47 replies to this topic

[Leif Snellman]

A friend of mine started to wonder how old color pictures exists of racing cars. The oldest stills I remember seeing are from Anthony Prichard's book "Historic Motor Racing" and are from the 1938 Swiss GP (not the 1937 Swiss GP as said in the book). I have also seen color films from the 1937 season (German GP, Coppa Acerbo, Swiss GP) taken by George Monkhouse. Surely someone here can find something older than that!

[Marcor]

In the page http://www.geocities...5427/prewar.htm
you can see a prewar-racing gallery with a colour picture of Tazio Nuvolari taken at Roosevelt Raceway on Long Island during practice for the Vanderbilt cup race in 1937.

This is a page of the website of Scuderia Zelanda (Holland), the homepage is http://leden.tref.nl/~hubro/

I try to find an older in my library, but I've no hope.

[Hans Etzrodt]

There is a picture of Neubauer standing next to #28 car at the French GP in Reims. The race was held on 3. July 1938 and precedes the Swiss GP on 21. August 1938. Found the picture in "RACING CARS, RACING CARS, RACING CARS, RACING CARS" by Richard Hough

A second picture also at Reims shows #26 Mercedes with von Brauchitsch at speed and can be found on page 123 of Ivan Rendall's "The Power and the Glory"

[Eric McLoughlin]

What about old colour movies?. The BBC documentary "Supercharged" featured some colour film of the 1938 German GP and the 1938 Donington GP. It was mainly 8mm home movie footage.

[Leif Snellman]

Eric

Both the 1937 George Monkhouse filmes I was talking about and the 1938 footage you mention appears in "Supercharged"

[Don Capps]

Just a quick eyeball at some of my "stuff" and 1938 seems to be "the" year...

The Pritchard photo is H.P. Mueller at Donington Park in the Typ D.

However, I did find a color photo by Klemantaski of Nino Farina in an Alfa 312 at Berne in Richard Hough & Michaels Frostick's A History of the World's Racing Cars from 1965. It also has a 1939 photo of Johnnie Wakefield in a Maserati 4CL at Crystal Palace in a Maserati 4CL....

[Darren]

I'm fairly confident in saying that Monkhouse was the first cinematographer to experiment in colour in the field of GP racing. However, confidence is far from knowledge.

[Ray Bell]

Putting an Australian slant on this (as a sub-issue, if you like) I have colour movie (transferred to video, of course) of Lowood in 1948 and the start of the AGP of 1949 at Leyburn. There's only a little of it, naturally, but it is oh, so good.
I know of one gent with colour slides of Southport in 1955 (the year after the GP there), and it was the only time he ever saw a race, and I have further professional colour movie of a couple of late-fifties Albert Parks.
In private hands around the world I would think that you could ultimately find many thousands of slides from the 1947-49 era... if you start now, before they die and their kids throw them out... It's happening at an ever-increasing rate.
Another contact has plans to gather movie back to the start of the 20th century of motoring competition. He reckons family throw movie out quicker than stills. Worrying!

[Kvadrat]

Oldest colour film I've seen is from 1937 Monaco Grand Prix. It was on August 8, 1937. Here are some screenshots:



Then there was Coppa Acerbo on August 15:



Finally for 1937 there's colour film from Donington Grand Prix on October 2:

[Gary C]

funnily enough, I was chatting to David Weguelin the other week and was musing about the Grand Prix that would have the most film coverage. (or at least, moving image coverage), dis-regarding any modern video coverage. I was right in guessing that the 1938 British Grand Prix would probably end up being the one race with most people taking movies of it.
Added to the lovely Monkhouse footage, plus others, there was quite a few reels of amateur stuff taken also. Now, I'm putting my hand up in the air & volunteering to find it all and edit it all back together & release it all on DVD! If only.......................

[Steve L]

I think Prince Bira (or Chula?) filmed a lot of pre-war motor racing in colour?

Don't know if this included Grand Prix, though.

