Iron Men. Steel Dashboards
That’s a Lotus Cortina. It’s a neat little Car built by Lotus and Ford in the 1960s. If you’ve ever driven in a car from the early 1960s, you’d know that a lot of the sheet metal on display in this race car wouldn’t look out of place in the original. Cars back in the day had lots of metal showing.
The air conditioner was a crank on the door. More subtle climate control was managed by the wing windows, the little glass triangle you see at the front edge of the door. Cars were as much utility vehicles as trucks in the 1960s. They were meant to haul you to work, and your groceries home. A sheet metal dash, a steering wheel, and three pedals was all that was required. Hauling ass on a race course, instead of hauling a wife, 2.3 children, and a dog merits the same interior decoration: none.
They still race Cortinas, and the BSBFB applauds them for doing so. We don’t know the driver, Dickie Meaden, so we’re not going to guess about what he does when he’s not driving sideways a bit on the way to the pole position. We can only go by the evidence we see in the camera frame. Dickie’s a great driver. For all we know, he’s got a load of groceries in the back, and he’s driving that fast to win the race before the ice cream melts.
4 thoughts on “Iron Men. Steel Dashboards”
I think it’s required to gun it when you find yourself wheeling on the wrong side of the dash. Like irony, only more proactive.
Yes, this guy is pure BSBFB through and through.
Cheers, mate.
Thanks – could watch race-cam all day, even this type: amateur, as evidenced by the obvious absence of sponsor stickers typically plastered on all that metal at every conceivable camera angle.
My Dad dreamed of owning one of these.
My cousin had one of these in the late 60s. On a trip to New Orleans in a driving rain storm the drivers side windshield wiper flew off. He managed to make to somewhere where a mechanic suggested he rub chewing tobacco on the windshield so that water would bead off until he could find a replacement wiper blade. That reminds me; I need to treat my F-150 wiper blades with WD-40 to get them working again. Only in the South.