26 replies to this topic

[Fast One]

For those of you who never had the pleasure of reading HNM in the glory days of Road & Track, here is the opening of his report on the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix. I stumbled across this last night when I found a couple of issues from '66 that had been missing. We've been talking about the movie alot recently. This was Our Man Henry's first reaction to them:

"In spite of starting the season, Monte is generally quite relaxing, but not this year, I regret to say. Apparently the Movies have discovered motor racing (as they do every 10 years or so) and two American companies have commenced to film around various courses in Europe. The more enterprising of these nabbed Monaco by waving large bags of gold about and so the normal confusion of practice was compounded by pits full of Hollywood types, scuttling little men with walkie talkies, movie cameramen underfoot everywhere, makeup ladies, strutting actors with fake grease marks on their faces, and the usual collection of camp followers.

This producer has also imported an unlikely collection of clapped-out Formula Juniors with phony exhaust pipes springing out of the bootlid in true comic book style and various pilots, both unemployed and otherwise, have been engaged to motor these around in the 30-mph queue beloved of Hollywood directors, sawing furiously at the wheel meanwhile like Greek taxi drivers.

And if that wasn't enough, the lofty and self-righteous Grand Prix Drivers' Association rapidly backed down on its ban on camera cars on the track that was made a few years ago after a camera fell off de Beaufort's Porsche at the Nurburgring and collected G. Hillwhose oil, by extension, collected Tony Maggs, I think.

Anyway this volte face by an organization that prates so much about safety was apparently prompted by some of the GPDA's members being employed by said movie company. Several of the other members (whether from not being asked or through principle) took violent exception to pecuniary advantages being put before proper attention to business and J. Surtees, for one, promptly handed in his resignation to the GPDA. Frankly, I think he is right. We who love the sport hope it will be a good movie but after watching this bunch at work I am afraid that it will turn out to be another schmaltz-covered corn-ball with thrills, spills, unrealistic lines spoken by unrealistic people, and Muntz Jets dicing with Manny Ayulo's old midget up and down the Ensenada highway."

Vintage Manney!!! Luckily, the movie had lots of great footage to lure us through the dialog. Remember, when you read in the recent retrospectives, that Garner et al. were driving real GP cars, that they were only Formula Juniors. If you look, you can tell the difference. hell, I could see it as a kid.

[Ray Bell]

Yeah, well I was a kid then, too.
Fortunately I must have had some sense about me, because I also took a serious liking to Henry N Manney. But when I seriously wanted to know what happened in the race I read Jenkinson. A balance was struck when Rob Walker began reporting for R & T, and Innes Ireland wasn't bad, either. Love his story about the army trucks!
Henry actually had a vintage year in 66, because he had a lot to write about the upstart Brabbers and his Oldsmobile-engined F1 car that swept the board, and he must have been given a book on Strine, too.
Strine?
Thats the language we speak here if you spell it the way we say it (that is, the less educated among us). Stine = Australian, said with abbreviation and a twang.
The introduction to his French GP report is full of it.

[Don Capps]

Ah, HNMIII....

Of all The Scribes, HNM managed to best concoct a mixture of entertainment, excitement, and just plain good writing in his race reports. Yes, DSJ was in top of the technical things and took accuracy to its boundaries, but for the sheer pleasure of reading, Manney was a world of his own. Only Rob Walker, Bernard Cahier, Innes Ireland, and Pete Lyons came close.

Manney was an absolute pleasure to read then and equally so even today. Yes, Jenks was great, but Manney was an equal. Besides, having met both, Manney was more fun to hang around , especially to a curious kid. I kept in touch with HNM off and on for years and his long illness and eventual death really took out of me. As is known, I used his monicker when I was first on Atlas. He was truly unique.

------------------
Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

Semper Gumbi: If this was easy, we’d have the solution already…

[Incal]

You guys must have an absolute ball when you rummage through your collections.

