PHOTOGRAPHY OF BOB MAGILL | EPIC IMAGES OF AMERICAN MOTORCYCLING

-

“Don & Marge Fera, 1940s. Back then, race bikes had hand-shifters, metal number plates and if your gal had nerve she showed just a hint of leg.”  –caption by Dean Adams

-

THESE GUYS (EH-HEM, AND GAL) ARE COOL BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT TRYIN’ TO BE– THEY’RE SIMPLY DOIN’ WHAT THEY LOVE TO DO.  RIDIN’.  THESE EPIC SHOTS TAKEN BACK IN THE 1940s – 50s PERFECTLY SHOW THE NATURAL, RAW BEAUTY OF MOTORCYCLING IN ITS PURIST FORM.  THE GEAR IS NO NONSENSE AND RUGGED SPORTSWEAR, AND THE EXPRESSIONS OF GRIT AND JOY ON THEIR FACES ARE PRICELESS– CAPTURED BY THE LEGENDARY MOTORCYCLING PHOTOGRAPHER BOB MAGILL (1917-2005).  RIDIN’ NEVER LOOKED BETTER. ROLLED, WORN DENIM.  ENGINEER BOOTS.  LEATHERS AND GOGGLES AND CAPS– OH, MY.

__________________________________________________________________________

-

-

“While those wobblers James Dean and Brando get all the press about riding bikes in the 1940s and 50s, character actor Keenan Wynn actually raced motorcycles (as did Howard Hawks). Here Wynn (with cigar) fills up for his riding pals, about sixty-odd years ago.”  –caption by Dean Adams

-

-

“Don Emde’s dad, Floyd, on the grid of the 1940 Oakland 200 mile race.” –caption by Dean Adams

-

-

“Riverside, 1949″  –Caption by Dean Adams.

-

-

“Unknown rider, unknown race. At speed.”  –caption by Dean Adams

-

-

“Lincoln Park, date unknown.”  –caption by Dean Adams

-

“Magill, like many purists, could never get his head around the fact that nearly the entire news photography industry dropped medium-format cameras for 35mm, without a real analysis of the wonderful photos that the larger format produced. ‘I can’t understand why fellas use 35mm. The frame is so small, it’s like shooting through a microscope,’ he’d muse.”

–Dean Adams

Bob Magill photos on SuperbikePlanets

photos found via Jockey Journal

Via theselvedgeyard

STEVE MCQUEEN REMEMBERED | FORMER LOVER, FELLOW RACER

1960 Lime Rock Nationals– Denise McCluggage sits on the grid  while SCCA gets things straight.

-

Back in 1955 or so, a young Denise McCluggage had a chance encounter with a then unknown Steve McQueen which led to a brief affair and a long-lasting friendship. They would be separated by their own career ambitions, and the many demands and erratic schedules that come with the territory. That said, McCluggage managed to stay in touch over the years. She herself would go on to become a legend in the world of auto racing– a renowned driver, writer, and photographer for over 50 yrs. McCluggage has won trophies around the world and raced for Porsche, Jaguar, Lotus, Mini Cooper, Alfa, Elva, OSCA, Volvo, among others. In 1961 she won the grand touring category at Sebring in a Ferrari 250 GT, and in 1964 McCluggage scored a class win in the Rallye de Monte Carlo for Ford. She shared her remembrances of McQueen and their relationship years after his passing, published in AutoWeek magazine back in 1981. She recalls a young, lean McQueen who was already obsessed with cars and racing, who swept her off her feet with his searing looks, charm and well… incongruity, as she puts it.

-

1955, Steve McQueen as he looked back in the day, running around the Village w/ Denise McCluggage – Image by © Roy Schatt

-

Shortly after our reunion he had sidled up next to me and whispered in my ear: “I’m falling in love all over again,” and given me the full brunt of the smile. My response had been an instantaneous hoot of laughter. –Denise McCluggage

-

Steve McQueen: Car Buff Extraordinaire, for Auto Week magazine– 

I first saw Steve McQueen in front of Joe’s luncheonette on West 4th St. in Greenwich Village. He wasn’t *STEVE McQUEEN* then, just Steve McQueen, Village hang-about. He was leaning against his cream-colored MG-TC holding a new leather-covered racing helmet and telling someone how some friends of his in England had sent it to him. And, man, that was too much!

I was on my way into Joe’s for a toasted bran muffin. Joe’s is long-gone, but at one time tout le village passed through there. That was before the Village was quite so boutique-y or self-consciously freaky. It was just a place to live.