I believe the Brooklands Museum bought the collection a few years back - it would be great to see it out on DVD (Yesterdays Racers/Motorfilms Quarterly)?

[Gary C]

Steve, as far as I recall, Brooklands doesn't have hardly anything in their own collection. All they have are copies of other people's stuff. I WILL chase it up though.

[Steve L]

Hi Gary,

On second thoughts, maybe it was the Brooklands SOCIETY!

[Gary C]

ah--yes, in that case, you could well be right!

[Bjorn Kjer]

Has anything new been found since the start of this thread ?

[jarama]

In Jenkinson's "Maserati 3011 The Story of a Racing Car" there's a nice colour picture -signed by Klemantaski- of Bira during the JCC International Trophy Race @ Brooklands (May 7th 1938).

Carles.

[Bjorn Kjer]

Thanks Carles for reminding me I have this book . Also found out why its more blue than his later ones !

[Doug Nye]

I have colour photographs of Hans Ruesch's Alfa 8C at Crystal Palace in 1937/8 (would have to look up which!) and Kvadrat's colour stills are from George Monkhouse experimental colour movie shot at Monaco in 1937 - rights now owned by the Spitzley Collection, Brailes, nr Banbury, Oxon. We also have some of George's very early experimental colour footage - rather blue... - taken at Brooklands as early as 1935 it would appear. When Weg found it he remarked "This is colour movie before colour movie was invented...". Not quite true but Kodachrome 16mm colour movie stock - George worked for Kodak - was launched in 1935.

I have seen some stunning glass plate colour transparencies of a whicker-bodied light car taken I believe by John Henry Knight - builder of the first British motor car here in Farnham in the 1890s - and they dated from 1911! I believe these were Autochrome process plates produced by the Lumiere Freres in France from 1907. The Wikipedia entry on colour photography seems pretty sensible (for once) listing many precedents way back to the 1860s. Leon Douglass supposedly made the first colour feature movie in the US in 1917.

So an immensely laborious colour photography technology was available very early on pre-WW1, but I have never seen any evidence that it was ever let loose upon a Grand Prix car subject. Though I'd like to bet it WAS!

DCN

[Roger Clark]

A few months ago, there was a series of programmes on BBC television about Albert Kahn, a French banker and philanthropist. From 1908 to 1930 he sponsored the activities of a large number of photographers taking colour pictures all over the world. He eventually amassed a collection of around 72,000 shots. The television programme could only show a small selection, but the quality was excellent. I couldn't help wondering whether any of those cameras was ever pointed at a racing car. There is a museum in Paris.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
.....So an immensely laborious colour photography technology was available very early on pre-WW1, but I have never seen any evidence that it was ever let loose upon a Grand Prix car subject. Though I'd like to bet it WAS!

Surely it would have been... but...

I would expect that action shots could be ruled out. If more recent colour film performance is any guide, the speed rating of the colour would have been well below that of the monochrome of the day and therefore not entirely suited to 'fast' pics.

Pre-race or post-race pics, possibly accident pics, 'car launches' etc should probably limit their scope.

[Allan Lupton]

Originally posted by Ray Bell


Surely it would have been... but...

I would expect that action shots could be ruled out. If more recent colour film performance is any guide, the speed rating of the colour would have been well below that of the monochrome of the day and therefore not entirely suited to 'fast' pics.

Pre-race or post-race pics, possibly accident pics, 'car launches' etc should probably limit their scope.

Quite agree, but the Lumiere Autochrome can't have been that slow, as Herbert Ponting (photographer on Scott's last expedition) took some good photos of the Aurora Australis, even though he was using stock that was past its "use by" date as the journey time was so long.

[simonlewisbooks]

The odd thing with colour photos and films in general is that they make the subject seem alive in a way that monchrome makes them seem very old (one hesitates to say 'dead'...) !
Think back to the 60s and it doesn't really seem 40+ years ago because so many of the films and so many of the photos that we are familiar with are in colour. Go back just a decade more to the 50s and it starts to look like ancient history simply because the bulk of what we see is in black and white.