[Ray Bell]

I don't know about the others, but when I'm researching a driver or a car I get nowhere fast!
There are just so many interesting things you see on the pages you have to leaf through on the way to what you want.
I can sit up all night doing it, goes down real well with the wife.

[desmo]

HNMIII, my personal favorite autosport writer ever. Jenks gave you the facts HMIII gave you the flavor. Plus, who else was as funny? Ted West did some good stuff too.

[Xaxor]

Dick O'Kane was funny. His excellent book "How To Fix Your Foreign Car" taught me how to do static tuneups and how to shift without a clutch. His best advice, however was that a carburator is a French word meaning "Leave It Alone". He also taught me that any engine related problem is 90% electrical. This was great advice for a 17 year-old driving a Spitfire!

[luisfelipetrigo]

My Road & Track collection goes back to 1966 and as Incal says it is great to go back and browse through it.

Without taking anything from the others I cast my vote for ROB WALKER as the BEST writer.

He was very knowledgeable, always had 'inside information', his description was simple, accurate and complete (he always mentioned the grid order and gave a summary of positions every 10 to 15 laps.
I benefited once (Monza 1972) from one other comment he always included... bathroom facilities.

Rob Walker...the best


------------------
Saludos
Luis Felipe


[This message has been edited by luisfelipetrigo (edited 02-01-2000).]

[Fast One]

Okane was pretty funny, and I still enjoy reading him. Rob Walker did a first-rate, if somewhat dry coverage of the races. His report on Siffert's win at the British Grand Prix was wonderful. But I wonder if I would have developed the same passion for racing if it weren't for Manney. Jenkinson wasn't available where I lived, so I'm less familiar with him other than his books, but Manney taught me about racing AND he taught me to write. In grad school, the esteemed Edward P.J. Corbett (of the Oxford Rhetoric) asked each of us in his class to name the three writers who most influenced us. Without hesitation, I put Manney at the top of the list.

At my age at the time, which was a mere fraction of Ray's (!), Manney's ability to combine "sentence and solace" (substance and style) kept me coming back for more. And 35+ years later, I'm still grateful.

[Dennis David]

What I liked about Rob Walker was that I always dreamed about how life would be if my profession too was that of a Gentleman.

------------------
Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Vercertorix]

Rob Walker was excellent (though perhaps a touch over-concentrated on his own travails with his cars and Jo Siffert), but the best thing about him was that he was sensible enough in the pages of R & T not to try to be Manney. Maney was an original,and there has never been a real equal. He was the last, I think, to see the sport as pure sport, designed for recreation, enjoyment, and, yes: pure fun. He would be very out of place today.

The flavor changed when he left, and (for me) Rob Walker took some geting used to. He didn't have Manney's fine eye for a small moment, and couldn't remotely reproduce Manney's humour, buthe was knowledgeable, and always a gent.

For me, one of the best Manney pieces was a feature he did in R & T (either '65, '66, or '67, I think) about the mechanics. It was a long piece, running about five pages, and on every page there was at least one photo of a bunch of mechanics just looking at a torn-apart car. The caption of every one of the pictures was: "Things sometimes get better if you stand and stare at them."

Henry Manney, original.

[Ray Bell]

The anecdotal side of the Walker reports brought real life streaming in. "I flew out from London with Graham, but Bette stayed behind because Damon had a flu," one might have read.
Little insights such as only he ever made brought personalities to life.
That's not to decry Manney - I loved them both. My only regret is that I never really got the point of what I was told Jenkinson said he really felt about GP racing. It was something he said off the record and it was weeks before it was conveyed to me.
Give me a boxfull of R & T and Motor Sport and I could sit and read them all!

[jj2728]

The anecdotal side of the Walker reports brought real life streaming in. "I flew out from London with Graham, but Bette stayed behind because Damon had a flu," one might have read.
Little insights such as only he ever made brought personalities to life.
That's not to decry Manney - I loved them both. My only regret is that I never really got the point of what I was told Jenkinson said he really felt about GP racing. It was something he said off the record and it was weeks before it was conveyed to me.
Give me a boxfull of R & T and Motor Sport and I could sit and read them all!

