How Race Cars Became Trading Cards
When most collectors think of the first sports trading cards, they rightfully think of baseball. After all, the earliest cards featuring America’s Pastime became popular in the late 19th century –- not all that long after the game had established itself. However, baseball was far from the only sport represented in those early days of pre-war cards.
Automobiles –- and with them, motorsports -– were also taking the world by storm at the end of the 19th century. And, with the advent of racing followed the advent of motorsports trading cards, the history of which goes back well over 100 years.
The Early Days of Pre-War Motorsports Cards
You can trace the origins of motorsports trading cards back to the first decade of the 20th century. Companies like Felix Potin and Ogden’s Tobacco put out sets featuring a wide range of famous people and topics, which included a handful of car and driver cards from the early days of auto racing. The 1908 New York to Paris Race, a momentous event in the history of the sport, was celebrated via a set of cards advertising Garfield’s Tea Syrup.
Most enthusiasts, however, would tell you that motorsports cards took off in earnest in 1911 with the T36 Auto Drivers set from the American Tobacco Company. These cards featured the artistically rendered faces of several prominent drivers of the time, including Ralph de Palma, Louis Chevrolet, and David Bruce-Brown. With 25 base cards and a handful of variants, it certainly wasn’t a massive set by today’s standards, but it established the sport alongside American Tobacco’s other card topics and set a kind of standard for motorsports cards going forward.
From there, automobiles and racing remained staples of the trading card scene. For international fans, Italian company Helvetia featured automotive legends like Enzo Ferrari and Afrieri Maserati in the mid-1920s’ Sport-Regalo set. Wills’ Cigarettes put out a couple of sets in the 1930s titled “Speed,” which featured race cars alongside other vehicles like boats and aircraft.
Topps Enters the Motorsports Card Arena
Topps got in on the automotive trading card scene pretty early on in the company’s history. While not a racing set per se, the 1954 Topps World on Wheels set featured a wide range of vehicles, including race cars from the likes of Maserati and Alfa Romeo, as well as the Cummins Diesel Special that raced in the 1952 Indy 500. Each model was rendered beautifully in original artistic designs, with the backs of the cards sharing bits of information on the represented models.
Topps continued this trend of stylish automotive cards through the ‘60s, dropping the Topps Sports Cars set in 1961 and the Topps Hot Rods set in 1968. The former kept the same sort of artistic renderings as the World on Wheels set a decade prior, and while it mostly consisted of road-going production sports cars, there were also some fun racers in the mix, such as the Maserati 200 SI and the Asardo 1500 AR-S. Each card included technical information like horsepower and top speed, as well as a small comic aimed at car hobbyists on the back.
The 1968 set swapped the artistic designs for photo prints and composites while including more technical information, though the cars featured skewed more toward the enthusiast scene than actual race cars. For fans of custom hot rods and dragsters, it featured a wide range of fierce machines, with some truly experimental race designs like the Barris Kustom Turbo-Sonic.
Through the back half of the 20th century, Formula 1 also began to rise in popularity, becoming the dominant venue for motorsports worldwide. The 1990s saw F1 trading card releases like the 1991 set from ProTrac and the 1992 set from Grid. Eventually, Topps’ history of stylish automotive cards intersected with the world of F1 as well.
Topps Formula 1 in the Modern Era
Since 2020, Topps has been part of Formula 1’s soaring success worldwide. Some of the best Topps Formula 1 cards appeared in the inaugural Topps Chrome Formula 1 set in 2021, with names like Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, and Lando Norris all featured prominently. Since then, Topps has continued to expand its F1 offerings, most recently with the 2024 Topps Chrome Formula 1 set, and the upcoming 2024 Topps Finest Formula 1.
With the sport only becoming more popular each season, even greater things remain on the horizon for Topps F1. And with every pack ripped, collectors are taking part in a branch of trading cards that’s been active for over a century.