Some years ago the colour film which George Stevens shot of the latter stages of WW2 were shown on TV and suddenly the people in the frame looked like people you somehow knew rather than black and white historical figures. The same thing happened with those pre WW1 colour photos already mentioned and the Frieze-Green colour films from the 20s also shown on the BBC in recent months. It seems inconceivable that many of those featured would now be 120 years old or more...

[Bjorn Kjer]

So right Simon , having worked a lot on prewar as well as the 40es lately I found on
www.brooklands.org.uk a lot of pics from Biras films from 1935 onwards . Lots of b/w then suddenly some allthough pale ,in colours, and even e few quite sharp ! Now , I have seen other cars from then in colour but
mostly paintings, drawings ,historic racing etc. , so I caught myself smiling , and thinking oh thats just like the 50es and 60es before the pomp and circusdances ! Lovely and in facts very exciting and very alive !
Also looking on this thread at the German silver arrows , the nearly look unreal in colour!

[Doug Nye]

Quite right Simon - on Motorfilms Quarterly the staggering quality Kodachrome movie footage from the Isle of Man and Jersey 1947-48-49 has precisely that effect - Real Life. Had there been colour coverage of World War 1 carnage - showing the public red blood - WW2 might, just might, not have happened...????

DCN

[Paul Parker]

If nobody has mentioned it there is some rather pale colour in David W's ERA bible from 1937ish I seem to recall.

I can't access the book just now but I thought I'd mention it.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Paul Parker
If nobody has mentioned it there is some rather pale colour in David W's ERA bible from 1937ish I seem to recall.

I can't access the book just now but I thought I'd mention it.

Mine was to hand, and you're right, Paul. Some very washed-out ones from the 1938 International Trophy showing Howe and Mays in the works cars, but looking more blue than green. There's also a much better 1938 one of Wakefield at Berne and several more taken in 1939 (of varying quality!)

[simonlewisbooks]

The washed-out-colour comes in two basic types which someone once told me depended on the make of film. Kodak I think went blue-green over time if not stored in the right conditions or fixed properly in the first place and most of the other types go red-pink. You do see this quite often with colour slides from the 50s , 60s and even 70s.

Luckily with modern digital equipment it is possible to correct some quite bad fading of this type. However, in case any of you have boxes of old slides sat in the cupboard which you havn't looked at for years, it's important to remember; the earlier you get them scanned and corrected the better the result will be.

[Pavel Lifintsev]

Being recently at local Bosch office I noticed reproduction of an old advertisement hanging on the wall. The car pictured there was an Auto Union and it was in colour! I don’t know if this picture is colour indeed or is it just a coloured b/w photo (which seems very likely), but I think it’s great in any case. Sadly the car is slightly retouched and then there is this white arrow added to the road surface...

So we have here AU team manager Dr. Karl Feuereissen (?) signaling to Bernd Rosemeyer that he’s in the lead of the 1937 Eifelrennen, a mechanic showing that 2nd placed Caracciola is 36 secs behind, and also that wonderful example of the old Nurburgring architecture in the background. And by the way the race was held on June 13th, so it must be one of the earliest colour shots.



© Robert Bosch GmbH

[bradbury west]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
A few months ago, there was a series of programmes on BBC television about Albert Kahn, a French banker and philanthropist. From 1908 to 1930 he sponsored the activities of a large number of photographers taking colour pictures all over the world. He eventually amassed a collection of around 72,000 shots. The television programme could only show a small selection, but the quality was excellent.

A little OT perhaps, but perhaps timely today.
BBC2 are starting a re run of Albert Kahn's "photographic inventory of life on the planet" mentioned by Roger above, on Friday next at 7.30pm. Starting at the end of WW1, it covers the treaty at Versailles, immigrant workers in the French fields, post war poverty in Germany, and some lighter subjects in Deauville and Paris, all in early colour. I saw a couple of the programmes previously, and found them historically and socially fascinating.
Roger Lund.

