Do you brake for Braking News? For years this journal delivered breaking stories and cool ideas that stop us in our tracks — concours dispatches, scale model finds, racing history, automotive artists, and the occasional vehicle that looked like it escaped from a comic book. The archive below preserves the best of it, restored and lightly polished for the modern web.
Braking News: where racing history and automotive art trade paint.
Yes, probably. The most brilliant coachworks of the grandest era worked their magic on Delahaye chassis, and automotive fine artists have been falling for them ever since. We look at why these French masterpieces keep stealing the show at concours lawns and on gallery walls alike. Read more…
Every August the world’s leading automotive painters and sculptors unveil their newest work on the Monterey Peninsula, steps from the most beautiful cars on Earth. Here’s what those debuts mean and how to make the most of a concours art exhibition. Read more…
Our founder returned from a two-year international quest to find a 100% high-caliber source for prints of the most exceptional racing posters from yesteryear. At the end of 2015 the endeavor looked like a washed-up schooner impaled on the boulders off Nantucket. Then everything changed. Read more…
Before slot cars, before radio control, there were tether cars: miniature gas-powered racers screaming around cable circuits at very real speeds. The story of the spindizzies and why collectors prize them today. Read more…
The hobby looks bottomless from the outside: scales, brands, eras, price tags from pocket money to mortgage payment. Our beginner’s roadmap keeps it simple, cheap and fun — the way every great collection starts. Read more…
Some of the most convincing automotive photography ever shot involves no automobile at all — just a 1:18 scale model, forced perspective, gravel dust and a photographer with monk-grade patience. How miniature car photography fools your eye. Read more…
Original owner’s manuals and factory literature are the unsung collectibles of the classic car world — beautiful, historically vital, and still surprisingly affordable. What to look for and where to hunt. Read more…
Digitized motorsport archives put nearly a century of racing photography, programs and results a click away — free. Where to start, and how researchers, artists and modelers put these treasures to work. Read more…
More From the Archive
The journal’s back catalog ran wide and weird, in the best way. Headlines we still smile about: Huge underdog wins the 100th Indianapolis 500 at 66-1; Automotive Hall of Fame inducts safety advocate Ralph Nader; Cult-classic movie cars become scale models; Shelby Mustangs gallop in the snow and ice; Helsinki expects to jettison private cars by 2025; What colors will cars start coming in?; and the immortal Apocalypse coming? This is the maniac roadster you’ll want to be driving.
For ongoing coverage of the collector car world, the editorial team at Hagerty Media carries the torch daily — we tip our vintage racing helmet to them.
