April 1951 and floated on the London Stock Exchange shortly after. By 1957 all the shares in the company had been acquired by Villiers Engineering Company Limited of Wolverhampton, which made motorcycle and industrial engines; the engineering works in Northumberland Park closed in 1963 and J. A. Prestwich Industries Limited was liquidated in 1964. Papers and publicity material relating to the company are held at the Bruce Castle Museum Tottenham and the Science Museum Library & Archives at the Science Museum at Wroughton. From 1904 to 1908 complete motorcycles were produced from the development of the first overhead valve motorcycle engine to be produced in the UK.
After that the factory concentrated on supplying its engines to other manufacturers, including Brough Superior, Triumph Motorcycles, A. J. Stevens & Co. Ltd, Enfield Cycle Co, Hazlewoods Limited, Zenith Motorcycles, HRD Motorcycles, the forerunner of Vincent Motorcycles. Machines that incorporated its engines included the AJS Model D, fabricated for the Russians in the First World War. JAP exported significant numbers of engines to foreign motorcycle manufacturers including Dresch and Terrot in France, Ardie and Tornax in Germany. Latterly, JAP engines were used in motorcycle racing, most speedway or dirt track. Various enthusiasts continued development of the engine into the 70's for grass track and long track use. Variants included the use of twin spark plugs and early electronic ignition systems; some were modified to run as alcohol fuelled engines for speedway use. All the engines were 4 stroke. Use of the engine declined in the 70's as competing engines from Jawa-CZ and GM were developed giving better performance.
Early aircraft were light and basic, needed a reliable and lightweight engine to power them. JAP motorcycle engines were used in this application. A JAP engine was fitted in A V Roe's 1909 triplane, regarded as the first all-British aircraft, for a while Prestwich and Roe had a partnership. JA Prestwich at first would deliver the same engine to the aircraft manufacturer, allowing them to make local modifications – larger venturi tubes for the carburettor, to allow for greater air intake at altitude, but in the late 1920s/early 1930s JA Prestwich produced various heavier engines under licence, including those for the UK market for Aeronca. JAP engines were extensively used in cyclecars in the 1910 to 1914 period when they were popular with large numbers of small manufacturers. In 1914 JAP announced a new engine made for the cyclecar, a V-twin of 90mm bore and 85mm stroke; the engine had a larger flywheel than an enclosed magento drive. The engine was illustrated fitted to a Morgan three-wheeler.
In light of JAP's development of high powered but light engines for speedway, some low volume pre-war car manufacturers, including G. N. T. B. Morgan Motor Company and Reliant, used JAP engines to power their vehicles; this use of the JAP extended into motor racing after World War II. In its life, JA Prestwich produced components for other vehicle manufacturers, including the cylinder head for the Lotus Cortina and the early versions of the Ford-based Lotus Elan engine. Cinematographic equipment including cameras, mutoscopes and perforating machines, projectors, such as the Bioscope projectors for the Warwick Trading Company and Charles Urban, were produced by the company in the early part of the 20th century. Early models of the railway maintenance ganger's Wickham trolley, from 1948, used a vee-twin JAP engine; this drove through a friction drive. In the 1950s other Wickham trolleys used the 600 cc JAP engine and drove through a clutch, tail shaft and bevel drive. J. A. Prestwich made small utility engines under the JAP name for a variety of uses, both stationary and in motorised equipment.
They ranged in size from the smallest model 0 two-stroke engine to the much larger type 6 engine, were used on rotovators, generating sets, milking sets, water pumps, hay elevators
1961 Indianapolis 500
The 45th International 500-Mile Sweepstakes was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on Tuesday, May 30, 1961. For the first time since 1949, the Indianapolis 500 was not recognized on the World Championship calendar; the race celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first Indy 500 in 1911. Eddie Sachs and A. J. Foyt were battling for 1st-2nd in the latter stages of the race. On Foyt's final scheduled pit stop, his crew was unable to properly engage the fuel mechanism, his car did not take on a full load of fuel. Foyt returned to the track, was pulling away from Sachs. Foyt's car was running faster due to the light fuel load, but his crew signaled him that he would be unable to make it to the finish without another pit stop; the crew borrowed a fuel feed mechanism from Len Sutton's team, signaled Foyt to the pits. Foyt gave up the lead on lap 184 for a splash-and-go; that handed the lead to Sachs, now leading by 25 seconds. With three laps to go, the warning tread showed on Sachs' rear tire and Sachs decided to play it safe.
