4 Vintage Racing Documentaries You’ve Probably Never Seen

These four vintage racing films add up to more than an hour of footage, footage that will take you trackside to witness some of the most engaging cars and characters in motorsport. Gulf Oil? Of course. General Motors’ first semi-official journey to Le Mans with the Corvette? Definitely.

With footage this amazing, make sure to squirrel away some time to watch these films over the weekend. My vote, if you’re able to watch just one, goes to the Corvette documentary.

Gulf Oil looks back on the 1970 race season, a season in which it famously sponsored the Porsche 917s. From Le Mans to races on the other side of the globe, this is what the support of an oil company bought your race team in 1970.

General Motors allowed Cunningham to run Corvettes at Le Mans, and commissioned a short film to be made about the endeavor. It’s surprisingly entertaining and frank, as the host is (unbelievably) even heard making positive comments about the other cars in the race!

This documentary, filmed by Fiat on the 131 Abarth Group 4 may be in Italian, but with entertaining footage, sideways antics, and a behind-the-scenes look at a time when rallying was still growing in popularity, it’s watchable even without knowing much of what’s being said.

Take a seat for the 1968 24 Hours of Le Mans with the Ford GT40 and Ferodo Brakes, where the opening scene is narrated by Stirling Moss and is—even with the master calmly talking the viewer through a lap of La Sarthe—quite harrowing.

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