Being a TC owner myself (my second — this one red) and interested in racing, I stopped to listen and stayed to talk.

Steve it seems, was an actor. Well, I knew something about actors having been married to one rather recently, albeit briefly. And I had studied the craft myself at night classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse (the one continuity of my life has been taking classes– in anything). So Steve and I had a wide range of commonality.

And I was touched by his almost waif-like quality– his delight and genuine surprise that someone would go to all the trouble to send him a present, particularly one he really dug. There was this incongruity in Steve’s vulnerability, his cock-of-the-walk posturing, his jive talk. And if there’s anything I’m a sucker for, it’s incongruity.

-

1955, Steve McQueen as he looked back in the day, running around the Village w/ Denise McCluggage – Image by © Roy Schatt

-

So the conversations continued. Then and later. At Joe’s over toasted bran muffins and at my five-flight walk-up around the corner. Indeed, we became something of a Village “item,” which surprised me. But then MG-TCs — or any sportscars — were comparatively rare, and two of them parked nose-to-tail on Cornelian Street didn’t go unnoticed. One regular at Joe’s, (as pleased as a successful matchmaker) said, “I’ve been watching those two cars around here for months and I knew it was inevitable that you’d finally get together.”

But it wasn’t like that at all! Well, it was a little like that, but not such a big deal.

I’ve been trying to remember what exactly was the Big Deal in my life at that time. The year must have been 1955 or 1956– that means it was after I had become sports writer for the New York Herald Tribune and before I got my Jaguar and raced my first SCCA National at Montgomery, NY.

Steve was at a nowhere place in his career– all possibilities and promise. But every actor I knew, including my ex-husband, had possibilities and promise. And little else.

But possibilities turned into actualities for Steve shortly thereafter, and he was off for the Coast, eventually to become Josh Randall on TV. I left the Tribune, kept racing, published Competition Press. Stuff like that.

-

A brilliant photo of racing legends Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Denise McCluggage, Pedro Rodriguez, Innes Ireland, and  Ronnie Bucknum. via

-

The next time I saw Steve McQueen must have been at Sebring in 1962. He was driving an MGA for BMC (British motor corporation). I was driving an OSCA (Officine Specializzate Costruzioni Automobili) with Allen Eager, a jazz musician with whom I had won the GT category with the year before. Allen had known Steve in the Village even before I had, and long before I knew Allen.

“Hey, man,” Steve said to Allen in a conspirator’s whisper. “I bet we’re the only two guys in this race who ever…” And he made toke-taking gestures with his thumb and forefinger. Allen’s answer was to start a hand for his pocket. “It just so happens…”

“Hey, man, what are you doing!?” Steve glanced around in a minor panic, his hands pushing disclaimers. I thought that was unfair to Allen. Allen had thought that Steve had gone Hollywood hypocrite. To me it meant Steve had Made It and wanted to Keep It. (This was 1962, remember.)

He had made it. People in restaurant booths pointed at him and called him “Josh” and grinned those give-me-a-prize-for-recognizing-you grins. Steve rather stiffly reminded them: “My name is Steve McQueen. The role I play is Josh.” That broke up Allen, who had had some share of fame for his tenor sax. Gradually Steve loosened up and laughed too, and and we talked Old Times talk. As we talked the quick McQueen smile became less mannered, less shtick-y and more like the Village days.

-

Denise McCluggage (with a camera strapped around her neck) at Le Mans in 1958, published her first article for Autoweek in the magazine’s first issue back in 1958. via

-

Another incident had loosened him up a bit too. Shortly after our reunion he had sidled up next to me and whispered in my ear: “I’m falling in love all over again,” and given me the full brunt of the smile. My response had been an instantaneous hoot of laughter. Steve looked hurt at first– that old vulnerability– and then th too laughed. It was a good line, and he had delivered it well, and I had loved it, but we both knew it was a stranger to any truth– either at the moment or long before.

And Steve’s truth was what I liked best about him. He had it in his acting. His full use of himself in the character of the moment. I liked his work.

I saw Steve several years later in California. I had a script idea about racing and he liked it a lot, but I wanted a friend of mine to direct it and Steve said (this was before The Great Escape) that he wasn’t big enough yet to risk an unknown director.

He was in a good place then. Enough success for a sense of satisfaction and a strong belief that plenty more was to come. Swell, it was. He led me in his British Racing Green Jaguar D-Type up the winding roads into the hills to see his house and meet his family. Chad was just about two yrs old I think. And Steve proudly showed me  job he had just finished– putting cork on the walls of a den.