Rather than nurse the car around, he pitted to replace the worn tire on lap 197. Foyt took the lead with three laps to go and won his first Indy 500 victories by a margin of 8.28 seconds. A notable story included the appearance of two-time defending Formula One World Champion Jack Brabham from Australia, who drove the race in a low-slung, British built Cooper powered by a Coventry Climax engine. Dubbed the "British Invasion," it would be the first notable post-war appearance of a rear-engined car, within five years the rear-engined revolution would take over the Speedway; the venerable front-engined roadsters with their larger and more powerful engines were much faster down the long straights, but the superior handling of Brabham's Cooper in the corners kept his car competitive. Brabham qualified 17th at 145.144 mp/h and drove the car to a respectable 9th-place finish, completing all 200 laps. He had planned to run conservatively and make only two pit stops, but tire wear and fuel consumption forced him to make a 3rd stop, negating his strategy.
Had he driven more aggressively with three pit stops, he might have been much closer to the lead serial. Five months after the race in October 1961, the front straight of the track was paved over with asphalt, thus the entire track was now paved in asphalt and only a single yard of bricks at the start/finish line was left exposed from the original 1909 brick surface; the remainder of the original 3,200,000 bricks now lie underneath the asphalt surface. This meant that the 1961 race was the last 500 in which cars raced on the original bricks other than those at the start/finish line. Nicknamed the "Tinley Park Express," Tony Bettenhausen, Sr. was killed in a crash during a practice run on May 12. He was testing a car for Paul Russo, it was determined that an anchor bolt fell off the front radius rod support, permitting the front axle to twist and mis-align the front wheels when the brakes were applied. The car plunged into the outside wall rode along the top, snapping fence poles and tearing segments of the catch fence.
The car came to rest upside-down on top of the outside wall, Bettenhausen was killed instantly. Before the time trials Bettenhausen had been the favorite to become the first driver to break the 150 mph barrier at the Speedway. Time trials was scheduled for four days: Saturday May 13 – Pole Day time trials Sunday May 14 – Second day time trials Saturday May 20 – Third day time trials Sunday May 21 – Fourth day time trialsEddie Sachs sat on the pole with an average speed of 147.481 mph. First alternate: Paul Russo John Masariu, 38 father of 6, of Danville, Indiana was serving as a member of the fire/safety crew. On the 127th lap of the race, driver Eddie Johnson spun out in turn 4, but did not suffer significant damage and he was not injured. A small fire broke out on the car. A safety fire truck went to his aid. John Masariu, the principal of Ben Davis Junior High and was serving as a safety worker, fell or jumped off the back of the fire truck. A moment the truck driven by James Williams accidentally backed over him, he was injured fatally.
The race was carried live on the IMS Radio Network. Sid Collins served as chief announcer with Fred Agabashian serving as "driver expert" The broadcast represented the 10th anniversary of the network, formed in 1952; this was Mike Ahern's first year on the network. This was Ahern's only year in Turn 2; the broadcast was heard on over 450 affiliates, including Armed Forces Radio. The broadcast reached all 50 U. S. states. The race reached 100 million listeners worldwide; the race itself was not televised in full. However, ABC Sports showed highlights of time trials and a few minutes of film clips of the race on Wide World of Sports. Indianapolis 500 History: Race & All-Time Stats - Official Site 1961 Indianapolis 500 Radio Broadcast, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500-Mile Race is an automobile race held annually at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, United States, an enclave suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana. The event is held over Memorial Day weekend in late May, it is contested as part of the IndyCar Series, the top level of American Championship Car racing, an open-wheel open-cockpit formula colloquially known as "Indy Car Racing". The name of the race is shortened to Indy 500, the track itself is nicknamed "the Brickyard", as the racing surfacing was paved in brick in the fall of 1909; the event, billed as The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, is considered part of the Triple Crown of Motorsport, which comprises three of the most prestigious motorsports events in the world including the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The official attendance is not disclosed by Speedway management, but the permanent seating capacity is upwards of 250,000, infield patrons raise the race-day attendance to 300,000; the inaugural race was won by Ray Harroun.
The event celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2011, the 100th running was held in 2016. Will Power is the current champion; the most successful drivers are A. J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr. and Rick Mears, each of whom have won the race four times. The active driver with the most victories is Hélio Castroneves, with three. Rick Mears holds the record for most career pole positions with six; the most successful car owner is Roger Penske, owner of Team Penske, which has 17 total wins and 17 poles. The event is steeped in tradition, in pre-race ceremonies, post-race celebrations, race procedure; the most noteworthy and most popular traditions are the 33-car field, the annual singing of "Back Home Again in Indiana," and the victory lane bottle of milk. The Indianapolis 500 is held annually at a 2.5-mile oval circuit. Technically, the track is a unique rounded-rectangle, with four distinct turns of identical dimensions, connected by four straightaways. Drivers race 200 laps, counter-clockwise around the circuit, for a distance of 500 miles.