Resurrected this thread 'cause, well, I just started going thru the older threads (nostalgia creeping in?) and I thought it was worth it for, amongst other things, Ray's quote about the boxfull of mags. 'Cause well, I have boxes full of R & T (nothing past 1973), Motor Sport, and Automobile Year (once again nothing past 1973) and there are occasions that call for a sit down and read....
'Cause well........hmmm.....blood pressure anyone?

[David Birchall]

Nicely put.

I know I have said it before but, arriving at the Monterey Historics in 1978 after nearly three days of driving an Austin A55 towing a very down-at-heel trailer with my sports racer on it to be welcomed by a character standing in the middle of the paddock wearing moleskin boots, Tweed jacket and hat set my life in order for the forseeable future. Henry was a God to us aspiring racers.

[cdrewett]

Nicely put.

I know I have said it before but, arriving at the Monterey Historics in 1978 after nearly three days of driving an Austin A55 towing a very down-at-heel trailer with my sports racer on it to be welcomed by a character standing in the middle of the paddock wearing moleskin boots, Tweed jacket and hat set my life in order for the forseeable future. Henry was a God to us aspiring racers.

I loved Henry's description of an MG TC, "a coffin suspended on four harps"
Chris

[stevewf1]

I was a little too late (young) to catch Henry Manney's GP reports, but it was Rob Walker's reports in Road & Track that got this Indianapolis kid following Formula 1 racing. And I still follow it to this very day.

I've wondered what HNM, Walker and even DSJ would write about today's F1...

[dbltop]

Wow, it seems Mr. Manney was unimpressed with Mr. Frankenheimer! Is there any record of what he actually thought of the finished film?

[Jesper O. Hansen]

For those of you who never had the pleasure of reading HNM in the glory days of Road & Track, here is the opening of his report on the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix. I stumbled across this last night when I found a couple of issues from '66 that had been missing. We've been talking about the movie alot recently. This was Our Man Henry's first reaction to them:

"In spite of starting the season, Monte is generally quite relaxing, but not this year, I regret to say. Apparently the Movies have discovered motor racing (as they do every 10 years or so) and two American companies have commenced to film around various courses in Europe. The more enterprising of these nabbed Monaco by waving large bags of gold about and so the normal confusion of practice was compounded by pits full of Hollywood types, scuttling little men with walkie talkies, movie cameramen underfoot everywhere, makeup ladies, strutting actors with fake grease marks on their faces, and the usual collection of camp followers.

This producer has also imported an unlikely collection of clapped-out Formula Juniors with phony exhaust pipes springing out of the bootlid in true comic book style and various pilots, both unemployed and otherwise, have been engaged to motor these around in the 30-mph queue beloved of Hollywood directors, sawing furiously at the wheel meanwhile like Greek taxi drivers.

And if that wasn't enough, the lofty and self-righteous Grand Prix Drivers' Association rapidly backed down on its ban on camera cars on the track that was made a few years ago after a camera fell off de Beaufort's Porsche at the Nurburgring and collected G. Hillwhose oil, by extension, collected Tony Maggs, I think.

Anyway this volte face by an organization that prates so much about safety was apparently prompted by some of the GPDA's members being employed by said movie company. Several of the other members (whether from not being asked or through principle) took violent exception to pecuniary advantages being put before proper attention to business and J. Surtees, for one, promptly handed in his resignation to the GPDA. Frankly, I think he is right. We who love the sport hope it will be a good movie but after watching this bunch at work I am afraid that it will turn out to be another schmaltz-covered corn-ball with thrills, spills, unrealistic lines spoken by unrealistic people, and Muntz Jets dicing with Manny Ayulo's old midget up and down the Ensenada highway."

Vintage Manney!!! Luckily, the movie had lots of great footage to lure us through the dialog. Remember, when you read in the recent retrospectives, that Garner et al. were driving real GP cars, that they were only Formula Juniors. If you look, you can tell the difference. hell, I could see it as a kid.

