1933 MG Magnette | Ulster T. T. | I've Got the World on a String | Louis Armstrong

Music: 1932 I've Got the World on a String | Louis Armstrong 1933
Video: 1934 MG Magnette K3 | 1933 RAC Tourist Trophy | Tazio Nuvolari
1930s playlist: https://t.ly/TxIW

"The RAC Tourist Trophy (sometimes called the International Tourist Trophy) is a motor racing award presented by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) to the overall victor of a motor race in the United Kingdom. Established in 1905, it is the world's oldest continuous motor race.

The race was first contested on the Isle of Man and continued to be held on the island until 1922. It moved to the Ards Circuit on Northern Ireland's public roads in 1928 after an article written by the journalist Wallace McLeod in a Belfast newspaper suggested it occur in the area and the inventor Harry Ferguson helped the RAC to find a suitable track.

Italian driver Tazio Nuvolari became the first driver in history to claim the trophy in 1933 to accompany it with an overall victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the same year." (Wikipedia)

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"The story has been told so often, by myself as well as others, that it suffices to say that Nuvolari, after he had discovered what a pre-selector gearbox was all about and had adjusted the shock-absorbers to his fancy, won the T.T. It was an extremely close finish; because the handicap worked in favour of Hamilton and only by driving at his brilliant best did the little Italian get the Magnette home 40 seconds ahead of the MG Midget.

Nuvolari averaged 78.65 mph and covered his last lap at 80.35 mph, while Hamilton had averaged 73.46 mph Hall’s Magnette was fourth, Manby-Colegrave’s seventh. Nuvolari’s drive is one of motor racing’s epics. Even had there been no handicap operating for this Ulster race, he would have come within 0.06 mph of winning, for this was the margin under that of the fastest car in the 1933 T.T., Rose-Richards’ supercharged 2.3-litre Alfa Romeo, which finished in third place.

Hounslow, the MG mechanic who had the privilege of riding with Nuvolari, has recounted how the Italian ace worked methodically at pit-stops and of how he flung the cart-sprung MG into corners, scarcely using the brakes. Nuvolari had broken the class lap record for the Ards circuit no fewer than seven times.

Obviously he appreciated the need to hurry, yet he never drove the Magnette above its limit, was even able to nurse it in the early stages of the race, and he found time during the pit-stop to check personally the tightness of the hub nuts that Hounslow had just replaced. True, if Hamilton had not needed more fuel at the very end Nuvolari would have been second, but ‘ifs’ are of academic interest only, in motor racing…"

(https://www.mgcc.co.uk/articles/mgs-4...)

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"Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari (16 November 1892 – 11 August 1953) was an Italian racing driver. He first raced motorcycles and then concentrated on sports cars and single-seaters. A resident of Mantua, he was known as 'Il Mantovano Volante' (The Flying Mantuan) and nicknamed 'Nivola'. His victories—72 major races, 150 in all[1]—included 24 Grands Prix, five Coppa Cianos, two Mille Miglias, two Targa Florios, two RAC Tourist Trophies, a Le Mans 24-hour race, and a European Championship in Grand Prix racing. Ferdinand Porsche called him 'the greatest driver of the past, the present, and the future.'" (Wikipedia)

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"I've Got The World on a String' is a 1932 popular jazz song composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics written by Ted Koehler. It was written for the twenty-first edition of the Cotton Club series which opened on October 23, 1932, the first of the Cotton Club Parades."