Since its inception in 1911, the race has always been scheduled around Memorial Day. Since 1974, the race has been scheduled for the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend; the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend is considered one of the most important days on the motorsports calendar, as it is the day of the Indianapolis 500, Coca-Cola 600, the Monaco Grand Prix. Practice and time trials are held in the two weeks leading up to the race, while other preliminary testing is held as early as April. Traditionally, the field consists of 33 starters, aligned in a starting grid of eleven rows of three cars apiece; the event is contested by "Indy cars", a formula of professional-level, single-seat, open cockpit, open-wheel, purpose-built race cars. As of 2018, all entrants utilize 2.2 L V6, twin-turbocharged engines, tuned to produce a range of 550–700 horsepower. Chevrolet and Honda are the current engine manufacturers involved in the sport. Dallara is at present the sole chassis supplier to the series. Firestone, which has a deep history in the sport, dating back to the first 500, is the exclusive tire provider.
The race is the most prestigious event of the IndyCar calendar, one of the oldest and most important automobile races. It has been avouched to be the largest single-day sporting event in the entire world; the Indianapolis Motor Speedway itself is regarded as the world's largest sporting facility in terms of capacity. The total purse exceeded $13 million in 2011, with over $2.5 million awarded to the winner, making it one of the richest cash prize funds in sports. Similar to NASCAR's Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500 is held early in the IndyCar Series season; that is unique to most sports where major events are at the end of the respective season. The Indy 500 is the sixth event of the 17-race IndyCar schedule. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Indianapolis was the second or third race of the season, as late as the 1950s, it was sometimes the first championship event of the year. Due to the high prestige of the Indianapolis 500—rivaling or surpassing the season championship—it is not uncommon for some teams and drivers to concentrate on preparation for the 500 during the early part of the season, not focus on the championship battle until after Indy.
The traditional 33-car starting field at Indianapolis is larger than the fields at the other IndyCar races. The field at Indy consists of all of the full-time IndyCar Series entries, along with 10–15 part-time or "Indy-only" entries; the "Indy-only" entries popularly called "One-Offs", may be an extra car added to an existing full-time team, or a part-time team altogether that does not enter any of the other races. The "Indy-only" drivers may come from a wide range of pedigrees, but are experienced Indy car drivers that either lack a full-time ride, are former full-time drivers that have elected to drop down to part-time status, or occasional one-off drivers from other racing disciplines, it is not uncommon for some drivers, to quit full-time driving during the season, but race at Indy singly for numerous years afterwards before entering full retirement. Due to safety issues such as aquaplaning, the race is not held in wet conditions. In the event of a rain delay, the race will be postponed until rain showers cease, the track is sufficiently dried.
If rain falls during the race, officials can end the race and declare the results official if more than half of the scheduled distance (i.e. 101 lap
Mexico
Mexico the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States. Covering 2,000,000 square kilometres, the nation is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent state in the world. With an estimated population of over 120 million people, the country is the eleventh most populous state and the most populous Spanish-speaking state in the world, while being the second most populous nation in Latin America after Brazil. Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and Mexico City, a special federal entity, the capital city and its most populous city. Other metropolises in the state include Guadalajara, Puebla, Tijuana and León. Pre-Columbian Mexico dates to about 8000 BC and is identified as one of five cradles of civilization and was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its politically powerful base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, administered as the viceroyalty of New Spain.
Three centuries the territory became a nation state following its recognition in 1821 after the Mexican War of Independence. The post-independence period was tumultuous, characterized by economic inequality and many contrasting political changes; the Mexican–American War led to a territorial cession of the extant northern territories to the United States. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, two empires, the Porfiriato occurred in the 19th century; the Porfiriato was ended by the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system as a federal, democratic republic. Mexico has the 11th largest by purchasing power parity; the Mexican economy is linked to those of its 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement partners the United States. In 1994, Mexico became the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts.
The country is considered both a regional power and a middle power, is identified as an emerging global power. Due to its rich culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas and seventh in the world for number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Mexico is an ecologically megadiverse country, ranking fourth in the world for its biodiversity. Mexico receives a huge number of tourists every year: in 2018, it was the sixth most-visited country in the world, with 39 million international arrivals. Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus group of the UN, the Pacific Alliance trade bloc. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely the Valley of Mexico and surrounding territories, with its people being known as the Mexica, it is believed to be a toponym for the valley which became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result, although it could have been the other way around.
