What is the greatest race car of all time?

Like Crosby, Stiles, and Nash said, "Love the one your with".

Saw Briggs Cunningham's D-Types run at Cumberland in the 50's, been my favorite ever since. Did well at LeMans as I recall.

Leo Basile wrote: Like Crosby, Stiles, and Nash said, "Love the one your with".

Leo, once again you say it all with a sentence!! I never let any message go with only a sentence where a paragraph might work! We truly have to get together somewhere we don't have to "drive home." Over a six-pack, a bottle or more of wine, whatever, there are tons of lies we both need to tell each other!!

I've discovered appropriate lies often better convey real thoughts better than simply stated truths!

Indeed Rupert!

The wife took to home brewing, and there is always some Appalachian moonshine to be had.

I would like to do the Mitty. Maybe next year.

photo looks like LimeRock, good guess or no?

In reply to maseratiguy:

Yes, Labor Day Weekend, 2014.

(Notice Leo's diminutive crew chief with ear protection standing at the back of the car checking the rear suspension!)

That is one Crew Chief that you don't want to cross!

Indeed, Lime Rock. We are going to be there this year as well. We really had a nice time.

Love the Historic races there.

Leo doesn't know it yet but I have seen the so called crew chief behind the wheel, I bet serious dollars ($2 or $3) that a new young driver with distillery backing will be wheeling that pretty red car..........and for the record I'm still sticking with my small formula car is the greatest race car ever, be it FF, FV, FJ or even the orginal Formula 500 (the Norton powered ones not the 2-stroke variety I won).

Tom

greatest race car ,would be a car i won a race with!

I can't believe you guys. 300sl obviously. I read Dennis Jenkinsons story about the Mille Miglia with Moss when I was a kid and it made an indelible impression.

reading about cars and driving them is,in reality, two different things!

my personal experience was back in 1957,I had bought a new Corvette, F/I,4speed,posi, a friend of mine,student at MIT Boston, had a 1955 300SL, course a lot of guys said it was a great fast car, so i was kinda skeptical about racing him(street stuff,what 24yr olds did back then). well the instigating guys set up a race,on the famous Highland avenue,3miles between Salem and Lynn mass. well we started from a dead stop,Corvette jumped ahead, and i could shift the 4speed at full throttle, he would drop back around 1/2-3/4 car lenth on each of his shifts, well if that SL did have the top speed,didnt help we run outta road coming into traffic.

so the after race BS session,local donut shop, he said car wouldnt shift properly, so i took it out for a ride, and it was the worst fast shifting transmission ever, altho i heard most European cars shifted slowly, including Jaguar, and ferrari,etc.

of course everyone said lets go on a twisty road,no one really wanted to race that way, could be dangerous,(as if we really gave a sh#t anyway).

they were just cars,cheap at that, and more where they came from!

Hard to dispute the 917, 962 was also pretty dominant though. What do you mean by "greatest"

For American Iron, if you don't pick Mr Gurney's Eagle, the winged Mopar twins were pretty revolutionary for Nascar.

In reply to Toebra:Agree & not. Mr. Gurney's Eagle was probably among the top US iron. But I believe "the greatest" has to be based on more than one series. Purpose built is wonderful, but doesn't include many rides throughout the decades which competed very well in more than one series or format. At that does include many US branded cars as well.

Yes, Gurneys eagle car at the Daytona 24 race(before rolex), set the daytona road course record lap time in 1993, that held all the way thru till around 2005-2006. against the worlds best V8-V12s.

and it was a 4 cylinder at that,rumor was it reached upwards of 40 PSI boost(in a 24 hr race).

i was in the pits with a friend,who built a lot or race cars, and looking it over he opinion was looks very light,or how strong it would be in a crash, i said your not supposed to crash,(it didnt and won over all and set the record!

No doubt lots of great race cars over the last century or so, but I gotta go with Leo on this one. The 'greatest' are the ones YOU get to drive.

[URL=http://s937.photobucket.com/user/MichaelYount/media/HardRight_zpsb726dfdf.jpg.html][/URL]

Oh, and since it was Steven's song, we oughta fix that last name -- Stills, not Stiles.

Damn auto correct! Just noticed.

Leo

In reply to Leo Basile: Yes, I usually keep mine turned off. It's bad enough to type in something not heard everyday correctly. Especially since we mostly talk about foreign made products here. I don't need a spell check to change what I typed into another word!

....spend more time fixing autocorrect selections than if I just type it myself....need an autocorrect for autocorrect. I turned mine off too.

Some how I've only just seen this thread and the article has already been published.

Many have said the 917, I've got to disagree. I love it, it's iconic, it's beautiful, but like many Porsche's it was a blunt instrument (yes I really said that). In it's early days it was flat out evil. The factory drivers would fight to not have to test it. It had dreadful lift until JWA helped sort that out, it flexed, it had dreadful HAndling. Listen to some of the amazing Motorsport Magazine podcasts with interviews with drivers like Bell, Radman, Attwood. They all say the same thing. Stories of it drifting from side to side of the road on the Mulsanne straight, their feet being trapped by the chassis flexing in the corners etc. Again when it came over here in it's famouse 1,100hp form for CanAm, if you read 'The unfair advantage' Donohue said it was still a pig with a digital throttle that made it almost impossible to drive. Outside of the factory or factory backed efforts it wasn't a great car. Non of that means I wouldn't give my left nut for one (Hey, I'm done with kids so I'm game), or even a flat 6 air cooled replica, but I don't think it was a 'greatest race car of all time' material.

Sure is pretty though

For me there are three stand out 'best' race cars.

From the same general period of the 917, although a little earlier, I'd have to go with the GT40 in it's various guises. Yes it had lift issues early on, but it was an amazing beast that was still racing years after its sell by date. I love the fact that once the big engined protoype J cars were outlawed JWA dusted off the Mk I with the 4.7L engine in Group 4 and won twice more.

Moving up to the 80's I have to go with the Porsche 956/962 twins. Again, being a 'typical' Porsche it was a bit of a no fines sledge hammer effort, yes really, but it was massively successful in both Private and Factory hands. It had a huge production run, was easy to maintain. The 956 was introduced in 1982 and various versions won LeMans 7 times between 82 and 94. Has anything had such a long run? IT wasn't just Porsche that won with it, so did priveteers like Joest and Daur. As I said it wasnt' perfect. IT was big and crude. At a time when most race cars were transitioning to Carbon fiber chassis the 956/962 didn't even have an aluminium honeycomb chassis, it was folded and riveted aluminium sheet. Great mid 60's technology. It had a spool rear axle not an LSD at LeMans and it even had a syncho gearbox not a straight cut dog box. But to me it the incarnation of Simplicity is beautiful.

The third and last is the epitomus 1988 McLaren Mp4/4. It was not only beautiful, but it was devastatingly successful. It entered 16 races and won 15. The only reason it didn't win all 16 was that rookie Jean-Louis Schlesser standing in for a sick Nigel Mansell took out Senna with 2 laps to go while being lapped. People say the Ferrari F2002, but it was beaten fair and square 3 times, even though it also has 15 wins to its credit. The Mp4/4 is also one of the best looking F1 cars ever, where 2002 was long past the peak of F1 looks.