Pre-war racing cars in the air - rarities from the history of photography
11/12/2014
An almost unbelievably successful photo hung in the paddock of the 2014 Monaco Historique GP. The flying Bugatti was taken in Northern Ireland in 1935. Knowing how difficult it still is today to capture flying cars properly, it is all the more astonishing what the few photographers were able to achieve before the war.
An equally impressive picture was taken at Brooklands Race Circuit. It shows the Napier-Railton racing car with a 24-liter twelve-cylinder engine and 500 hp. John Cobb sends it flying over a bump in 1935. At 230.84 km/h, Cobb is and remains the fastest man at Brooklands. He also achieved this record in 1934 with the Napier-Railton.
The Bugatti and the Napier are joined by a Mercedes Benz W125, showing Manfred von Brauchitsch with all four wheels in the air at the 1937 Donington Grand Prix.
It was not until the late 1960s that more great shots of flying racing cars were taken at the famous "green hell", better known as the Nürburgring. But by then, camera technology and film material had improved many times over.
Before the war, 50 DIN on glass plates was the highest of feelings. Only Leica offered a 35mm viewfinder camera at that time. You could only dream of focal lengths over 135mm (the Telyt 1:4.5 200mm only appeared in 1935). However, I would say that the pictures were taken with focal lengths between 50 and 80mm at most. Of course, you were much closer to the action back then, but you only had one shot at your disposal and the focus had to be pre-selected, of course. Catching the right moment, especially with the picture of the Bugatti, which was probably only visible to the photographer at a very late stage, was certainly not easy.
A quick and very precise reaction as well as a bit of luck was required to catch the vehicle at the highest point. As it was also necessary to save on expensive film material at the time, not every car could be photographed on every lap and as not every car probably jumped on every lap, these few photographs, which still exist today, are among the great rarities.
By the way, you can find more "pictures (almost) without words" in our popular theme channel.