In the colonial era, back when Mexico was called New Spain this territory became the Intendency of Mexico and after New Spain achieved independence from the Spanish Empire it came to be known as the State of Mexico with the new country being named after its capital: the City of Mexico, which itself was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Traditionally, the name Tenochtitlan was thought to come from Nahuatl tetl and nōchtli and is thought to mean "Among the prickly pears rocks". However, one attestation in the late 16th-century manuscript known as "the Bancroft dialogues" suggests the second vowel was short, so that the true etymology remains uncertain; the suffix -co is the Nahuatl locative, making the word a place name. Beyond that, the etymology is uncertain, it has been suggested that it is derived from Mextli or Mēxihtli, a secret name for the god of war and patron of the Mexica, Huitzilopochtli, in which case Mēxihco means "place where Huitzilopochtli lives".
Another hypothesis suggests that Mēxihco derives from a portmanteau of the Nahuatl words for "moon" and navel. This meaning might refer to Tenochtitlan's position in the middle of Lake Texcoco; the system of interconnected lakes, of which Texcoco formed the center, had the form of a rabbit, which the Mesoamericans pareidolically associated with the moon rabbit. Still another hypothesis suggests that the word is derived from Mēctli, the name of the goddess of maguey; the name of the city-state was transliterated to Spanish as México with the phonetic value of the letter x in Medieval Spanish, which represented the voiceless postalveolar fricative. This sound, as well as the voiced postalveolar fricative, represented by a j, evolved into a voiceless velar fricative during the 16th century; this led to the use of the variant Méjico in many publications in Spanish, most notably in Spain, whereas in Mexico and most other Spanish–speaking countries, México was the preferred spelling. In recent years, the Real Academia Española, which regulates the Spanish l
Peter Collins (racing driver)
Peter John Collins was a British racing driver. He was killed in the 1958 German Grand Prix, just weeks after winning the RAC British Grand Prix, he started his career as a 17-year-old in 1949, impressing in Formula 3 races, finishing third in the 1951 Autosport National Formula 3 Championship. Born on 6 November 1931, Collins grew up in Kidderminster, in Worcestershire; the son of a motor-garage owner and haulage merchant, Collins became interested in motor vehicles at a young age. He was expelled from school at 16 owing to spending time at a local fairground during school hours, he began competing in local trials races. In common with many British drivers of the time, Collins began racing in the 500 cc category, when his parents bought him a Cooper 500 from the fledgling Cooper Car Company. Success for Collins started once he switched to the JBS-Norton in 1951; those small vehicles, powered by Norton motorcycle engines, were the proving ground of many of Collins's F1 contemporaries, including Stirling Moss.
His breakthrough came, away from the track, when at a party hosted by the great pre-war lady racer, Kay Petre, Collins managed to inveigle himself with John Wyer, the team principal at Aston Martin, earning his test drive at Silverstone. During that test, Aston was joined by the Formula 2 team, HWM – and by the time the teams were preparing to leave, Collins had a contract with both. At HWM Collins he became part of a three-car team with Lance Macklin and Moss, they competed in most of the F2 races in Britain and in Europe. Collins showed in speed, but the underfinanced HWM-Alta finished a race, his best result was second place in the Grand Prix des Sables d'Olonne. Collins got his Formula One break in 1952, with HWM, his best result in a World Champion event was sixth in the Grand Prix de l'ACF at Rouen-Les-Essarts. Success did not come the team's way, Collins left after the 1953 season. Not known for his technical knowledge, Collins was happy to have his mechanics set up his car, he drove it with his consummate natural skill.
This was evident in 1954, when Tony Vandervell signed Collins to drive the fearsome "Thinwall Special". The potent machine was a crowd pleaser at Formula Libre events, he was amongst the first to handle the "Vanwall Special" on the world stage, but he only finished seventh in the Grand Premio d'ItaliaAfter being a constant thorn in BRM's side, he joined the team for the 1955 season. He raced a Maserati 250F belonging to team owner, Alfred Owen, winning the BRDC International Trophy and the London Trophy; these results led to a drive with the works Maserati in the Gran Premio d'Italia. Meanwhile, he had better success in sportscars. Throughout the first half of the 1950s, Collins was a stalwart performer for the Aston Martin team, scoring a sensational victory at the 1952 Goodwood Nine Hours race; the following year he took the Aston Martin DB3S he shared with Pat Griffith to victory in the RAC Tourist Trophy at Dundrod. Further successes included second places in an Aston Martin DB3S at Le Mans in 1955 and 1956 with Paul Frère and Moss respectively.
