Pit & Paddock by Peter Darley & Auto-Archives
Reknowned motorsport photographer Peter Darley became hooked on motor racing first by racing a Mini Cooper in the UK back in the 60s, and then by travelling to as many races as he could. Living near so many circuits in the UK, he photographed many great races, at many great circuits, and in doing so visually chronicled an incredible golden period of motor sport in the 60s & 70s. Auto-Archives put together a fund-raising book project via crowd funding site Kickstarter, with the book called Pit & Paddock.
For those that haven’t heard of Auto-Archives before, they are a non profit Automotive & Motor sport library and research center based in Denver, Colorado. They currently house in excess of 75,000 automotive books and magazines, as well as over 100,000 images from the photographic archives of Peter Darley, Ian Catt, William Taylor, and the Motor Racing collections of Classic Team Lotus and the Polygon Gulf Collection. The archive also has 1,000+ Race Event Programs, Race Media/Press Packs and probably the most comprehensive Lotus archive in the world. So quite a treasure trove for any motorsport nut. As part of their goal to provide more people with access to their fantastic archives they decided to fund a photographic book with the support of motorsport fans directly, via Kickstarter.
The book is a special collection of images taken by Peter Darley in the 60s and 70s, presented in a fantastic 12×12-inch, large format, 256 page book called ‘Pit & Paddock.’
The team at Auto-Archives also put together a short video to help illustrate the project and work completed so far, it is attached to the Kickstarter page here.
The selected images give the reader an insight into life off the track, and behind the scenes at race meetings found at paddocks and pit areas throughout Europe. These unique never before seen images portray a world that is long gone.
This was no easy task, and it is far from over yet. After a difficult selection process, the volunteers at Auto-Archives narrowed down the images to those taken at ten circuits around the U.K. and Europe. Deciding which circuits to choose developed into several lively discussions here at Auto-Archives. The monumental task of going through all the images and picking the images to support and breathe life to each circuit called for many coffee and tea breaks.
The project has some impressive backing, in the shape of Lord March, who has written the foreword for the book. Dan Gurney and Sir Jackie Stewart have also shown their support by providing their signature to some limited edition Peter Darley prints that are available to backers of the Kickstarter project. The images were taken by Peter Darley in the early 60s at Goodwood and Snetterton respectively.
There are also other prints available, shown below with driver names for the corresponding numbers.
#01 – Jim Clark
#02 – Jack Brabham
#03 – Phill Hill
#04 – Denny Hulme
#05 – Chaparral 2F
#06 – Chris Amon & Jackie Stewart
#07 – Bruce McLaren
#08 – Ferrari Dino 206S
#09 – Jack Sears
#10 – Cobra Coupe
#11 – Jaguar XKSS
#12 – Sir John Whitmore
There is just under two weeks to add your support to this project and secure your copy of some prime motorsport history. https://www.kickstarter.