Does this explain why Graham Hill plays himself (in name?), but that Jim Clark or is it Jackie Stewart is played by an actor?

Jesper

[RA Historian]

I always enjoyed Henry Manney's race reports in Road & Track. You probably recall that he also wrote for Competition Press for years, originally under the nom de plume of H.B. Gentilhomme. Later, apparently after some contractual difficulties were ironed out, he used his own name there as well.

Besides race reports of all the Grands Eprueve, he also covered the major sports car races and the occasional lesser event. He also had numerous feature articles on the major car shows, model introductions, and driver bios. Who can forget his article on the Ile du Levant?

It was stated above that Manney wrote with flavor. That is true. His reports were anything but dry and technical. I recall such vintage Manneyisms as:

"...spun like the button on a privy door"

"...stood out like a silver dollar in a cow pie"

"Exeunt all stage left, chased by John Surtees, dressed as a bear"

"Grime Heel and the rest of the ricers"

There were, of course, hundreds, if not thousands of additional gems sprinkled through his writing.

Further, you have to love a fellow who drove a Ferrari GTO as personal transport!

Tom

[Doug Nye]

For many years while HNMIII provided the words for 'R&T's GP reports, Geoff Goddard provided most of the music - the photographs. He and Henry got on like the kindred spirits they truly were. Both irascible, both short-fused, both hugely engaging when they wished to be, and both very, very humorous - again, when they wished to be. The boys in the 'R&T' office held their breaths while Henry and Geoff drove a Saab road test car coast to coast once across America. They were sure the pair must surely fall out. But they never ever did. They drove down through the Civil War battlefields, to the jazz clubs of New Orleans, across to the western movie set landscape of Monument Valley and on into California. Geoff used to dine out on stories of Henry's Chinese gardener in CA bursting into the house with the alarming news "Meestah Mannah, Meestah Mannah - cat-Aparras eat Tlees!" (caterpillars eat trees). Henry himself related how his Leica camera specialist in Geneva - a Japanese this time - reported "Ooooooo - your Rye-icka is clook-Ed!". Henry also delighted in dog-Italian and dog-German - Ferrari mechanics after another shambolic pit stop, all glowering at one another and muttering 'Cretino' - but I always recall one of his finest images as appearing in his report of the grand opening of the Ontario Motor Speedway, when I think the marching band was led by a character wearing shoes with chromium toe caps and a suit so tight it looked as if he never breathed out...

Lovely bloke - ex-ballet dancer and remittance man, supposedly despatched to Europe to keep him out of the family's hair, and sustained there by regular money orders. Experienced a terrible, tragic fate. Lovely wife and son must have suffered greatly during the years he lay comatose.

DCN

[Odseybod]

Further, you have to love a fellow who drove a Ferrari GTO as personal transport!

Tom

Funny, I only remember him driving a Ferrari 330GT in about 1965, when I think he was based in Paris for a while. Not sure whetehr the GTO came before or after?

HMIII also wrote for Car magazine in the UK in the mid-'60s, contributing wonderful motor show reports and 'colour' pieces, as well as occasional race reports. His road test of a Daytona Cobra (the ex-Bondurant car, I think) is sheer magic!

I was privileged enough to meet him for the first time in 1964 or 5 at a Le Man test weekend - I think he was only the second 'real life' (as opposed to cowboy on telly) American I'd met (Jerry Sloniger was in close attendance so was probably the third) and there can hardly have been a better ambassador for his country - quite quietly spoken, effortlessly charming but with a wonderful fund of risque stories, superbly narrated. Without any coercion, he also convinced teenaged me that, rather than Coca Cola and baked beans, steak and red wine represented a rather more interesting diet, especially in France. I suppose I must have hero-worshipped him from that point onwards!

