Hoods Up! at Speed, Style, and Beauty

rutt

I finally finished processing my shots from my second outing to the MFA's exhibit, Speed, Style, and Beauty: Cars from the Ralph Lauren Collection. This time it was Hoods Up! Evening and Erik (Dr. It) Miller accompanied me. I've already posted some of the people centered shots here. Now it's time to get right down to the motorhead pornography.

1955 Jaguar XKD



Man, if I could have just one car from this show, this would have to be it. I've loved this design since I was 8 or something (were there still dinosaurs then, Dad?) This car (maybe not this ]very car) won three straight Le Mans races. I built innumerable models of it and always showed this off like this with their hoods open. Gotta love that British racing green.



And under the hood, it's pretty nice, too. I love it when the hood opens this way. It makes so much sense.

Of course if the D-type is too ostentatious for you, maybe you'd rather have the 950 Jaguar XK120 Alloy Roadster:



It's even street legal.

This might be the most famous engine on display. It belongs to the 1929 Blower Bentley, the car Ian Flemming gave James Bond in the early novels.
W.O. Bentley didn't want to include the supercharger in this engine, but his racing customers forced the issue.



There is a great story about Bentley and Bugatti:

Ettore Bugatti was losing Le Mans annually to a certain British automaker when he let envy get the best of him. W.O. Bentley, he reportedly said, "makes the fastest trucks in Europe." -- Motor Trend

Compare the Bentley with the 1933 Bugatti Type 59 Grand Prix:



Talk about competitors with different approaches!



You really get your money's worth from hood's up night with the 1996 McLaren F1.



This thing has a top speed of 230 MPH and does 0-60 in under 3.5 seconds.



Erik (or anyone) what are those two huge cylinders where the rear window ought to be?

You gotta love the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing Coupe. The body sculpture and classic styling are really hard to capture in a photo. Standing beside it, the car just radiates build quality and solidity. It has the subtle lines and curves of something that could only have been mass produced, but it has the quality of something that could only have been made by hand.



Which brings me to Erik's shopping basket.



My brother-in-law had a lot of trouble deciding, but Erik was like me. There was never any question what he would put on Santa's list.



This is a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO.



I suppose as long as you are wishing, you might as well pull out all the stops. My source says this is "one of the rarest, and most expensive Ferraris ever produced."

USAIR

Rutt
Really great series good info and and good photos

Thanks
Fred

dragon300zx

Those two cylinders kinda look like nitrous bottles to me.

ridetwistyroads

absolutely georgious shots, man. Very clear and sharp, with nice lighting.


And, of course, I like shots of cars...

DoctorIt

dragon300zx wrote:

Those two cylinders kinda look like nitrous bottles to me.

Thats a big negative good buddy. This car is most definitely not juiced. My guess is that they are very very large intake snorkels, OR they have something to do with the fan-assisted ground effects system - this car actually produced a vacuum to suck it to the ground. This is a big help when you're doing 240mph.

Where the heck is Dugmar when you need him... ???

DoctorIt

I think you nailed the red in this one:



I had a hard time with that in my photos as well. there was the red I wanted it to be, the red I remembered it to be, and the red photoshop wanted it to be.

rutt

I learned a big trick post processing the files from this shoot. Take to CMYK and use the curves on the black channel to give detail, shape, and contrast to those very saturated areas and also to the deep shadows. It's hard to have such high saturation (as in the Italian Racing Red) or deep shadows (the black cars and British Racing Green and engine parts) and keep detail. If you work only in RGB or the L channel it's hard to get the same effect. For very saturated areas with a lot curves, the more black the more it will seem to recede and the less black, the more saturated and the more it will come forward. So if you can find a black channel that where there is more less black in the parts that are closer and more as things recede, accentuate that with curves. After that you can take to LAB and goose saturation. The red in the Alfa shot also works that way.

rutt

Oh, and light/dark sharpening makes a huge difference in those engines. You really want to sharpen the dark halos a lot. A LOT. But the light halos need a much lighter touch.