Panoz: the nicotine-patch millionaire who chain-smoked and saved American racing There’s an irony so cruel at the center of this story that if a novel served it up you’d say the author overreached. The man who made his fortune leading the team that invented the nicotine patch — the device meant to help people quit … Read more
MA-FIA Chapter VII: Balance of Performance, or how to punish the kid who did their homework Chris Harris once said that the best motor racing is the kind where the best car, driven by the best driver, wins. Old-school logic. The kind of thing Clarkson would nod at while James May rolled his eyes. Here’s … Read more
Nissan R390 GT1: the race car Nissan had to fit with headlights and a number plate to be allowed to run at Le Mans If you were a manufacturer in the late nineties and you wanted to win Le Mans in the GT1 category — the one that actually won the race overall — you … Read more
The first journalist to drive it was also the last Bill Thomas didn’t know he was making history. Nobody at Bentwaters Park on August 19th, 2008 thought they were making history. They thought they were making a magazine feature. Top Gear had arranged a photo shoot with Mazda’s Furai concept at the former RAF airbase … Read more
The Goutte d’Eau. The Most Beautiful Car Nobody Remembers Ask anyone who knows cars which is the most beautiful ever built, and you’ll get a predictable list. The E-Type. The 250 GTO. The Miura. The DB5. All of them deserve to be there. All of them also have the cultural weight to make the conversation … Read more
Ford Mustang GT3: the wild horse at Le Mans June 2024. Circuit de la Sarthe. Centennial of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Twenty-four cars line up on the LMGT3 grid. Porsche 911s. Ferrari 296s. Aston Martin Vantages. BMW M4s. McLaren Arturas. Corvette Z06s. Mercedes-AMG GTs. Lexus RC Fs. Mid-engine cars. Rear-engine cars. Mid-rear-engine cars. … Read more
The Ferrari that Ferrari didn’t build: the uncomfortable truth about the 333 SP Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further. When Ferrari came back to sports prototype racing in 1994 after twenty years of absolute silence, the car that restored their dignity wasn’t built in Maranello. It was built in Varano de’ … Read more
Porsche 911 GT1: the legal loophole that won Le Mans Here’s the part most people get backwards: the Porsche 911 GT1 is not a road car they turned into a race car. It’s a race car they were forced to register for the road. Because if they hadn’t, the FIA wouldn’t let it onto the … Read more
Bentley: the Man Who Built the World’s Fastest Lorries It all started with a paperweight. An aluminum paperweight sitting on a desk in a French office. That single object changed British military aviation, Le Mans history, and the luxury car industry forever. Because Walter Owen Bentley wasn’t a businessman playing at making cars. He was … Read more
MA-FIA Chapter VI: When Being American Isn’t Enough This article is part of the investigative series “La Mafia de la FIA” by Not Enough Cylinders, documenting the structural failures of international motorsport governance. The 2,500-Car Wall To compete in IMSA’s GTP class, a manufacturer must produce more than 2,500 vehicles per year for worldwide sale. … Read more
Title: The Ford GT40: How a Billionaire’s Grudge Built the Greatest Race Car in American History There are cars born from engineering. Others from passion. And then there’s the Ford GT40 — born from pure, unfiltered revenge. This isn’t just a race car story. It’s the story of corporate America going to war with old-world … Read more
Le Mans: The Race That Changed the Rules (And Broke Them When It Suited) Le Mans is not just a race. It’s a battlefield where manufacturers, regulators, and human ego have been colliding at 350 km/h for over a century. And if you think the 24 Hours of Le Mans is just cars going around … Read more
