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- A woman, a sports car and a dead racing driver
- Lauda, Clark and Rindt – sometimes bold, sometimes elegant
- Jochen Rindt became world champion posthumously
- The angular beauty of the Ferrari Dino 308 GT4
- "My Eli should stay as she is"
- That’s how wonderful the old Opel GT is
A woman, a sports car and a dead racing driver
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Sports reporter Ann-Iren Ossenbrink really wanted to drive a Lotus, and the Elise was the only affordable option.
Source: Jurgen C. Braun
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The copy that the Saarland native bought is a Lotus Elise MK II, built in 2001.
Source: Jurgen C. Braun
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The uncompromising British sports car has a 1.8 liter engine that develops 122 hp. She got the tip to buy this car from …
Source: Jurgen C. Braun
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… Clive Chapman, the son of the Lotus founder, whom Ann-Iren met in 2011 on the Monza race track. When the sports reporter asked him which Elise he could recommend…nn, he said: "The MK I, if you want to have fun. The MK II, if you want to drive safely. ”You couldn’t ask for more competent purchasing advice.
Source: Jurgen C. Braun
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The sticker on the rear is also a special feature: Gold Leaf was the sponsor of Team Lotus from 1969 to 1970, and Jochen Rindt is world champion in a white, red and gold Lotus 72 …become.
Source: Jurgen C. Braun
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Lotus founder Colin Chapman invented many things that still exist in Formula 1 today, but his vehicles were extremely fragile. One of his drivers, Gra…ham Hill, once said: “If your rear wheel overtakes you, you know you’re in a lotus.” Ann-Iren Ossenbrink’s car has neither power steering nor ABS, not even a brake booster.
Source: Jurgen C. Braun
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Instead, the steering wheel is on the right-hand side – just as it should be for an English car.
Source: Jurgen C. Braun
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The Saarland native doesn’t like being overtaken by her rear wheel. Her weakness for racing driver Jochen Rindt was decisive for the purchase of a Lotus.
Source: Jurgen C. Braun
The racing driver Jochen Rindt has been dead since 1970, but Ann-Iren Ossenbrink and the cars he drove were extremely fascinating. Therefore, there was no way around Lotus for the reporter.
E.It’s March the first time we have contact about this story. But Elise has a problem: In March she is not yet allowed to leave her winter quarters because there is still salt on the streets. And when it rains and the salt spreads on her exterior, she gets pimples. All right then. Photo session postponed to late April. And in the dry, please.
Elise, born in 2001, is just 15. And since the teen is supposed to become an ennobled old-timer in a decade and a half, we have – to give her full name – Lotus Elise and her owner Ann-Iren Ossenbrink at “pimple-free Weather "hit.
The story of this British car beauty and the sports journalist and sports scientist from Saarland is part of a complete "amour fou", a crazy love. That includes a man who has been dead four and a half decades.
Lauda, Clark and Rindt – sometimes bold, sometimes elegant
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Monaco Grand Prix 1964, view of the royal box with Gracia Patricia and Rainier. The protective guardrail, later standard on most racetracks, was only shortly before… the start and also only erected directly in front of the gallery.
Source: Werner Eisele
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The charm of improvisation: the racing overalls of Jochen Mass and his teammate Jacky Ickx will go to the pit wall to dry after washing in Le Mans in 1985…hangs.
Source: Werner Eisele
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Image of horror: Jim Clark’s demolished Lotus, in which the Briton had an accident. Photographer Eisele met the champion from 1963 and 1965 at a victory celebration in Stuttgart….
Source: Werner Eisele
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The photo of the preparations for the start of the Grand Prix at the Nurburgring in 1968, on which race director Mauro Forgieri gives his driver Jacky Ickx final instructions, is also adorned …Cover of the book "Motor Racing Photography".
Source: www.workingart.gallery
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Jim Clark just before the accident.
