22 replies to this topic

[Spunout]

Since I am no history expert I´ll start with short introduction and hope you folks will continue from here

So colled "Eltsun ajot" were organized at Eläintarharata (eläintarha = zoo) circuit between 1933 and 1963. There were number of events - motorcycles, F3 cars, etc. After the wars those races were important events for a small country that had barely managed to repel the superior forces of Soviet Union. And of course fast cars were wonders for spectators, after all, any type of car was usually no more than distant dream for most Finns. Eltsu was located in Helsinki, basically very much "normal" 50s track, surrounded by trees and buildings.

Some info about the track

And HERE are some historical videos from Eltsu, from between 1950 and 1954. If anyone can tell the exact year...

Also, in case some of you like to play Papyrus F1 sim Grand Prix Legends, the track can be found from GPL track database?

The biggest star of Eltsu was Curt Lincoln, Finnish hobby racer. He was also the man behind Keimola, another Finnish circuit where one year before his last race (in Keimola) he had an opportunity to race against no lesser drivers than Jim Clark, Jack Brabham, Denny Hulme and Jochen Rindt. Curre was 50 years old at the time. Anyone knows more about those events?

"Curre" & his F1 friends

I´d appreciate any information and real-life stories about Eltsu and Curt Lincoln as well.

[starlet]

Originally posted by Spunout
And HERE are some historical videos from Eltsu, from between 1950 and 1954. If anyone can tell the exact year...

The first video shows ( at least in its second half ) the sportscars race, held on May 8, 1955.
Four cars can be seen :
# 6 : Björn Mårtensson (S) - Ferrari 250 MM
# 11 : Nikolai Kozarowitsky (SF) - Austin Healey 100
# 7 : Carl Lohmander (S) - Ferrari 250 MM
# 8 : Olle Persson (S) - Mercedes Benz 300SL

Hoping that it is useful.

[uechtel]

a wonderful impression of how the circuit was at that time.

Thanks for sharing it with us!

Unfortunately my Finnish is not very good...

[Spunout]

starlet,

Thanks for the information!

[Tomas Karlsson]

Great films!!
The second film must be from practice in 1955, although the old Ford in the first frame puzzles me. The cars that follows are Michael Head in a Jaguar D and Valdemar Stener in a Ferrari 375MM. Thereafter comes the Swedes John Kvarnström and Erik Lundgren in their Ford specials in front of Curt Lincoln in his blue and white Jaguar C. The cars in the film are from different classes, but in practice the cars were mixed.
The Ferrari Monza is Gunnar Carlsson, who later blew the engine and was a non-starter.
The two Allards are the Finnish drivers Väinö Miettinen and Asser Wallenius.
The Ferrari coupé that you see from the bridge are Mårtensson's 250MM. I can't identify the XK120, since there were at least two ( Geitel or Järvelin), but the hard-driven Alfa-Romeo is definitely the Swedish up-coming ace Jo Bonnier.

In the big race Head won in front of Lincoln, after Stener had crashed while trying to get past the D-type. Lincoln won the race for productionsports in the same C-type in front of Mårtensson, while Bonnier won the smaller class.

BTW The midget with #1 in the first film is Eric Brandon's Cooper and #21 is Leo Kuntola.

[Tomas Karlsson]

Although it's very dark, I would guess that the F3-film is from 1955 too. I think I can identify Ola By in a Cooper and Sven Andersson in his new Cooper. And there seems to be only one Effyh in the field.
Most of the film seems to be from practice. There are not many people watching and it is dark. They used to practice very early in the morning and the race in '55 had over 80000 spectators.
The F3-race was won by Eric Brandon in front of Hutchinson and Lincoln.

[Henk Vasmel]

To add to the cars already identified, The old Cabrio in the first frames of the second film is either one of the Ford V8 specials (Lundgren, Gerremo or Kvarnström) in the big race or the Peugeot 203 (Toivela) in the production car race. Since it is followed by a D-type, i'd go for one of the Fords.
After the D-type it is maybe the Maserati of Loens.
Among the other unidentified cars may be the Talbot of Carlsson.

After one minute the scene would then change to the Production car race.
The dark coupé which looks remarkably BMW is then either the Frazer-Nash of Gillberg (if that is a BMW clone), or the EMW of Keinänen, which in my list is given as DNA.
There is obviously the Panhard Dyna of Keskimäki, which I have as reserve, so maybe the shots are from the practice period. That would explain the absence of the Mercedes in any of the shots.

