Formula One photojournalist Bernard Cahier, who began photographing Formula 1 in 1952 and was instrumental in founding the International Racing Press Association (IRPA) in 1968, has died in France at the age of 81.
Cahier was perhaps the witness to the "Golden Age" of Grand Prix racing who began his life work in 1952, using a Leica, and later Pentax, to bring us a unique and intimate description of the world of his closest friends: Juán Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss, Graham Hill and Jim Clark, Phil Hill and Dan Gurney, Jackie Stewart and Emerson Fittipaldi, and so many more heroes who raced when motor racing was too often deadly yet always exciting, sexy and flush with international characters and money ... always the big money.
Cahier began his career in Grand Prix racing in 1952 and was a leading figure in F1 until the early 1980s. 
His photographs, and those of his son Paul-Henri, also an F1 photographer of note, have chronicled the sport’s history. (One of the last of the true "LeMans starts," which had drivers run across the track to their cars, get in and belted, then take to the course; Photo by Cahier).
He was born in Marseilles, France, in 1927 and caught the racing bug early after attending the Marseilles Grand Prix at Miramas in 1932. He was 12 when World War II broke out, and at 17 he joined the resistance in Brittany. After the war he went to UCLA and became involved in the Southern California sports-car scene.
Cahier worked at Roger Barlow’s International Motors, the largest import-car dealership in Los Angeles at the time. One of his fellow salesmen was a young man from nearby Santa Monica named Phil Hill, and the store's chief mechanic was Ritchie Ginther. For non-racers, Hill became the first American Formula One World Driving Champion in 1961 and is still a force on the world's racing scene at age 81. Ginther was the US driver who piloted Honda to their first victory in the F1 in the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix. Ginther died at 59 in France in 1989. (Ginther's racing life was chronicled to some degree in the 1966 John Frankenheimer movie Grand Prix, with James Garner playing the Ginther character and Toshiro Mifune appearing as "Izo Yamura," modeled on Soichiro Honda, founder of the eponymous company; Ginther himself appeared in an uncredited role in the movie as "John Hogarth," a driver in the Japanese-funded Yamura (Honda) team. He was also acted a technical advisor for the movie).
(The infamous Mercedes "Silver Arrows" at the 1954 French Grand Prix; Photo by Cahier).
In the days before motor homes, when reporters were on a more equal level with the drivers, Cahier was one of the best-known people in the paddock, a true 'international jet-setting racing celebrity' before there were jets. One motor journalist from that time wrote, "I was at the hairpin in Sebring in 1957 and Bernard was nearby. Stirling Moss slowed and Cahier handed him a bottle of Coke. The next time around, Moss threw out the empty bottle and Bernard retrieved it and put it in a safe spot. Those were the days."
Cahier handled European PR for Goodyear when they entered road racing and his party each year during the Monte Carlo GP weekend was the social highlight of the season. For a time, he was President of the International Racing Press Association. Cahier produced a two-volume book containing many of his classic photographic images of the period, writing his own behind-the-scenes stories and photo captions. In 1952 he moved to Paris and quickly became part of F1’s inner circle. He then became the public relations consultant for Goodyear in F1. He continued to play a role in F1 until 1983, when a change in Goodyear management meant the end of his job. He stepped away from the sport, leaving the work to his son, Paul-Henri, who is one of today's leading Grand Prix photographers.
The voluminous, amazing "Cahier Archive" can be found by clicking here. It is a "must stop" for racing fans 
who appreciate the Web for all it offers, and for non-fans interested in the history of the sport which Cahier documented in its modern era. All of Cahier's photos and books are available there. (Phil Hill muscles his Ferrari through a corner in the 1961 Dutch Grand Prix, on his way to the World Driving Championship that year, the first by an American; Photo by Cahier).
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