[Gary C]

.ru, that doesn't look like a colour photograph to me, it looks like a 'colourised' black and white picture.

[onelung]

that doesn't look like a colour photograph to me, it looks like a 'colourised' black and white picture.

Absolutely agree: I recall Kodachrome in the early days having an ASA speed of 8 or 10: ie b****y slow .
So the car could not be "stopped" by the camera as it appears in that shot.
In fact I rather suspect that the shot is actually a montage of more than one photographic image tricked up to produce the end (colourised) effect.
These days, of course, we have digital technology and Photoshop.
Such is progress (sigh).

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by bradbury west


A little OT perhaps, but perhaps timely today.
BBC2 are starting a re run of Albert Kahn's "photographic inventory of life on the planet" mentioned by Roger above, on Friday next at 7.30pm. Starting at the end of WW1, it covers the treaty at Versailles, immigrant workers in the French fields, post war poverty in Germany, and some lighter subjects in Deauville and Paris, all in early colour. I saw a couple of the programmes previously, and found them historically and socially fascinating.
Roger Lund.

There is also a second series, showing on BBC 4.

[onelung]

We in the nether/colonial regions of this planet wait in hope that the series/program will eventually reach us.
It sounds wonderful!

[275 GTB-4]

Originally posted by onelung
Absolutely agree: I recall Kodachrome in the early days having an ASA speed of 8 or 10: ie b****y slow .
So the car could not be "stopped" by the camera as it appears in that shot.
In fact I rather suspect that the shot is actually a montage of more than one photographic image tricked up to produce the end (colourised) effect.
These days, of course, we have digital technology and Photoshop.
Such is progress (sigh).

I was going to add a warning about colourisation...but I always thought it was done by hand by little old ladies with brushes...didn't realise there was a developing technique to get you there

[klemcoll]

Several of the comments in this thread mention photos which were taken in fact by Louis Klemantaski who did some color work commencing in 1938 at Brooklands, the French GP at Reims, and at the Swiss GP at Bern. His work at that time was on Agfacolor which tends sometimes to go a bit greenish. And, yes, the ASA was 8.

[Pavel Lifintsev]

Originally posted by Gary C
.ru, that doesn't look like a colour photograph to me, it looks like a 'colourised' black and white picture.

I knew, there's something wrong with the picture!

Originally posted by .ru
I don't know if this picture is colour indeed or is it just a coloured b/w photo (which seems very likely)

Please, blame Bosch for that ''fake'', not me!

Actually I think that EVERY, even b/w photographic evidence of that era is worth seeing.

[onelung]

In fact, my preference is for B & W images: something specially "atmospheric" about them, particularly in certain scenarios.
This (damaged) image - 1937 Avus - is a case in point. Germany in the ascendancy, and not just on the race tracks; but how could the uniformed individual looking at the camera have possibly imagined what was to come in the next few years. His fate in the war ... ?
[IMG]http://img67.imagesh...navusfh5.th.jpg[/IMG]

[Kvadrat]

Originally posted by klemcoll
Several of the comments in this thread mention photos which were taken in fact by Louis Klemantaski who did some color work commencing in 1938 at Brooklands...

Like this?

[klemcoll]

We have not seen that photo before, so we cannot say if it was taken by Klemantaski, but it does not look like his type of shot. Louis told us many years ago that when he retired in about 1970 and moved from London to near Bath and was packing stuff up at his London house that his "daily" mistook one box for junk and tossed it in the garbage tip. Well, that box contained his pre-1936 negatives and also, he told us, some early color transparencies as well. Sic transit gloria mundi…

[bradbury west]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
A few months ago, there was a series of programmes on BBC television about Albert Kahn, a French banker and philanthropist. From 1908 to 1930 he sponsored the activities of a large number of photographers taking colour pictures all over the world. He eventually amassed a collection of around 72,000 shots.....

