bbrown95-1 This could have been a masterpiece of the final years of the Golden Era of sports-car racing, which reached its glorious but all-too-short culmination in the unintended consequences of the FIA/CSI's typically fat-headed re-write, in an effort to reduce speeds (that had been as high as 215-220mph at high-speed tracks like Le Mans, Daytona, and Spa), of the Group 4 Sports Car and Group 6 Prototype homologation rules, due to take effect in 1970. The CSI believed no team would spend the money to build anything but race-modified production sports cars to meet the 25-car minimum necessary for homologation in Group 5.This supposition blew up in their faces when Porsche, in March 1969, introduced the most outrageous, esoteric, and glorious sports car of its time, and, perhaps, of all time, the pure-racing-car flat-12-cylinder Porsche 917, and they built the 25 necessary. Ferrari had to follow suit to stand any chance of winning anything, and responded with their ALMOST equally fantastic V-12 512S. The two years these cars ran, 1970 and 1971, that passed before the CSI could implement new rules, still stand as the summit of sports car racing. It is these years, and some of 1972, that Keyser attempts to sketch in 1972's "The Speed Merchants."While the documentary has much to recommend it, including low-key and intelligent narration by two giants of the period, Mario Andretti and Vic Elford, the movie suffers badly from a couple of dated cinematic conventions of the time: choppy, "hip" montage editing that throws narrative continuity out the window, and the dreaded "French Jazz Racing Movie Soundtrack," which is also the curse of McQueen's contemporary, fictional "Le Mans."No sports car racing fan should be without this movie, but it could have been SO much better, and should have been completely overhauled, adding footage and ditching the dreary music, during its remastering in 1999. Pity.

reisertracing As a race car driver and having lived thru this era, I love the movie. Very nice how they showed personal sides and insight into the featured racers lives. Racing was far more dangerous in those days and these men were the persona of the breed.Documentary format and moves well. Music/score was well written and very effective. Highly urged for those who want to see the lives and gain insight into this discipline.As an aside, what is the name of the song that the folk band was playing at LeMans in the scene where the spectators are eating and drinking?

Jonny Spa The Speed Merchants is one of my top three racing films of all time. Simply because its a documentary that pulls no punches and gets to the heart of all aspects of racing. The drivers, their families, the machines and epic circuits. The narration by Mario and Vic is insightful and engaging not to mention the cinematography is wonderful too. Getting to see Jacky Ickx with his lovely wife Kathrine on his new (at the time) home in Belgium was fantastic. Jacky looked so young back then, all of 24 years old and had already won Le Mans! I even liked the funkdafied 70's score in the film, it was great 8-) If you're a casual race fan or a die-hard that hasn't seen this film I highly recommend picking this up. It will give you a real taste of the sport in the 70's, not leaving the newbie behind but not watering it down for the longtime fan.

KB9MNM The dangers of motor sports are high, but were especially high back then with the vehicle technology far exceeding driver safety. These gentlemen knew the stakes were high. They drove for the love of driving. However because of the sacrifices made by these men, the level of safety we now have today is at it's best. The film really piqued my interest of that era, and not only documenting Racing history of the late '60s early '70s. This is my target of interest largely because of being raised up in the "Racing Capitol Of The World" during that same time. The director knew exactly what he wanted to record.The personal life of the drivers as well shows how serious each one was about their job, and also added the opportunity of getting to know each one personally.The filmmakers caught all these elements in a most spectacular way.