-

Denise McCluggage with Stirling Moss at Sebring, 1961. McLuggage was driving a Ferrari 250 GT SWB with Allen Eager, who was better known for his tenor sax. via

-

Some years later when in London I picked up a newspaper and there was Steve McQueen along with an interview. He was on his way to France to start filming Le Mans. I called the reporter who had done the interview to find out what hotel Steve was in, and I phoned. I had no ide how thick the barrier would be to reaching him. I wouldn’t have tried very hard, but it was only one man deep. I told him I was an old friend of Steve’s and told him who I was. After a while a voice came back: “Denise McLuggage. Now that’s a name from the past.” 

We talked a long time– about his racing successes, his motorcycles, what he had done in Bullitt, what he wanted to do in Le Mans, and how he might revive my long-put-aside racing film ideas.

That was the last time I talked to Steve directly. He used to see Phil and Alma Hill in Los Angeles, and we sent “hellos” back and forth through them and said how we must get together again sometimes when I’m in L.A.

I knew what was happening, as much as you can know what is happening through the simultaneous successes and neglect of the press.

I thought that Steve was going to beat his illness. I really did. Hope gives a lot of color to how I think about such things.

-

Steve McQueen, Monaco, 1969

-

Steve’s name came up in a group conversation shortly after he had gone to Mexico and a young reporter among us said: “Boy, that’s the way to make a lot of money right now. If you can get to Steve McQueen you can make a fortune. An exclusive interview.”

I said nothing, but my mouth opened slightly as I tried to think of a word that described my feelings. “Appalled” probably came closest. And I thought too that I probably wasn’t much of a journalist.

Appropriately, it was a car radio that delivered the news to me Steve McQueen was dead. He was 50 years old, the announcer said. Fifty. That had no meaning. It was far too young. It was far too old.

I saw then that 1950s day in New York, and a young man with short-cropped hair wearing chino pants and a stark white T-shirt lounging against a cream-colored MG-TC with a machine-turned dashboard. He squints into the stark white sun and smiles a quick, not-yet-famous smile suddenly there, just as suddenly gone. He turns a new white helmet over and over in his hands.

I think too of those E.E. Cummings lines:

“And what I want to know is– How do you like your blue-eyed boy, Mr. Death?”

-

-

RELTED TSY POSTS:

STEVE MCQUEEN, RICHARD AVEDON & RUTH ANSEL | HARPER’S BAZAAR, 1965

STEVE McQUEEN DOIN’ IT IN THE DIRT | TRIUMPH DESERT BIKE BY BUD EKINS

STEVE McQUEEN’s 1971 HUSKY 400 CROSS UP FOR AUCTION | BUY IT NOW!

STEVE McQUEEN’s 1971 HUSKY 400 CROSS UP FOR AUCTION | BUY IT NOW!

STEVE McQUEEN REVIEWS THE HOTTEST NEW GT’s | 1966 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

STEVE McQUEEN ’66 POPULAR SCIENCE | WHAT I LIKE IN A BIKE –AND WHY

STEVE McQUEEN | LE MANS & BEYOND GRATUITOUS 1970s RACING GOODNESS

STEVE McQUEEN | HOLLYWOOD’S ANTI-HERO & TRUE SON OF LIBERTY

REQUIRED VIEWING “BULLITT” | THE GRANDDADDY OF CAR CHASE SCENES

THE TSY FRIDAY FADE | STEVE MCQUEEN’S DUNE BUGGY DAYS

HUSQVARNA | THE SCREAMIN’ SWEDE THAT STARTED A RACING REVOLUTION

1970 12 HOURS OF SEBRING RACE | STEVE McQUEEN’S BRUSH WITH VICTORY

from theselvedgeyard

VINTAGE MENSWEAR | A COLLECTION FROM THE VINTAGE SHOWROOM’S BOOK

-

-

___________________________________________________________________________

I was pretty stoked when Doug Gunn sent me a copy of — Vintage Menswear — A Collection from the Vintage Showroom – as I’ve long been an admirer. Being in the menswear trade myself, London has always been a favorite stop for inspiration, and there’s no better place to be inspired than The Vintage Showroom. The collection is insane and beautifully presented, covering everything from academia, sporting, hunting, motoring, military wear, workwear, denim– it’s no surprise that they are one of the most complete and prestigious vintage dealers in the world. Of special interest to me are all things related to motoring as you see below including vintage leathers, Barbour, Belstaff, etc., and all the great snippets of the history, construction, and function behind the pieces.

