Formula and Racecar Magazine

"Formula" started in October 1973 but early copies are very rare. Having focused on Californian SCCA racing at first, it widened its scope to national racing during 1974 but then hit financial troubles in the latter part of that year and had to suspend publication. Managing Editor Paul Pfanner managed to secure finance from F5000 driver and Encyclopedia Britanica heir John Benton and the magazine restarted in 1975.

With Autoweek moving a greater proportion of its content to road cars, Formula became the leading source of US road racing reports and results during the late 1970s. Pfanner moved on in 1976 and would later create Racer magazine in 1992 and is now boss of OnCars.com. Jim McQueen took over as editor of Formula and later became owner of the magazine. In 1979 it was renamed "Racecar" but ceased publication late in 1980 when it was sold to Crain Communications and AutoWeek

Thanks to a wonderful donation of 65 copies by Jeff Brueckheimer, another 40 in immaculate condition from Kenneth Lawrence, a generous loan from David McKinney, a set of scans of 1974 issues generously provided by Craig Wheeldon and kind donations of spare copies by John Ryan and Lloyd Burkett, OldRacingCars.com now has a complete bound collection. We did have spare copies of all editions from 1976 onwards and were delighted when we were able to make a largely complete colection available to former editor Paul Pfanner in 2014. All our other spares have now been sold.

Key:

CW - donated as a scan by Craig Wheeldon

JB - donated by Jeff Brueckheimer April 2010

DM - on loan from David McKinney

JH - donated as a scan by Jim Hawes

JR - donated by John Ryan

KL - donated by Kenneth Lawrence August 2010

LB - donated by Lloyd Burkett

IMRRC - donated by Mark Steigerwald of the IMRRC

This list was last updated on 22 November, 2020 .