For those able to access UK BBC2 TV tonight there is the first of a series of programmes showing Albert Kahn colour photographs covering World War 1 in colour, centring on the French military activities in that period, at 7pm. 1900 hrs.
Roger Lund

[simonlewisbooks]

Originally posted by bradbury west


For those able to access UK BBC2 TV tonight there is the first of a series of programmes showing Albert Kahn colour photographs covering World War 1 in colour, centring on the French military activities in that period, at 7pm. 1900 hrs.
Roger Lund

Roger, it amazes me , as I'm sure it does you, that Mr Kahn's team chose to concentrate on such a specific time ..."French military activities in that period, at 7pm. 1900 hrs." at the expense of the other times of the day, for the entire war !;)

[bradbury west]

Originally posted by simonlewisbooks


Roger, it amazes me , as I'm sure it does you, that Mr Kahn's team chose to concentrate on such a specific time ..."French military activities in that period, at 7pm. 1900 hrs." at the expense of the other times of the day, for the entire war !;)

Simon, I am not amazed at all, since I understand the function of the comma after the word "period", and the purpose of the adjectival phrase describing the programmes, the photographs, or specifics of WW1, (take your pick), as well as the placing of the times at the end of the sentence to highlight the broadcast time for our readers.
Upon re-reading it, I do, however, concede the otherwise avoidable pleonasm, a prolixity of expression no less, with the word "colour".

I'll get you at playtime....

Roger

[simonlewisbooks]

Originally posted by bradbury west


Simon, I am not amazed at all, since I understand the function of the comma after the word "period", and the purpose of the adjectival phrase describing the programmes, the photographs, or specifics of WW1, (take your pick), as well as the placing of the times at the end of the sentence to highlight the broadcast time for our readers.
Upon re-reading it, I do, however, concede the otherwise avoidable pleonasm, a prolixity of expression no less, with the word "colour".

I'll get you at playtime....

Roger

Christ Roger, you don't expect me to understand big words like that do you? I'm from the Forest of Dean! Have Mercy...

[David McKinney]

I think what he's saying is that he wrote what he meant. Had he not had a comma after he word "period", your comment would be valid (now, where's the 'tongue in cheek' icon... )

[bradbury west]

I could comment on the absent comma between "Christ" and my name. The first is an exclamation, and should be separated by a comma, and the second simply an address by name, in the vocative, otherwise some might think Simon was elevating me far higher than my deserts.
RL

[David Beard]

Originally posted by simonlewisbooks


Christ Roger, you don't expect me to understand big words like that do you? I'm from the Forest of Dean! Have Mercy...

Enough...or get thee to the RC dungeon!

But, ah…you might know this place then, where my grandfather was briefly the chauffeur, driving a Sizaire-Berwick!

http://www.brideshea...totheCastle.jpg

[simonlewisbooks]

Originally posted by David Beard


Enough...or get thee to the RC dungeon!

But, ah…you might know this place then, where my grandfather was briefly the chauffeur, driving a Sizaire-Berwick!

http://www.brideshea...totheCastle.jpg

Yes indeed ! it's about 2 miles away from my house and my Granddad used to keep goats in the grounds during the 40s and 50s .
The castle was sold off in the 1930s to some pioneer assest-stripper who pulled all the lead off the roof , ripped up and flogged the floorboards in the ballroom, and anything else that he could move, leaving it in a hell of a state for many years. My grandad helped with the restoration when waelthy local-boy-made-good Frank Yates bought it. Nowadays a very popular place to get hitched!

Do you have any photos of your grandfather in that Sizaire-Berwick?

[David Beard]

Originally posted by simonlewisbooks

Do you have any photos of your grandfather in that Sizaire-Berwick?

I'm afraid not, Simon, but I do have a photo of the Sizaire-Berwick which came up in the Goodwood Bonham's auction 2 or 3 years ago. Perhaps rather than hi-jack this thread further I will put the photo in this thread...

http://forums.autosp...ick#post1111129