Ferrari's Juan Fangio seen here training for the 1956 12-Hours of Sebring.





The track hasn't changed much in 50 years, but they have hauled away some of the old bombers.



The folks at Axis of Oversteer have unearthed a wonderful tribute to Sebring in the 1950s with an hour-long recording of the "1956 Grand Prix of Endurance, America's Greatest Sports Car Race." It features interviews with "Fangio, Moss, Collins, De Portago, Hawthorn, Phil Hill, Von Trips, Carroll Shelby and so many more legendary racers."

 

I'm always looking out for those albums!

 

Pretty cool.

 

The intro was fantastic. thanks for posting

 

Surprising that anyone survived that era of racing, but Fangio died of natural causes in the mid 90s--he was 80-some years old.

 

You are correct, sir. Fangio died in Buenos Aires in 1995, at the age of 84. Sir Jackie Stewart was among his pallbearers.

In the 1980s, Fangio had heart bypass surgery and he had been suffering from kidney failure for some time before his death.

Interesting factoid: The Batista Dictatorship of Cuba established the non-Formula One Cuban Grand Prix in 1957. Fangio won the race, and had set fastest times during practice for the 1958 race.

On 23 February 1958, two unmasked gunmen of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement entered the Hotel Lincoln in Havana and kidnapped Fangio at gunpoint. Local police set up roadblocks at intersections, and guards were assigned to private and commercial airports and to all competing drivers.

Fangio was moved around Havana to three separate houses. His captors allowed him to listen to the race via radio. Fangio was released after 29 hours and he remained a good friend of his captors afterwards.

The captors motives were to force the cancellation of the race in an attempt to embarrass the Batista regime.

 

Awesome stuff!!!

 

That would make a pretty good movie.

 

Love the description of Sterling Moss:

"As a driver, Moss' style can described as erratic but terribly fast. He sits well back in the car, arms outstretched to the wheel. He's quite spectacular, honking his horn frequently at cars that do not pull over fast enough for him to pass, waving at spectators and flagmen. In easier races he is inclined to aim for photographers who get too close on corners, all in fun of course, and while they bare him no malice, they learned to honor his right to the road and take their pictures from behind the fences."

 

In fact, the Fangio kidnapping was dramatized in a 1999 Argentine film, Operación Fangio.

 

So who plays Fangio? Someone who can drive, but Dempsey's too good looking (so my wife tells me).

I'm going to do this at my next DE... if only I was faster than anyone else out there! At least I can wave.

 

I'll do it. I don't have that problem

 

Somewhere I read Fangio's funeral attracted 1 million mourners.

 

Sorry, Dave--opportunity lost. And here's Operación Fangio, in 7 pieces on YouTube. You can turn on the Spanish subtitles and have them auto-translated to English in the YouTube settings... but that's borderline intolerable. At least the vintage cars at the end of the first part (as far as I got) look and sound great.

 

Fangio won the World Championship of Drivers five times—a record which stood for 46 years until beaten by Michael Schumacher—with four different teams (Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Maserati), a feat that has not been repeated.

He was nicknamed El Chueco ("the bowlegged one," also commonly translated as "bandy legged").

Fangio entered his first Formula One race at age 37 and won 24 of 52 F1 races he entered, a 46% win percentage. He retired in 1958 at age 47.

In 1958, he was offered $20,000 to qualify a Kurtis-Offy in the Indianapolis 500. But his qualifying attempt failed and he stepped aside for another driver. In retirement, he owned a Mercedes Benz dealership and drove in occasional "Oldtimer" Grand Prix events.

He dropped the checkered flag at the 1975 Talladega 500.