Source: Werner Eisele
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Ferrari team boss Luca di Montezemolo (left) conjures up Niki Lauda at the 1975 Monaco Grand Prix: "Bring back the title for me and the Scuderia."…ahr promptly world champion for the first time.
Source: Werner Eisele
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Last stop in front of the Ferrari box: Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips at the 1000 kilometer race on the Nurburgring. In a raincoat with a hat facing the Ferrari: Enzo Ferrari. On de…On the gallery, pilot Graham Hill (3rd from left) and a BP mechanic take an interested look at the competitors.
Source: Werner Eisele
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Werner Eisele, racing legends, exclusively for Welt am Sonntag
Source: Werner Eisele
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Jacky Ickx prepares for the 1973 French Grand Prix. To be prepared against the extreme heat, he dissolves salt tablets in water.
Source: Werner Eisele
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The original setting for the film “Grand Prix” at the 1966 Grand Prix of Holland. The audience can stroll unhindered on the roofs of the team garages.
Source: Werner Eisele
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François Cevert, Jackie Stewart’s team-mate at Tyrell, and his wife Helen Stewart are looking forward to the start of the 1971 German Grand Prix.
Source: Werner Eisele
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Werner Eisele presented Formula 1 Champion Michael Schumacher 2005 his book "Formula 1 Legends", which is now out of print.
Source: Werner Eisele
One that the Austrians have annexed as Formula 1 world champions, but whose roots lie in the Rhineland-Palatinate state capital Mainz: Jochen Rindt.
"When I saw a television documentary about Jochen Rindt in 2010, I was fascinated by this utterly unusual person," says Ann-Iren Ossenbrink. As a sports presenter and reporter for the private radio station “Radio Salu” in Saarland, appointments such as the World Rally Championship, DTM and Formula 1 were part of her daily business. After all, racetracks such as the Baden circuit in Hockenheim or the Nurburgring were part of the broadcaster’s catchment area.
Jochen Rindt became world champion posthumously
Ann-Iren Ossenbrink began to research. "I was not only interested in the ‘Austrian’ racing driver, but also in Mainz businessman Jochen Rindt. His origins, his childhood. How he grew up. Just his career. "
The stations of her research were as unusual as they were varied: from the royal park of Monza, where Rindt had a fatal accident on September 5, 1970, to the “Klein & Rindt” spice mill in Mainz, where Jochen was born in 1942. Since his parents died in a bomb attack in Hamburg a year later, he grew up with his grandparents in Graz, Styria.
In addition to the fascination of people, Ann-Iren Ossenbrink was fascinated by the vehicles they drove. British sports car. Cooper Climax or Lotus. It was also a Lotus 72 (in red, white and gold paintwork) with which he raced to his death on September 5th during the final training session in Monza.
The angular beauty of the Ferrari Dino 308 GT4
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Thomas Marecki, graphic designer and magazine maker from Berlin, fulfilled a dream eight years ago. Of course, those in the know know exactly which one. It is …
Source: Stefan Anker
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… the Ferrari Dino 308 GT4, the first model from the Italian sports car manufacturer …
Source: Stefan Anker
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… with an eight-cylinder engine. Marecki loves to accelerate a little and let the 255 horses dance, who …
Source: Stefan Anker
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… engine would need that. In any case, the fact that the machine responds well makes the owner happy. Incidentally, on the right in the picture you can see the air intakes in the C-pillar, because the Dino …is a …
Source: Stefan Anker
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… mid-engine car, so the eight-cylinder sits behind the seats, but in front of the rear axle. The special thing about the Dino is that it even has rear seats, which you won’t find on every one…m mid-engine car.
Source: Stefan Anker
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Another cool detail, certainly due to the time it was built in the 1970s, are the pop-up headlights. They exude …
Source: Stefan Anker
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… a rather economical light, and still after about 20 minutes of taking pictures …
Source: Stefan Anker
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… the battery is no longer able to move the starter. The car now wanted to be pushed.
