Never mind the prize money, give them an Easter bunny!

Perhaps the greatest difference between major-league motor racing then and now has been in the rewards offered and costs incurred. I’m reminded of this by the yellowing print lying before me, labelled on the reverse ‘German Drivers Back from Sebring’.

The scene is the airport restaurant at Frankfurt, it’s March 27, 1959, and works Porsche drivers Edgar Barth, Fritz Huschke von Hanstein and ‘Taffy’ von Trips have just flown in from Florida where they had shone in the Sebring 12 Hours classic. Trips had finished third and won the 2-litre category with Jo Bonnier in an RSK sports-racer, Barth fifth and second in the 1500cc class in his RSK, co-driven by John Fitch, and Baron von Hanstein had won the 1600 GT class in the 356A Carrera which he shared with Carel Godin de Beaufort. And here they are back on home soil, having just been presented with… an Easter bunny and a couple of chocolate eggs.