Brian Watson's Motor Racing
One hundred and three years of Motor Racing: 1905 to 2008.
Historic motor racing photographs (select a year from the menu above) and MOVIES.
These old motor racing pictures are softer than if they had been taken with a modern
digital camera because they come from 35mm transparencies. A high quality macro lens was
used to photograph them. Pictures in the Galleries are low resolution versions of these
files and may show compression artefacts (the penalty of making the files small enough to
download quickly). Prints will not show these: they will be sharper and show more detail
than is visible here.
The 2008 photographs were taken with a proper camera.
Subjects
I photographed and filmed the F1 scene in the 60s and early 70s, at
these meetings, of (mostly) Grands Prix,
a few sports car races, and several non-Championship F1 events:
Nearly four hundred of my photographs are in my Galleries:
use the 'year' menu above, or browse the (full) Contents page,
or the Contents page for the motor images only.
The 1905 pictures are from glass negatives owned by M Watson, and are reproduced with permission.
Movies
Twenty of my short
Super 8 movies are on YouTube
.
One has been described as '
An absolutely priceless piece of British motor racing history
'.
Between them, they have been viewed over 450,000 times and are now available on DVD.
There is a summary on my Movies pages.
Don't see what you want?
If you have a specific motor racing interest in this period and you can't find it here,
please email me: I might still have photographed it.
All of the motor racing photographs on this site are indexed in either the
Contents page or the Contents page for the
motor images only.
Find a good spot...
I took about half of these photographs and movies during occasional duties as a Medical
Officer at race meetings and private testing sessions. No lives were lost. Safety and medical
facilities are quite properly taken more seriously these days, and neither official
photographers nor doctors with cameras stand in the stupid places seen in some of these photographs.
Sources
I found GrandPrix.com an invaluable aid to confirming my occasionally incomplete memories of the drivers, cars and locations of many of these photographs. For the non-championship races The Formula One Archives filled the remaining gaps. Thanks also to those helpful enthusiasts on The Nostalgia Forum for helping me with my captioning.
Comments on my photographs & movies
Brian, THIS IS THE REAL DEAL! Make sure the originals go in the vault!
I nominate the good Doctor for THE BEST racing footage on Youtube. Any seconds???
Fantastic footage! Priceless! A real gem! Many many thanx for giving everyone the privilege of being able to view this footage. Superb quality! Take it it was recorded onto 16mm camera?
Those nice people at the Nostalgia Forum have posted many complimentary remarks about my work. Here are some:
Cor!...Real memory jerkers ... have forwarded the 1970 link to Mr. Connew as the Surtees TS.7 passages are the best I have ever seen of the first F.1 car he had a large part in the design of;
Great! Fabulous stuff, Brian. Brian's footage is awsome!
Well done! Quite a lot of interest there, helpfully captioned and transferred from slides rather better than I usually manage.
... part of what we remember of those drivers and cars comes from photos like yours (which some of us also tried to take).
Brian, your photos from the 60s are amazing! They are so spectacularly sharp.... Very impressive.
I just wish my pictures from that era had survived as well as yours have.
Many thanks for the great shots! Fabulous website... Thanks again, a terrific collection.
Brian, what a treat... I tried to snap that Ferrari in the pits at the 1963 British GP, (with my 48-shilling Brownie Cresta) and the mechanics kept waving their hands and grease rags in front of the engine to spoil my shot!
Great collection, many thanks for sharing. I think my favourite is Denny in the M19 at Kyalami, such a wonderfully atmospheric shot with the light at such an unusual angle.
Great pictures Brian! Thank you for posting these, Brian. Absolutely superb!
Thank you Brian for making the effort to share your pictures. ...the few I have had a look at are simply superb. Honestly they are some of the best 1960s racing pics I have seen. The composition of your pictures is so good, each one is a masterpiece. ...your work is inspirational!
What marvelous photographs. Brilliant stuff... Excellent! Wow! What terrific photos! I loved them all...
What a superb private collection of photos from such an iconic era of motor racing...
My dinner went cold Brian!!!...but it was well worth it ... Going back for second looks now.
FABULOUS! I've only had time for a brief glimpse but it looks amazing--can't wait to spend more time paging through those classics.
Thanks for putting this on the web where we can all enjoy it! Brilliant shots. Marvellous! Many thanks.
What excellent photos! Wonderfully atmospheric! It’s very generous of you to share them on the web, Brian – thanks!
Great site. The F1 photos are quite evocative of their time, whilst being of good technical quality.
My husband was looking over my shoulder through the entire collection. He only came over to look for a minute and had to see them all. You have also given me motivation to try something similar with my collection from '72-'80. Doubt if I can get it too look as good, though.
Fantastic photos and videos Great Photos Brian. Thanks for the great photos and memories!
Great pictures Brian... Best shot there for me (IMHO) is Mr Amon in the beautiful MS120B at Kyalami, on opposite lock, probably giving the V-12 a good dose of right foot.......can you imagine, no remember, what that sounded like!
It is appreciated that you posted these on your site for others to see, thank you!
Marvellous photographs and movie clips...Thanks for sharing these great pictures! This thread really deserves a more eyecatching title, such as: "Sensational never seen before pictures in colour of a golden age in motorsport"
The films are just great! So good to see cars racing with suspension, blue tyre smoke as they lock up, and no electronics or ABS in sight, great days!!!!
Wonderful, just wonderful. Excellent photos, many thanks for sharing them.
©2010 Brian Watson Photography
