Johnny Tipler

The Carrera Panamericana was first run to celebrate the inauguration of the Panamerican Highway, and traversed the length of Mexico, from Tuxtla in the south to Juárez near the Texas border. Firms like Alfa Romeo, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Porsche took advantage, and as class winners, Porsche even applied the event’s Carrera name to its sportier models. Since its 1987 revival it’s been run rally-style with half-a-dozen special stages a day. Just as it did in the early-’50s, half the entry consists of brash American stock cars, today mostly Panamericana specials based on spaceframe chassis and 600bhp NASCAR V8 engines and running gear, lurking beneath period Studebaker, Hudson, Lincoln or Oldsmobile bodywork. The ’50s and ’60s European classics are no less heavily modified. The arrival of La Carrera Panamericana at each of the provincial towns on its seven-day, 2,000-mile progress through central Mexico last November provided an excuse for wild celebrations. Everywhere the entourage is mobbed by enthusiastic spectators, waving, cheering and demanding souvenirs. Crowds throng, brass bands play, and salsa and tequila overflows. Includes 350 images, maps of modern and original 1950s routes, plus results of original events.

Reviews

La Carrera Panamericana – “The World’s Greatest Road Race!” is now available, as of 18th September 2008 from Veloce Publishing.

This reprint of my early 1990s offering with Veloce Publishing tells the tale of the charismatic Giulia Sprint GT and its GTV and fantastic GTA siblings that set the benchmark for performance touring cars from the early 1960s right into the mid-1970s. The lightweight GTA and GT-AM race cars won numerous touring car races and championships during that time. The Foreword is penned by Autodelta works driver Andrea de Adamich.

Haynes’ 2006 reprint in hardback of the Sutton Pictorial History publication features many colour photographs and a new chapter that brings the TVR saga bang up to date under its new Russian ownership.

TVR – An Illustrated History by Johnny Tipler on Amazon

When I went to interview Charles Morgan for Performance Car magazine I was astonished to find a manufacturing process little changed since the 1930s. So I spent several weeks at the Malvern plant chronicling the construction methodology including the bending of the wigs in a mangle and over a tree trunk while Simon Clay photographed the arcane processes involved. Charles Morgan wrote the Foreword.

Morgan – The Cars and the Factory by Johnny Tipler on Amazon

A legend in its own lifetime, the Seven was launched by Lotus back in 1957, evolving into the Caterham in 1973 when the jigs and tooling were sold off. Contains a detailed description of manufacture and assembly, racing and driving experience.

Lotus and Caterham Seven: Racers for the Road by Johnny Tipler on Amazon