All this is of course when the 1955 date is correct. To me there is really no doubt about that.

Kind Regards,

Henk Vasmel

[Tomas Karlsson]

Sorry Henk!
I understand that you don't know more about the cars then what you have read in raceprograms, and that will not get us any further. As I wrote: the film is from practice and the cars are from different classes. They didn't all race together, and there were a lot more people attending the race.

To add to the cars already identified, The old Cabrio in the first frames of the second film is either one of the Ford V8 specials (Lundgren, Gerremo or Kvarnström) in the big race or the Peugeot 203 (Toivela) in the production car race. Since it is followed by a D-type, i'd go for one of the Fords.

The first open car is not one of the Swedish specials. Two of them can be seen in the next sequence. (I have sat in two of the cars and know them well.) The first car must be from the productionsports class. Siro Toivela's old Peugeot is a good guess. I have only seen pictures of it from other angels before, but it looks right.

After the D-type it is maybe the Maserati of Loens.

The car after the D-type is, as as wrote, Stener's 375MM, fresh from the body-builder in Italy. It had got a new Scaglietti-body and looked like a beefed-up Monza.
You can't see Loëns light-blue Maserati on the film, but I think the last car in the last shot is Brandon's Halseylec.

Among the other unidentified cars may be the Talbot of Carlsson.

Carlsson's Talbot is not shown in the film, but, as I wrote, both Kvarnström and Lundgren in their Ford specials.

After one minute the scene would then change to the Production car race.

The whole film must be from practice.

The dark coupé which looks remarkably BMW is then either the Frazer-Nash of Gillberg (if that is a BMW clone), or the EMW of Keinänen, which in my list is given as DNA.

Gillberg had a LeMans replica and is not in the film. But Keinänen's EMW is a good guess. He participated in practice, but didn't qualify.

[Tomas Karlsson]

So let's conclude what we have on the second film from Helsinki.
It is filmed during the first practice session held in the early morning hours on friday May 6th 1955 . It was cold and damp.
The race on sunday was sunny and had over 81000 spectators round the two kilometer track.
The cars from the three sports car classes practiced together, but raced in two seperate races.
Here is the cars you can see in the film (I have nubered the cuts):
1. From the main straight - Siro Toivela (FIN) Peugeot (?); Michael Head (GB) Jaguar D; Valdemar Stener (S) Ferrari 375MM.
2. John Kvarnström (S) Ford V8 Spl; Erik Lundgren (S) Ford V8 Spl; Curt Lincoln (FIN) Jaguar C
3. Gunnar Carlsson (S) Ferrari 750 Monza
4. From the bridge at the back of the track going into the long last bend. The two Finnish Allard J2s (Väinö Miettinen, Asser Wallenius)
5. One of the Allards again.
6. Dark coupé, probably Pentti Keinänen (FIN) EMW #20; and the Allards again.
7. Lincoln again.
8. From the bridge. Björn Mårtensson (S) Ferrari 250MM; Allard J2 (Miettinen or Wallenius); A Finnish Jaguar XK120 (Olli Järvelin or Fred Geitel); the other Allard; Jo Bonnier (S) Alfa Romeo 1900SS
9. JoBo under the bridge; followed by Lincoln.
10. Mårtensson again; The Allards; JoBo; the XK120; Eric Brandon (GB) Halseylec.

Of the cars in the film there were several non-starters. Toivela didn't qualify. Carlsson broke the engine in practice (his first race in the Ferrari) and didn't start. I don't think the Allards nor Geitels Jaguar (it could be Järvelin in the film) started and Keinänen was a DNQ.

It's a pity that the film hasn't got a shot of Bonnier's other car. It was in this practice session that he first drove and wrapped the Disco Volante coupé round a tree.

[Tomas Karlsson]

Arrgh...
I have to learn to use the keyboard right and not write : behind ) because that will give me

[Henk Vasmel]

Dear Tomas,

Well, this seems to be a correct summary of everything in the film, as precise as we can hope to get it.
However, I do not agree with your section 9. The first car is almost certainly a Panhard Dyna 54 and therfore it cannot be JoBo. Then it must be Volmari Keskimäki, unless you have additional information
On the point of the car in the first frames, I am sure that I have seen more pictures from these races. I can only find one site back (saved on my hard disk) which shows a picture of this Peugeot. The link to that site however seems to be dead, so I show the relevant picture here.
From the E-mail address, I deduct that the site's owner was k.pietila.



