Gran Prix... and I'm not talking about Pontiacs, here.
The absolute beginnings of motorsport are rooted in Gran Prix (or Grand Prix) racing... and those roots date back to the 1890s, with the point to point road races, like Paris to Rouen. Shortly after that, circuit racing came into vogue, but there were still races like the Paris-Madrid, Targa Florio and the Mille Miglia.
GP racing was THE top of the pile until Formula 1 came along. And the coolest thing about GP racing was that the cars were basically road cars. The had two seats (and a riding mechanic), and were generally pretty legal.
Later, they evolved in two directions, Formula cars and Sports racing cars. Formula cars, like F1, were single seat, purpose built cars that raced on closed circuits... but the Sports racing cars remained rooted in production sports cars.
The greatest sports cars of the 1950s through the 1960s were sports racers. Ferraris, Maseratis, Alfas and Porsches all had their roots in the sports racing cars of the era. Ford's Cobras and GT40s were also out-growths of those track battles.
And I would LOVE to see those kinds of cars coming out of American Companies
Ford made the GT40. It was one of the most amazing road/race cars ever built. The reprised it a few years ago as the Ford GT... a truly beautiful retro car. But, it was missing one thing... a racing pedigree.
One of the things that Ford, GM and Chrysler is missing is an international racing pedigree. GM has dome an amazing job with the Corvettes at LeMans, but those are barely production cars. They all need to build models that can go from the street to the track.
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from LaneBailey.com
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