___________________________________________________________________________

-

CHAMPION CAR CLUB JACKET, 1950s– “This is a simple, zip-up cotton jacket with fish-eye buttons at the cuffs and a short collar. What it signifies, however, is so much more. The hand-embroidered, chain-stitched imagery on its back places it squarely in the 1950s, at the height of the hot-rodding craze in the US. Hot-rodding was said to have been driven by young men returning from service abroad after World War II who had technical knowledge, time on their hands, and the habit of spending long days in male, if not macho, company. Rebuilding and boosting cars for feats of both spectacle and speed — often 1930s Ford Model Ts, As and Bs,stripped of extraneous parts, engines tuned or replaced, tires beefed up for better traction, and a show-stopping paint job as the final touch — became an issue of social status among hot-rodding’s participants. This status was expressed through clothing too. There were the ‘hot-rodders’ of the 1930s, when car modification for racing across dry lakes in California was more an innovative sport than a subculture, complete with the Southern California Timing Association of 1937 providing ‘official’ sanction. But by the 1950s, hot-rodding was a style too.  decade later it was, as many niche tastes are, commercialized and mainstream, with car design showing hot-rod traits.”  –Vintage Menswear, Douglas Gunn, Roy Luckett& Josh Sims

-

-

BOLENIUM RACING COVERALLS, 1950s– “These cotton coveralls were made in Britain during the 1950s with factory work in mind. Their practicality and, when made in white, dash soon came to be adopted by motor-racing drivers of the period– among them Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, and Juan Manuel Fangio. Each of these helped to make the British racing tracks of the period, the likes of Brooklands and Silverstone, world-famous. The utility and style of coveralls had already been spotted by Britain’s wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill– his ‘siren suit’ was essentially a zip-front version of the coveralls, donned in a hurry over clothing or nightwear before entering an air-raid shelter. Although Churchill and members of his family had worn such suits since the 1930s (they called them ‘rompers’), the coveralls became a wartime sartorial signature for the PM. The dapper Churchill had several siren suits made in other fabrics, among them red velvet.”  –Vintage Menswear, Douglas Gunn, Roy Luckett& Josh Sims

-

-

ALBERT GILL LTD DESPATCH RIDER’S COAT, 1943– “Despatch riders provided an invaluable, if not crucial form of communication during both world wars. With telegraph and radio lines often broken by enemy activity, or the messages relayed on them uncertain of inception, the despatch rider provided an almost assured means of delivery — the likelihood of  a single rider being physically arrested by the enemy was slight. He would be able to use his motorcycle to circumvent blocked roads and bomb damage, to move at speed and to deliver in person. He had to operate at all times and in all weathers– hence the need for considerable protection. This despatch rider’s coat, made by Albert Gill Ltd in 1944 and marked, in quartermaster fashion, (coat, rubber-proofed, motor cyclist’s) is made from bonded, rubberized cotton canvas fabric by Macintosh. Even after softening and with its perspiration eyelets under the armpits, it would have been an uncomfortably hot and heavy garment to wear. But it afforded almost complete water- and wind-proofing. The bottom of the coat even snapped together to cover the tops of the legs of the rider., with the front front rear edgepress-stud-fastened (using brass Newey studs typical of the 1930s and 1940s UK) onto the rear hem, creating a kind of military-grade romper suit. Straps on the interior secured the coat to the rider’s legs, preventing it from flapping about. A double-breasted front provided an additional layer of protection to the chest, with a storm flap designed to keep water away from the body. The most distinctive feature of the coat, however, remains the slanted chest ‘map’ pocket that carried the message– a design detail copied for latter cotton civilian biker jackets.”  –Vintage Menswear, Douglas Gunn, Roy Luckett& Josh Sims  

-

BARBOUR INTERNATIONAL MOTORCYCLE JACKET, 1950s– “few specialist clothing designs can be said to have been adapted for use by the military and then to have found life with civilians again. Perhaps one of the most successful examples is Barbour’s International trials jacket. The Barbour company was founded by John Barbour in South Shields , north-east England in 1894. He built a drapery business specializing in boiler suits, painetrs’ jackets and oilskins for shipbuilders, sailors and fishermen of the local coastal towns, and later the farming community too. It was a hobby of John Barbour’s son Malcolm that saw the company build a motorcycling range during the 1930s– more or less exclusively kitting out the British International motor-racing team from 1936 onwards. One such design was adapted to make the Ursula suit for submariners during World War II, initially as a private order, and later as an official piece of wartime kit. Adapted slightly further, the jacket part of the suit found a third life with motorcyclists again from 1947. The jacket’s profile rose through the 1950s and 1960s thanks to its use by most of the riders at the UK’s Six Days Trial international motocross competition, as well as by keen cross-country biker and Hollywood actor Steve McQueen. The 1st Pattern civilian jacket, as with this example– still referred to as the ‘Barbour suit’ in its labeling and only later coming to be known as the International– used small-gauge, lightning zip of the Ursula and the moleskin-lined ‘eagle’ collar. Later models replaced the zipper with a larger lightning pull, the collar lining with corduroy, and the plain interior lining with what would become Barbour’s signature tartan.”  –Vintage Menswear, Douglas Gunn, Roy Luckett& Josh Sims  

