I was going through an old F1 magazine the other day, covering the 1997 season (my favourite of all time), and I was wondering what happened to all the old F1 masterpieces.

You have to feel sorry for the cars. They have the hopes and dreams of an entire team of engineers and fans pinned on them. Some deliver and some don’t. And after the season is done, they are neatly packed away never to be seen again by any mortal.

But the question is, where do all the old F1 cars go?

Before you say they go to a museum of a particular team, not all the teams are still around today — think Arrows, Brabham, Minardi, Ligier and Prost. So where are they?

Don’t tell me Alain Prost has all of his old cars parked in his garage at home.

Yes, you can go to the factories of Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams, pay a small fortune and walk through several rooms filled with beautiful cars bursting with history.

The problem is, if you are reading this, chances are you are in South Africa, and travelling to Europe these days is not the easiest or cheapest thing to do.

The trend these days is for millionaires and billionaires to buy classic F1 cars and keep them in their garages. This, for me, is the worst thing you can do to the pioneers of the racing world. They will never turn a wheel in anger again, or at all. This makes me sad.

There should be F1 museums all over the world to rake in the money for the FIA, and we all know how much the FIA loves money.

This would also preserve the greats of F1 history for many more generations to come. Just imagine seeing the six-wheeled Tyrrell up close or the black and gold Lotus from the 1970s.

I would pay a considerable amount of money to see and touch the Williams car from 1997 (the Williams FW19). This is the prettiest F1 car ever built. The problem is, when you hear the words Williams F1 1997, you will always think of the incident at Jerez between Michael Schumacher and Williams driver Jacques Villeneuve.

Tags: #, #Alain Prost, #old F1, #retire