There can be no denying that each issue of Vintage Motorsport will have nostalgia as its main pillars: we love to celebrate, relive and reassess narratives that perhaps can only be fully appreciated through the distance of time. But after commissioning the stories for the October-November issue, we noticed many of them were bound together by an element of ruefulness, and that emanates from the readers and/or those involved.
Naturally we couldn’t bring ourselves to call this The Rueful Issue, so Power and Glory it is. But our cover star, Brian Redman’s Formula 5000 Lola T332, does rather symbolize this dual theme — a powerful and glorious road racing open-wheel formula that didn’t receive the attention it deserved and so was transformed into an uglier version.
The “overnight” switch to a revived Can-Am series seems even more misguided now than it did at the time, for while this new-old series still featured fast, loud, good-value cars and a paddock full of engineering and driving talent, it was no better promoted than before, the cars looked contrived with their unnecessary new bodywork, and the formation of CART a couple of years later swiftly proved that U.S. motorsport fans appreciated powerful open-wheel cars on road courses.
Other features this issue include Porsche’s CART IndyCar program, Mario Andretti’s F1 world championship-winning 1978 season and new NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Allison. Get more details of the issue and how to get your copies at VintageMotorsport.com.