-

BELSTAFF TRIALMASTER MOTORCYCLE MOTORCYCLE JACKET, 1960s- “The Barbour International’s arch-rival in motorcycling circles has long been the Belstaff Trialmaster. Today the jacket has four patch pockets, but initially it shared the same ‘drunk’ left breast pocket, and was distinguishable only by being slightly longer in the body and by a few minor details. More distinctive perhaps was Belstaff’s readiness to use color– this jacket, although now broken down with time and use to a shade of maroon-black, was once a bold red. Like Barbour, Belstaff grew out of a business built around the development of early technical fabrics. Established in 1924 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England by Eli Belovitch and his son Harry Grosberg, the company specialized in outdoorsy friction, wind, and  water-proof garments (although its logo, a Phoenix rising, did so from a fire rather than a muddy field). Later such garments resulted from experiments with rubber coatings. This led to Belstaff’s successful Black Prince clothing line, including the company’s first motorcycle jacket, and the waxing of cottons, the use of natural oils giving the fabric greater water-resistance while retaining its breathability. Like Barbour’s International jacket, the Trialmaster too won a stamp of approval from many professional motorcyclists, chiefly of the 1950s and 1960s. The champion trials rider Sammy Miller wore the jacket for many of his record 1,250 victories. adding to its later appeal for some was the fact that the revolutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara wore this jacket for his legendary motorcycle ride across South America.”  –Vintage Menswear, Douglas Gunn, Roy Luckett& Josh Sims

-

UNKNOWN BRAND, DOUBLE-BREASTED MOTORCYCLE JACKET, 1920s– “This English, custom-made leather jacket dates from the 1920s when hobby motorcycling was in fancy. It sets a benchmark for subsequent biker jackets, though this one buttons up, lacking the signature asymmetric zip of later models. The hobby of motorcycling soon became a craze and manufacturers rushed to cater for it, vying to create the definitive article and many basing their designs on hunting jackets of the period– a fact seen in the pocket positioning of this example. It stretches the idea to say that these makers liked to romantically compare the motorbike to the trusty steed, but early bikers did tend to wear jodphurs too– if only because they were easy to wear tall boots with. This jacket, with its fleeced cotton lining, flapped pockets, hand-sewn buttonholes and horn buttons may lack any of the double-layered leather or safety features of later jackets, but its cropped style (allowing a crouched riding position), waist belt adjuster and elegant proportions make it much classier.”   –Vintage Menswear, Douglas Gunn, Roy Luckett& Josh Sims 

-

-

LEWIS LEATHERS PHANTOM RACING JACKET, 1970s– “The biker jacket had long been a fashion staple by the time this Lewis Leathers Phantom model was created in the 1970s. The famed Perfecto model had been developed by Schott for a Harley-Davidson dealer during the 1930s– it reached iconic status and sealed its rebellious image thanks to Marlon Brando’s misfit wearing one in the 1953 film ‘The Wild One’. Although specialist pieces had been designed for riding before, this would become the benchmark for biker jackets, especially in the US. In the UK, however, Lewis Leathers was devising a more European feel– more fitted, longer and more blouson in style. D. Lewis Ltd. had been in business since 1892 as a pioneering maker of clothing for early motorists and aviators– for this latter market it even introduced its own Aviakit brand. By the 1950s, it had entered the biker clothing market with styles that defined the ‘ton up’ boys of the era– also the British ‘Rockers’ so stylistically and culturally opposed to the scooter-riding parka-wearing Mods. Two decades on, the company was reinventing the biker jacket in the most obvious way– by producing it not in the standard black or brown, but in bold new hues. In 1972, one catalog proclaimed ‘the colorful world of Lewis Leathers’. This heralded a brash new look for motorcyclists, although it proved to be just an interlude in fashion terms before punk rock made black the biker jacket color of choice once more.”  –Vintage Menswear, Douglas Gunn, Roy Luckett& Josh Sims       

-

The Vintage Showroom blog

from theselvedgeyard