Source: Stefan Anker
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When the car is moving (and driving again after pushing it), the driver feels a bit like a pilot in his cockpit. All instruments are aligned in the left seat…icht, there are also a couple of toggle switches like in the airplane.
Source: Stefan Anker
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Thomas Marecki was also interested in the Dino 308 GT4 because, for once, this Ferrari design was not from Pininfarina, but from Bertone. And who at the sight of d…When Dino thinks of Bertone’s Lancia Stratos, it’s not entirely wrong.
Source: Stefan Anker
The circumstances surrounding his accident have never been fully clarified. Only one thing remained irrefutable: Rindt‘s lead in the world championship was so great that no one could overtake him. He was – and is to this day – the only automobile world champion to receive the title posthumously.
Ann-Iren Ossenbrink meticulously immersed himself in this world. On April 18, 2012, on Rindt‘s 70th birthday, she was finally able to put her long-cherished wish into practice: an extensive exhibition in the town hall of Mainz. With an original Rindts Formula 2 car from the 1967 season and other original exhibits such as a helmet and racing suit.
Her own Lotus Elise, an uncompromising sports car without any electronic helpers, is more or less the logical legacy of her intellectual "elective affinity" with Jochen Rindts.
"My Eli should stay as she is"
“In 2011 I met the son of Lotus founder Colin Chapman in Monza. I talked to him about the different Lotus models, because I actually wanted to get a classic car. The only affordable car then was the Elise, and Clive advised me: If you want to have fun, get the MK I, if you want security, get an MK II. That’s what it became, ”says Ann-Iren Ossenbrink.
"I have long since internalized the fact that the vehicle is right-hand drive, with everything that goes with it," is how she describes her handling of the sports device, which weighs only 740 kilos and has 122 hp. One that you don’t get into, but that you let yourself fall into. To then enjoy the asphalt winding at a wild gallop.
A completely unusual part is this lotus. A car that is actually little more than an engine with wheels. Built on an aluminum chassis with a fiberglass body A challenge that Ann-Iren had to learn to master first.
That’s how wonderful the old Opel GT is
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“Only flying is better.” This was the slogan that Opel used to advertise the GT at the end of the 1960s. At that time it was a real dream car with classic sports car proportions and sensational sound…ppheadlights that turn sideways and were often called "sleepy eyes".
Source: Thomas Geiger
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Opel delivered a good 103,000 copies of the sports coupe between 1968 and 1973, around half of them in the USA.
Source: Thomas Geiger
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GT customers had the choice between two engines. The 1100 cc engine of the GT 1100 develops almost 60 hp, while the GT 1900 mobilizes 90 hp and a top speed…speed of 185 km / h. The GT 1100 was rather unpopular and was therefore discontinued in 1970.
Source: Thomas Geiger
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All Opel GT models were rear-wheel drive and equipped with a manual four-speed gearbox as standard. However, there was also a newly developed three-speed car for an extra charge…atik – but this was very rarely ordered.
Source: Thomas Geiger
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The starting price for the Opel GT was a relatively cheap 10,767 marks.
Source: Thomas Geiger
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With its bucket seats, synthetic leather seats, the three-spoke steering wheel and the round instruments that were modern for the time, the interior of the Opel GT still exudes the typical…neat 60s flair.
“The Elise has no power steering, no ABS, not even a brake booster. If I still get into the rain with her, I make sure that I hit the braking point exactly. Otherwise I’ll be on the crossroads. "
The greatest fun, says Ann-Iren Ossenbrink, is conveyed by the Elise anyway when it is driven openly. And that is exactly her mission: she should be fun, and not get the driver from A to B..
Ann-Iren Ossenbrink is the only Elise driver in Saarland. She doesn’t want to change anything in the British sports equipment. “My Eli does not get any power injections, nor does she get any electronic helpers. It should stay as it is. "
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