1955 World Sportscar Championship
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1955 World Sportscar Championship
The 1955 World Sportscar Championship season was the third season of FIA World Sportscar Championship motor racing. It featured a series of six endurance races for sportscars, contested from 23 January to 16 October 1955. The championship was won by Mercedes-Benz, the German manufacturer ending the dominance of Ferrari which had won both of the previous World Sportscar Championship titles. Season summary The 1955 World Sports Car Championship was contested over a six race series. With legendary races such as the Mille Miglia and the RAC Tourist Trophy now part of an international race calendar, they were accompanied by the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring. The championship started in January, with a trip to Argentina for the 1000 km Buenos Aires and ended with an event new to the championship, the legendary road race, the Targa Florio. As a result of the Le Mans disaster, both the 1000 km Nürburgring and the Carrera Panamericana were cancelled. The Championshi ...
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World Sportscar Championship
The World Sportscar Championship was the world series run for sports car racing by the FIA from 1953 to 1992. The championship evolved from a small collection of the most important sportscar, endurance, and road racing events in Europe and North America with dozens of gentleman drivers at the grid, to a professional racing series where the world's largest automakers spent millions of dollars per year. The official name of the series changed throughout the years, however it has generally been known as the World Sportscar Championship from its inception in 1953. The World Sportscar Championship was, with the Formula One World Championship, one of the two major world championships in circuit motor racing. In 2012 the World Sportscar Championship was revived and renamed as the World Endurance Championship. Races The most famous event was the 24 Hours of Le Mans which was the part of the championship in every season except of the 1956, 1975– 79 and 1989– 90 seasons. Th ...
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1000 Km Nürburgring
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. In conventions of sign where zero is considered neither positive nor negative, 1 is the first and smallest positive integer. It is also sometimes considered the first of the infinite sequence of natural numbers, followed by  2, although by other definitions 1 is the second natural number, following  0. The fundamental mathematical property of 1 is to be a multiplicative identity, meaning that any number multiplied by 1 equals the same number. Most if not all properties of 1 can be deduced from this. In advanced mathematics, a multiplicative identity is often denoted 1, even if it is not a number. 1 is by convention not considered a prime number; this was not universally accepted until the mid-20th century. Additionally, 1 is the s ...
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Dundrod Circuit
Dundrod Circuit is a motorsport street circuit used for the RAC Tourist Trophy for sports cars between 1950 and 1955 and for the motorcycle Ulster Grand Prix from 1953 onwards. It is situated near the village of Dundrod in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. The nearby Clady Circuit also in County Antrim was used for the Ulster Grand Prix between (1922–1952) before moving to the Dundrod Circuit. History The Dundrod Circuit ( gle, Dún dTrod) in Co Antrim, first used in 1950 for the RAC Tourist Trophy automobile race and the Formula One (non-championship) Ulster Trophy (1950–1953), was in length and later amended for the 1965 racing season to with the addition of the Lindsay Hairpin. For the 1953 racing season the Clady Circuit was abandoned for motor-cycle racing and the Ulster Grand Prix as part of the FIM Motorcycle Grand Prix World Championship and was moved to the nearby Dundrod Circuit in Co Antrim. The circuit comprised public roads closed for racing including a sect ...
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John Fitch (racing Driver)
John Cooper Fitch (August 4, 1917 in Indianapolis, Indiana – October 31, 2012) was an American racing driver and inventor. He was the first American to race automobiles successfully in Europe in the post-war era. In the course of a driving career which spanned 18 years, Fitch won such notable sports car races as the Gran Premio de Eva Duarte Perón – Sport, 1953 12 Hours of Sebring, 1955 Mille Miglia (production car class), and the 1955 RAC Tourist Trophy, as well as numerous SCCA National Sports Car Championship races. He was also involved in Briggs Cunningham's ambitious Le Mans projects in the early 1950s, and was later a member of the Mercedes-Benz sport car team. He also competed in two World Championship Grands Prix. After retirement in 1964, Fitch was the manager of Lime Rock circuit, and a former team boss of Chevrolet's Corvette racing team. His biggest legacy is motor sport safety, as well as pioneering work to improve road car safety, and this has helped sav ...
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Pierre Levegh
Pierre Eugène Alfred Bouillin (22 December 1905 – 11 June 1955) was a French sportsman and racing driver. He took the racing name Pierre Levegh in memory of his uncle, a pioneering driver who died in 1904. Levegh died in the 1955 Le Mans disaster which also killed 83 spectators during the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans automobile race. Career Levegh, who was born in Paris, France, was also an ice hockey and tennis player. In motorsport he competed in Formula One for the Talbot-Lago team in 1950 and 1951, starting six races, retiring in three, and scoring no points. At Le Mans he raced for Talbot in four races, finishing fourth in 1951. In 1952, driving single-handedly, his car suffered an engine failure in the last hour of the race with a four lap lead. The failure was due to a bolt in the central crankshaft bearing having come loose many hours earlier in the race, although many fans placed the blame on driver fatigue. Levegh had refused to let his co-driver take over because he f ...
