About OldRacingCars.com

OldRacingCars.com is an independent, research-led website dedicated to documenting the history of single-seater racing cars and the people who raced them. Founded and edited by Allen Brown, the site was launched in December 2000 and has been continuously updated ever since with original, evidence-based content.

The aim of the site is to map the careers of racing cars across events, categories, and continents — from their debut appearances to their current locations. This includes detailed chassis histories, driver records, provenance information and race-by-race car data, forming one of the most comprehensive archives of its kind on the web.

Scope

The focus of OldRacingCars.com is the period from the early 1960s to the end of the 1980s — an era of profound technological and organisational change in motor racing. The shift from front-engined to rear-engined cars at the start of the 1960s, through to the introduction of carbon fibre monocoques in the early 1980s, defines the broad span of interest. While exact cut-off points vary slightly by category, the general bounds are 1 January 1964 to 31 December 1989.

The primary emphasis is on major single-seater categories including Formula 1, USAC/Indy car racing, Formula 2, Formula 5000, the Tasman Series, Formula Atlantic, and Formula B. Related or transitional categories are also included where relevant, such as the pre-Tasman Australasian races, single-seater Can-Am, Formula 3, Formula Super Vee, the 2-litre sports car series, and the American Racing Series that later became Indy Lights.

Approach

OldRacingCars.com operates in the spirit of historical research rather than casual commentary. All content is grounded in primary sources — period magazines, official programmes, entry lists, results sheets, and direct correspondence with drivers, car owners, team members, and other scholars of the sport. The aim is to preserve and clarify the history of the sport, not just to retell it.

The site is widely used by historians, journalists, event organisers, dealers, auction houses, collectors, and fans across the world. It is maintained independently and without commercial backing, and its growth over more than two decades has been fuelled by a commitment to accuracy, transparency, and respect for the past.

Editors

Editor: Allen Brown

Starting in October 1978, Allen has kept close track of every one of 3-litre Formula 1 cars built in the 1966-1985 period, plus most cars built for the 2½-litre Tasman formula and many of the cars built for the 1½-litre Formula 1 of the early 1960s. Allen's extensive unpublished files include continuous ownership histories for the majority of these cars. Since 1999, he has extended his research to cover Formula 5000, Can-Am, Indy/USAC, Formula 2 and Formula B. As well as being commissioned by owners to write dossiers on a wide range of cars, he is regularly consulted by the Bonhams and Sothebys auction houses, and has compiled histories for two of the world's best-known racing car collections.

Drivers Editor: Richard Jenkins

Richard joined OldRacingCars.com in 2002, and the first version of his 'Where Are They Now?' was published in November that year. It initially covered 'just' 866 World Championship drivers and without any photographs, but has been developed over 18 years to cover nearly 3,000 individuals across six categories, and includes nearly 2,500 photographs. His first book, 'Richie Ginther: Motor Racing's Free Thinker', was published in 2020 to great acclaim, winning the RAC Motoring Book of the Year Award and the Guild of Motoring Writers Award. Two more books have since followed: 'Mike Spence: Out of the Shadows' in 2021 and 'Tyrrell: The Story of the Tyrrell Racing Organisation' in 2023, both of which won Guild of Motoring Writers awards. Richard is currently working on his fourth book, about the March Engineering company, and is gaining a reputation for well-researched readable motor racing books. He still enjoys updating 'Where Are They Now?'.

Junior Formula Editor: Chris Townsend

Like Richard, Chris joined OldRacingCars.com in 2002, initially contributing F5000 results and histories and later opening up a new front of research with the Formula Atlantic section in 2003. Chris's interests have expanded to cover Formula 3, Formula Super Vee, Formula C and Formula Ford. With Allen, Chris continues to develop the Formula 2, Formula Atlantic and Formula B areas of the site. Chris is Professor of the history of avant-garde film at the University of London at Royal Holloway, and brings a professional historian's rigour to our work.

Photographers

USA: Richard Deming

Richard started professional racing and historical photography in 1974 and has covered Indy car, IMSA, F5000, USAC stock cars and IROC, at tracks such as The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, MIS, Road America, Mid-Ohio and Grattan Speedway. Later in his career he has covered all types of historic racing events and concours events and has now been a professional photographer for 48 years. He is also associated with the Gilmore Car Museum as well as a classic and collectable vehicle appraiser.

In memory

Editor-at-large: David McKinney

Author and journalist David McKinney, who died in February 2014, was a principal contributor to ORC's history of Formula 1 from 1946 to 1953 but was also an expert across a wide range of motor racing subjects, most notably on the Maserati 250F and on motor racing in his native New Zealand. He wrote books on Can-Am and on the Maserati 250F, was editor and publisher of New Zealand Motoring News before moving to England in 1985, after which he wrote for a variety of magazines worldwide and was editor of the award-winning Complete History of Grand Prix Motor Racing. As he showed with his book on the 250Fs, he was one of the pioneers of recording histories of individual racing cars and his meticulous files were generously shared with many of ORC's other researchers. He was also a personal friend and his loss is sorely felt.