For the 1956 season, Collins joined Ferrari on the strength of a superb drive in the previous year's Targa Florio, in which he partnered Moss to victory in a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. This proved to be a turning point, with a solid second-place finish behind Moss at the Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco, wins at the Grote Prijs van Belgie and Grand Prix de l'ACF. In those early days at Ferrari, Collins earnt the unstinting admiration of Enzo Ferrari, devastated by the untimely death from muscular dystrophy at age 24 of his son and who turned to Collins for solace, treating him as a member of the family. Collins was on the verge of becoming Britain's first F1 World Champion when he handed his Lancia-Ferrari D50 over to team leader Juan Manuel Fangio after the latter suffered a steering-arm failure toward the end of the Gran Premio d'Italia at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza. Collins finished second, but the advantage handed to Moss, the extra points gained by Fangio's finish, demoted Collins to third place in the championship.
Collins's selfless act gained him respect from Enzo Ferrari and high praise from Fangio: "I was moved to tears by the gesture... Peter was one of the finest and greatest gentlemen I met in my racing career." Meanwhile, in sports cars, he finished second in a Ferrari 860 Monza in the Mille Miglia and at the Swedish Sports Car GP in a Ferrari 290MM with Wolfgang von Trips in 1956. These three were back-to-back, his last World Sports Car Championship podium was another second place at the'Ring with Mike Hawthorn. In 1956, Collins moved to Monaco to avoid compulsory military service in the British Army and thus continue his racing career. In January 1957, Collins married American actress Louise King, daughter of the executive assistant to UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, the couple took up residence on a yacht in Monaco harbour. In the same year, Collins was joined at Ferrari by Hawthorn; the two became close friends arranging to split their winnings between each other, together engaged in a fierce rivalry with fellow Ferrari driver Luigi Musso.
However, despite a third-place finish at the Groβer Preis von Deutschland, Ferrari were disadvantaged for much of the season as the 801 model was overweig
Fiat 500 "Topolino"
The Fiat 500 known as "Topolino", is an Italian city car produced and manufactured by Fiat from 1936 to 1955. The name "Topolino" is Italian and translates as "little mouse" in English, but is the Italian name for Mickey Mouse; the Topolino was one of the smallest cars in the world at the time of its production. Launched in 1936, three models were produced until 1955, all with only minor mechanical and cosmetic changes, it was equipped with a 569 cc four-cylinder, side-valve, water-cooled engine mounted in front of the front axle, so was a full-scale car rather than a cyclecar. The radiator was located behind the engine which made possible a lowered aerodynamic nose profile at a time when competitors had a flat, nearly vertical grille; the shape of the car's front allowed exceptional forward visibility. Rear suspension used quarter-elliptic rear springs, but buyers squeezed four or five people into the nominally two-seater car, in models the chassis was extended at the rear to allow for more robust semi-elliptic springs.
With horsepower of about 13 bhp, its top speed was about 53 mph, it could achieve about 39.2 miles per US gallon. The target price given when the car was planned was 5,000 lire. In the event the price at launch was 9,750 lire, though the decade was one of falling prices in several parts of Europe and in the 1930s the Topolino was sold for about 8,900 lire. Despite being more expensive than first envisioned, the car was competitively priced. Nearly 520,000 were sold. Three models were produced. Model A and B shared the same body, only the engine of model B had 16 hp, vs. 13 hp of Model A. Model A was produced from 1937 to 1948, while B was produced in 1948 and 1949. Model A was offered as a 2-door saloon, 2-door convertible saloon and a 2-door van, while Model B introduced a 3-door estate under the name 500 B Giardinetta; the Giardinetta was at the beginning only available as a so-called woodie, i.e. with an outside ash frame and available in seven metallic colors. When it was renamed Belvedere, the wood was replaced with metal.
This model as well as the regular two-seater Convertible-Limousine were produced in Germany by the German Fiat daughter NSU-Fiat. Model C was introduced in 1949 with a restyled body and the same engine as Model B, was offered in 2-door saloon, 2-door convertible saloon, 3-door estate and 2-door van versions. In 1952, Giardinetta was renamed Belvedere. Model C was produced until 1955. In 1955 the larger rear-wheel-drive Fiat 600 was launched by Fiat and that would become the design basis for the new Fiat 500, the Nuova 500. Fiat 500 History - Gizmohighway Auto Guide Jay Leno talks about his Topolino "Soviet-italian comic car AHCHOO-2"
Stirling Moss
Maurice Trintignant
Jack Brabham
Bruce McLaren
Jochen Rindt
Pedro Rodríguez
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