Sports Car Digest - The Sports, Racing and Vintage Car Journal
Sports Car Digest focuses on Classic Car Auctions, Concours d’Elegance, Vintage Car Racing, Road Rallies and other historic automotive events.
Leigh Dorrington is an automotive historian and contributor to automotive publications in the U.S. and Europe including AutoWeek, Vintage Motorsport, Classic and Sports Car, MotorSport, Gasoline for Swedish hot rodders and Automobile Quarterly. The common denominators in his widespread interests and subjects are automotive design and competition.
Leigh is actively engaged as a concours judge and consultant and is a director of the Saratoga Fall Ferrari Festival in Saratoga Springs, New York. He lives in a 1771 Connecticut farmhouse, where he channels a rich tradition of earlier automotive journalists and drives a Proteus Jaguar C-type.
Report and photos by Leigh Dorrington The 2011 Louisville Concours d’Elegance at Churchill Downs benefitting Brooklawn Child and Family Services provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the 1915 Duesenberg racing car of Joe Freeman to be driven on the historic Churchill Downs track. The Duesenberg is one of five team cars built by brothers Fred and Augie Duesenberg between 1913-1916 … [Read more...]
By Leigh Dorrington The Mercedes-Benz Museum at the company’s headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany is a depository of the history of the automobile, motorsport, commercial transportation and the Twentieth Century altogether, presented in one of the most modern museums in the world. Two names, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, stand above all others in the company’s history. But there were … [Read more...]
By Leigh Dorrington The history of the Indianapolis 500 fills one of the most remarkable galleries in all of racing. Dan Weldon‘s 2011 race-winning car soon will join this collection—the most exclusive in racing—a collection of Indianapolis 500-winning automobiles. Other significant automobiles are displayed separately. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum is … [Read more...]
History of the Indianapolis 500 – Part Two (See History of the Indianapolis 500 - Part One) By Leigh Dorrington The first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, won by Ray Harroun on the Indianapolis-built Marmon ‘Wasp’, began one of the longest sporting traditions in the world. And soon the whole world was watching. The history of the race reflects a century—The American Century—that … [Read more...]
Story by Leigh Dorrington The story of the Indianapolis 500 is the story of America in a pivotal century—the beginning of the American Century. A rural nation rushing to embrace industrialization. Farm boys, fairgrounds and big city promoters. Seat of the pants courage and genuine genius. Foreign invasions—so to speak—and homeland traditions. In 1910, the city of Indianapolis was … [Read more...]
Story and photos by Leigh Dorrington The Schlumpf Collection in Mulhouse, France has been described as the most prestigious automobile collection in the world. Without doubt, no other collection in the world has a history more filled with intrigue. The public learned of the collection of automobiles assembled by brothers Fritz and Hans Schlumpf in 1977 when workers striking against the … [Read more...]
Story and Photos by Leigh Dorrington It's not for me to write about the men and women Tom Brokaw described as our 'Greatest Generation'. My father, my uncles—and an aunt, who served in the Waves—showed me by their example all their lives. One uncle fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Another fought on Iwo Jima. Seven in all from my mother’s and father’s families served in WWII . … [Read more...]
Story and photos by Leigh Dorrington The recent Saratoga Wine & Food and Fall Ferrari Festival honoring Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team also hosted a discussion among former N.A.R.T. participants, inspired by Bill Warner’s famously animated vintage racing discussions each year at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. Participants included Luigi Chinetti Jr., former team … [Read more...]
Story by Leigh Dorrington Houston trial attorney John O’Quinn, who has recently emerged as a towering figure in automotive and art purchases for a proposed museum, was killed in an automobile accident in Houston on Thursday, October 30. O’Quinn and his partner Darla Lexington, president of the O’Quinn Collection, have become known to auction participants and automotive artists but … [Read more...]
Story by Leigh Dorrington and photos by Tom Sullivan The inaugural Saratoga Wine & Food and Fall Festival in Saratoga Springs, New York on September 10-12, 2009 featured a Ferrari Concours, honored guests and automobiles from Ferrari’s North American Racing Team (N.A.R.T.), a spirited N.A.R.T. racing discussion, exhibition of historic racing images by Tom Burnside and a Ferrari tour of the … [Read more...]
