Shelby & Salvadori
You know how sometimes a photo you saw when you were young sticks in your mind for years? This is one which did that for me:
That’s Caroll Shelby driving an Aston Martin DBR1 in at Le Mans 1959, the year I was born. He and his co-driver Roy Salvadori won that race. The picture was taken by Yves Debraine. I saw it in an old copy of Automobile Year.
Isn’t that a wonderful picture? It’s just so evocative of a time and a place. It has always made me wish that I could have been there on that day in June 53 years ago.
Caroll died last month. Today I heard that Roy has just died too.
This summer at Lime Rock, I ran into one of the Aston Martins from that race.
It’s still one of the prettiest cars I’ve ever seen. I believe that this is the one which Stirling Moss and Jack Fairman drove in that same race.
Here’s a picture of of the whole group (and David Brown) with the winning car:
That one is from the same issue of Automobile Year, and was taken by Ami Guichard.
Hemmings had an interesting article about the fact that the car in that picture is going to be at Le Mans this weekend. Be sure to check out the cool, vintage film from that day in June of 1959.