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Stirling Moss
Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss (17 September 1929 – 12 April 2020) was a British Formula One racing driver. An inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, he won 212 of the 529 races he entered across several categories of competition and has been described as "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship". In a seven-year span between 1955 and 1961 Moss finished as championship runner-up four times and in third place another three times. Early life Moss was born in London, son of Alfred Moss, a dentist of Bray, Berkshire, and Aileen (née Craufurd). His grandfather was Jewish, from a family that changed their surname from Moses to Moss. He was brought up at ''Long White Cloud'' house on the south bank of the River Thames. His father was an amateur racing driver who had come 16th in the 1924 Indianapolis 500. Aileen Moss had also been involved in motorsport, entering prewar hillclimbs at the wheel of a Singer Nine. Stirling was a gifted horse rider ...
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Denis Jenkinson
Denis Sargent Jenkinson (11 December 1920 – 29 November 1996), "Jenks" or "DSJ" as he was known in the pages of ''Motor Sport'', was a British journalist deeply involved in motorsports. As Continental Correspondent of the UK-based ''Motor Sport'' magazine, he covered Formula One and other races all over Europe. He gained fame as the navigator for Stirling Moss in their record-breaking triumph in the 1955 Mille Miglia cross-country race. Career Jenkinson became a motor sport enthusiast in the mid-1930s: "In 1936 I saw a racing car "in the flesh" or should I say "in the metal," for the first time, that was an E.R.A. at the schoolboys' Exhibition. Later in the year, whilst staying at Brighton, I found that the Lewes Speed Trials were quite near, so off I went to find the venue. It was there that I first saw racing-cars in action, what a thrill!" Jenkinson was studying engineering at the Regent Street Polytechnic when the Second World War broke out. As a conscientious objecto ...
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Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (W 196 S) was a 2-seat sports racing car that took part in the 1955 World Sportscar Championship before a catastrophic crash and fire at Le Mans later that year ended its domination prematurely. The car was designated "SL-R" (for ''Sport Leicht-Rennen'', eng: ''Sport Light-Racing''), which was later condensed to "SLR". Technically, the W 196 S is based on the W 196 R, but has a slightly different engine, displacing 3 litres. Just as the W 196 R Formula One racer's M 196 R engine, the W 196 S's M 196 S engine is a direct-injected 3-litre straight 8 engine (but with a 78 mm bore and stroke); its rated power is . The W 196 S's '' monoposto'' driving position was modified to standard two-abreast seating, headlights were added, and a few other changes made to adapt a strictly track competitor to a 24-hour road/track sports racer. Two of the nine 300 SLR rolling c ...
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Grand Tourer
A grand tourer (GT) is a type of car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving, due to a combination of performance and luxury attributes. The most common format is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-door coupé with either a two-seat or a 2+2 arrangement. Grand tourers are most often the coupé derivative of luxury saloons or sedans. The term is a near-calque from the Italian language phrase ''gran turismo'' which became popular in the English language from the 1950s, evolving from fast touring cars and streamlined closed sports cars during the 1930s. Origin in Europe The grand touring car concept originated in Europe in the early 1950s, especially with the 1951 introduction of the Lancia Aurelia B20 GT, and features notable luminaries of Italian automotive history such as Vittorio Jano, Enzo Ferrari and Johnny Lurani. Motorsports became important in the evolution of the grand touring concept, and grand touring entries are important in endurance sports- ...
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Formula One
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, which became the FIA Formula One World Championship in 1981, has been one of the premier forms of racing around the world since its inaugural season in 1950. The word ''formula'' in the name refers to the set of rules to which all participants' cars must conform. A Formula One season consists of a series of races, known as ''Grands Prix'', which take place worldwide on both purpose-built circuits and closed public roads. A points system is used at Grands Prix to determine two annual World Championships: one for drivers, the other for constructors. Each driver must hold a valid Super Licence, the highest class of racing licence issued by the FIA. The races must run on tracks graded "1" (formerly "A"), the highest grade-rating issued ...
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Jaguar Cars
Jaguar (, ) is the luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover, a British multinational car manufacturer with its headquarters in Whitley, Coventry, England. Jaguar Cars was the company that was responsible for the production of Jaguar cars until its operations were fully merged with those of Land Rover to form Jaguar Land Rover on 1 January 2013. Jaguar's business was founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922, originally making motorcycle sidecars before developing bodies for passenger cars. Under the ownership of S. S. Cars Limited, the business extended to complete cars made in association with Standard Motor Co, many bearing ''Jaguar'' as a model name. The company's name was changed from S. S. Cars to Jaguar Cars in 1945. A merger with the British Motor Corporation followed in 1966, the resulting enlarged company now being renamed as British Motor Holdings (BMH), which in 1968 merged with Leyland Motor Corporation and became British Leyland, itself to be nationali ...
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Daimler-Benz
The Mercedes-Benz Group Aktiengesellschaft, AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufacturers. Daimler-Benz was formed with the merger of Benz & Cie. and Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft in 1926. The company was renamed DaimlerChrysler upon acquiring the American automobile manufacturer Chrysler Corporation in 1998, and was again renamed Daimler AG upon divestment of Chrysler in 2007. In 2021, Daimler AG was the second-largest German automaker and the sixth-largest worldwide by production. In February 2022, Daimler was renamed Mercedes-Benz Group. The Mercedes-Benz Group's marques are Mercedes-Benz for cars and vans (including Mercedes-AMG and Maybach#Mercedes-Maybach, Mercedes-Maybach) and Smart (marque), Smart. It has shares in other vehicle manufactures such as Daimler Truck, Denza, BA ...
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