This picture is from 1954, and the car seems to have a lighter color, but it could pretty well be the car in the film.

I still am a bit surprised that some cars fought so closely in practice, but that must have been their competitive spirit. That was mostly what made me think that it was a race.

Kind Regards,

Henk Vasmel

[Tomas Karlsson]

The first car is almost certainly a Panhard Dyna 54 and therfore it cannot be JoBo. Then it must be Volmari Keskimäki, unless you have additional information

OK, I give up. I think you are right about that. I found a picture of JoBo's Alfa and could compare it's rear end to the car under the bridge. It must be Keskimäki's Panhard.
I found another error in my summary. The Allard entered by Wallenius was driven by Antti-Jussi Suominen. And as far as I have found out, he also raced, but retired.
BTW - Erik Lundgren in one of the Ford specials was also a non-starter.
Toivela crashed his Peugeot rather heavily in 1954. But he probably rebuilt it... and resprayed it.

[Nanni Dietrich]

Sorry gents, can you explain the correct names of these Finnish circuit and race?

Because I knew for Helsinki G.P. the names of "Eläintarhan Ajot" and also "Djurgårdsloppet".
Perhaps Helsinki G.P. is simply the international name of the race, used out of Finland .

But now, what is the correct name of the circuit? It is always the same (public roads) circuit.

We have:

- Helsinki (there is a different venue for the DTM race held in the 90s)
- Eläintarha
- Djurgården Park

now we add
- Eltsu



Sincerely I'm going crazy. What was the official name of the circuit?

[mikko-ville]

Helsinki is the city where the track is

Eläintarhan ajot is the finnish name

Djurgårdsloppet is the swedish name (swedish is second official language of Finland)

Eltsu is a nickname for Eläintarhan ajot

[Tomas Karlsson]

...and "Helsinki GP" was something you could read about in foreign race reports. Never in the race program.

The very first race in '32, that was called "Suomen Suurajo". That would be something like "Finland's Big Race".

[HistoricMustang]

Henry

[Rob29]

Originally posted by mikko-ville
Helsinki is the city where the track is

Eläintarhan ajot is the finnish name

Djurgårdsloppet is the swedish name (swedish is second official language of Finland)

Eltsu is a nickname for Eläintarhan ajot

Version I read was that both names simply mean 'motor race meeting' in swedish & finnish?

[Tomas Karlsson]

I don't speak Finnish, but the race ran around the Djurgården park in Helsinki. "Djurgården" would be something like the "Animal farm". There is a "Djurgården" in Stockholm too, and it started as a big royal park were the royalties kept animals for hunting. I don't know if there ever was any hunting in Helsinki, but the park has a big greenhouse. The sharp corner in the south-west was called "Växthuskurvan" in Swedish (the Greenhouse corner).

[Jape]

Don't know such a much about Eläintarhan ajot track area history, but translating literaly Eläintarhan ajot is something like Zoo's race.

[Henk Vasmel]

This all ties up really. Djurgard (sorry about the accent on the a) is rather similar to the german word I learned in school: Tiergarten, which doesn't mean zoo, rather a garden for animals. The Berlin underground has a station called Tiergarten, but also a station called Zoo (Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo). Zoo is short for Zoologischer Garten (Zoological Gardens). So Tiergarten (Djurgard) is a park for animals.
So if Eläintarhan means the same, we can be rather certain that both names are the Swedish and Finnish versions of Tiergarten. And Loppet is similar to the german lauf, or run in English so probably a word for race. And Ajot would then be the Finnish word for race.
I hope this links it all together. Any Finnish (or Swedish with Finnish knowledge) members on this list to confirm or correct this?

Regards,

Henk Vasmel

[fines]

Yes, Swedish is at times quite close to German: Djurgården is indeed Tiergarten, which is the German word for zoo (notwithstanding the fact that the foreign word "Zoo" is more often used these days). I can also pretty well understand "Växthuskurvan": Växthus = Gewächshaus, kurvan = Kurve!

So, that's Swedish mastered, anyone for Finnish?

[Tomas Karlsson]

[Steffe Ornerdal]

Spot on, Henk!
Djurgården is Swedish for Tiergarten.
And there is of course two Djurgården, one in Stockholm, the other in Helsinki (Helsingfors i Swedish)

I suppose, inn English-speaking countries it would be called "leisure park".