[RA Historian]

Henry Manney owned Ferrari GTO s/n 5111. Originally owned by Jean Guichet, winner of the 1963 Tour de France. Manney bought it in 1966. Last I knew it was owned by Paul Pappalardo.

Tom

[Graham Gauld]

For many years while HNMIII provided the words for 'R&T's GP reports, Geoff Goddard provided most of the music - the photographs. He and Henry got on like the kindred spirits they truly were. Both irascible, both short-fused, both hugely engaging when they wished to be, and both very, very humorous - again, when they wished to be. The boys in the 'R&T' office held their breaths while Henry and Geoff drove a Saab road test car coast to coast once across America. They were sure the pair must surely fall out. But they never ever did. They drove down through the Civil War battlefields, to the jazz clubs of New Orleans, across to the western movie set landscape of Monument Valley and on into California. Geoff used to dine out on stories of Henry's Chinese gardener in CA bursting into the house with the alarming news "Meestah Mannah, Meestah Mannah - cat-Aparras eat Tlees!" (caterpillars eat trees). Henry himself related how his Leica camera specialist in Geneva - a Japanese this time - reported "Ooooooo - your Rye-icka is clook-Ed!". Henry also delighted in dog-Italian and dog-German - Ferrari mechanics after another shambolic pit stop, all glowering at one another and muttering 'Cretino' - but I always recall one of his finest images as appearing in his report of the grand opening of the Ontario Motor Speedway, when I think the marching band was led by a character wearing shoes with chromium toe caps and a suit so tight it looked as if he never breathed out...

Lovely bloke - ex-ballet dancer and remittance man, supposedly despatched to Europe to keep him out of the family's hair, and sustained there by regular money orders. Experienced a terrible, tragic fate. Lovely wife and son must have suffered greatly during the years he lay comatose.

DCN

Doug : Henry had two sons and a daughter, Henry IV, Patrick and Cecilia. In a letter many years ago talking of Cecilia he commented that she was at Univeristy "...majoring in making waves"

[Tom Glowacki]

I always enjoyed Henry Manney's race reports in Road & Track. You probably recall that he also wrote for Competition Press for years, originally under the nom de plume of H.B. Gentilhomme. Later, apparently after some contractual difficulties were ironed out, he used his own name there as well.

Besides race reports of all the Grands Eprueve, he also covered the major sports car races and the occasional lesser event. He also had numerous feature articles on the major car shows, model introductions, and driver bios. Who can forget his article on the Ile du Levant?

It was stated above that Manney wrote with flavor. That is true. His reports were anything but dry and technical. I recall such vintage Manneyisms as:

"...spun like the button on a privy door"

"...stood out like a silver dollar in a cow pie"

"Exeunt all stage left, chased by John Surtees, dressed as a bear"

"Grime Heel and the rest of the ricers"

There were, of course, hundreds, if not thousands of additional gems sprinkled through his writing.

Further, you have to love a fellow who drove a Ferrari GTO as personal transport!

Tom

"practice was the usual shambles"

"the usual alligator of cars went into the first turn"

[David Birchall]

Upon seeing the ex Gurney Lotus 19B at the Monterey Historics for the first time since it's time as a front line racer: "I'd sooner get in a 'lectric chair than get in that".

[Doug Nye]

Grem - OK, I only ever met the one son, Patrick. Henry's line on the Alfa V6's gearchange was great - "like shifting gears on a lathe' - and another popular model's suspension was so firm he described how "...if you run over a coin lying in the road you can tell whether it's heads or tails...". Or at least, I fondly recall the latter as a Henry line. Here are some Geoffpix of his - and your - old friend...







I always thought the Lotus 41 was exceptionally pretty - slightly shaded by the Formula 2 Lotus 44 which in my eyes was gorgeous.



Cooper Car Co mechanic Mike Barney helping out Henry with a little local difficulty - at Spa, I believe...

Photos Strictly Copyright: The GP Library

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 16 January 2010 - 18:49.

[jj2728]

One of my Dad's pics from The Glen....can't remember which year.