Short and sweet, this wonderful little newsreel tells the story of the 1934 French Grand Prix at Montlhéry. There is no form of motor racing like this anywhere in the world today—watch and be enthralled.
Thanks to British Pathé News, this priceless newsreel item has been preserved. The clip is barely a minute and a half, but it’s a beautiful glimpse of motor racing in another time and place: the 1934 French Grand Prix at the Montlhéry circuit just south of Paris, with its spectacular 51-degree concrete banking. They say more than 80,000 people came to watch the 40-lap, 500-kilometer spectacle.
This would be the inaugural Grand Prix for Germany’s Silberpfeile (Silver Arrows), the Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz racers that would soon come to dominate the sport with crushing efficiency. But on this day, the German cars all fell out with various mechanical failures, and the top four places were swept by the stunning Alfa Romeo P3 monopostos, with Louis Chiron beating Achille Varzi to the finish line by more than three minutes. There is no form of motor racing like this in the world today, not in modern Formula 1 or anywhere else. Watch and be enthralled.
Average speed of 85 MPH….that was moving on those narrow tires of the day! Every turn was right on the edge of losing control, those guys must have had biceps like Hulk Hogan. And driver protection wasn’t very high on the list yet. those leather helments probably didn’t do much more than keep their hair from blowing in their face. Amazing to look back and see what racing has become these days. Thse guys had to have had nerves of steel,