Brabham BT21

[Moderator]

The latest addition to BritishRacecar.com will be the first of many Brabham articles.

I hope you enjoy it!

Here's the link:
<a href="http://www.britishracecar.com/AlMurray-Brabham-BT21.htm">Al Murray's Lotus Twin-Cam Powered Brabham BT21 Racecar</a>

teaser photos:

[DC Townsend]

Love the pics of vintage race cars but am always puzzled of how big the drivers seem to look in them. Maybe it's just my faulty memory but I don't recall the original pilots of these machines looking that out-sized. Is that we're just bigger people now?

[Moderator]

I've wondered something similar: are modern helmets bigger (for a given size head)? In the specific cases of Formula Three and also late sixties Formula Ford, the original drivers were mostly quite young - certainly hardly anyone over 30.  In vintage racing, you probably won't find many young drivers under forty.

[DC Townsend]

Had to be some reason.

Looking at period photos of the same or similar cars, the relationship between the car and the driver looks, well, normal. Looking at the same vehicle today, the guys driving always look like they're driving their kid's car. Your thought about the original drivers being quite young would certainly explain the apparent mismatch in scale. Or, maybe we're just bigger people now.

[bsa_m21]

Re: are modern helmets bigger (for a given size head)?

Definitely. Pre-WW2 helmets were mostly leather.



Last night I was watching "American Pickers" on TV.  They were collecting stuff to add to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.  They got a number of helmets from the 40's through the 80's.  Many of the early ones were like English style horse riding caps, made of pressed cardboard with a canvas harness.  Yikes!  

My first motorcycle helmet (I was 15 ... a looong time ago) was almost the same as the below one.



As they progressed to modern times, helmets have become significantly larger, with lots more padding and safety features.



Martin