$150 Silver Dollars And An Avanti – 1962 Indianapolis 500

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$150 Silver Dollars and a Studebaker Avanti were among the prizes taken home by two drivers from the Indianapolis Month of May in 1962.

On Pole Day the track temperature was measured at a scintillating 142° F / 61° C but amazingly this did not stop Parnelli Jones, in his Watson Offy, becoming the first man to average over 150 mph for his 4 qualifying laps to claim pole and an impromptu prize from a rival car owner of 150 silver dollars.

Indianapolis 1962

In Ed Arnaudins photo above a Studebaker Skylark Convertible passes the white Watson Offy of Shorty Templeton as is pushed to its outside second row grid position and the black Phillips Offy of Bud Tigelstad making its way to an inside forth row grid position.

Shorty and Bud would finish the race in 11th and 15th places respectively.

Indianapolis 1962

As the Skylark pace car returns to pit road Parnelli Jones from the inside of the front row leads Roger Ward, Watson Offy, Bobby Marshman, Epperly Offy, and the rest of the field to the start line. Rookie Dan Gurney in the middle of the third row seems to be struggling to get his rear engined stock block Thompson Buick up to speed.

Parnelli Jones led the first 300 miles comfortably before experiencing problems including coming to rest in the pits. AJ Foyt, Trevis Offy, was second in the early running until losing a wheel. And so Roger Ward came through to chase Jones down and take the lead, heading his team mate Len Sutton across the line for a Leader Card 1-2 victory at a new record 140 mph average for the race.

Watson Offy, Indianapolis 1982

In Ed’s photo above Roger is seen driving the #3 Leader Card Special during the 1982 pre race parade. Roger won a £125,000 and became the first owner of a Studebaker Avanti which was part of his prize package.

My thanks to Ed Arnaudin and his son Steve for today’s photographs and to E.B and Brian at The Nostalgia Forum for their help identifying Roger and the two racing cars in the top photo.

Thanks for joining me on this “$150 Silver Dollars And An Avanti” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for a trip through the National Motor Museum. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Still Born Beauty – Lotus Cosworth 96T

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Trained as a criminologist Roy Winklemann found employment as an investigator for the US Airforce before being employed by ‘the company’, assummed to be the CIA. During this time Roy had occasional outings as a driver in sportscars before setting up a team to run Dan Collins in a Chevrolet Corvette in Europe.

Lotus Cosworth 96T, Goodwood FoS

While founding a number of security related businesses Roy went on to run a variety of vehicles in Europe’s lower open wheel formula which culminated in him entering Jochen Rindt in a Formula 2 Brabham a combination which over 20 races dominating the formula in 1967 and 1968.

Lotus Cosworth 96T, Goodwood FoS

After his success with Jochen Rindt Roy Winkelmann disappeared from the racing scene through the 1970’s while he built up his diverse security empire, only to reappear in the US with a proposed Indy Car programme in the mid 1980’s. The plan was to compete with the unfair advantages of a works car and works motor rather than the customer route taken by almost all the teams except Penske, who made their cars available to customers.

Lotus Cosworth 96T, Goodwood FoS

Roy chose to hook up with his erstwhile partner Lotus and received assurances from Cosworth for a supply of works backed motors. The new car the 96T was built using current Formula One technology in the form of a carbon fiber monocoque, something that had yet to make an appearance at Indy, and rising star Al Unser Jr was signed up to drive the car for the 1985 season.

Lotus Cosworth 96T, Goodwood FoS

Under the direction of Gérard Ducarouge, Gene Varnier and Martin Ogilvy designed the Lotus 96T along similar lines to the Formula One Lotus Renault 97 T with which Ayrton Senna would win his first two Grand Prix in 1985.

Lotus Cosworth 96T, Goodwood FoS

However that is pretty much where the story ends because following the announcement, fearful of how a carbon fiber chassis would react to a secondary impact, USAC, organisers of Indy 500 moved to have carbon fiber banned from competition.

Lotus Cosworth 96T, Goodwood FoS

With rumours of the possible ban sponsors became impossible to sign up and the project came to a standstill without so much as the motor being fired up in the workshop.

Al Unser Jnr signed up late to join Doug Shierson for the 1985 and no more was heard from Winkelmann or the Lotus Cosworth 96T. The car, along with the Ferrari 637 among the most beautiful cars never to have been raced is seen here at last years Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Thanks for joining me on this “Still Born Beauty” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for a feature on the 1962 Indianapolis 500. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Early Doors – Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta #2025GT

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I’m not sure exactly how many dozens of race meetings I attended between 1985 and 1992, certainly dozens, but curiously I only took one photograph of a Ferrari on track, of the 250 GT SWB Berlinetta coming round Surtees bend at Brands Hatchs seen below.

Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta, Brands Hatch

The prototype 250 GT SWB Berlinetta was first show to the public at the 1959 Paris Auto Show, sans front wing/fender cooling ducts, vents, indicators and recessed number plate holder on the boot / trunk.

Sergio Pininfarina is said to have referred to the 250 GT SWB Berlinetta as “the first of out three quantum leaps in design with Ferrari.” The bodies were manufactured by Scaglietti where like true craftsmen employees typically worked without drawings.

Power was provided by the latest 250 – 280 hp 168B Colombo 60º V12 which can be identified by additional cylinder head studs. The 250 GT SWB Berlinetta was the first Ferrari model to be offered with disc brakes.

167 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlintta’s were built between 1959 and 1963 originally with aluminium bodies “Competizione” bodies and later with steel “Lusso” bodies, some steel shelled cars are also known to have been delivered with Competizione features just to keep things interesting for historians.

Stirling Moss is credited with scoring the SWB’s first significant overall win driving Rob Walkers distinctive blue car with a white nose band in the non Championship 1960 Tourist Trophy. The following year the GT SWB Berlinetta won the GT Class of the Constructors Championship for Ferrari.

Identifying the #1 car above has proved to be another fascinating adventure, At The Nostalgia Forum Peter Stenning recognised this as a Scuderia Campidoglio vehicle driven by Fabrizio Violati and Tim Murray came up with the 1989 FIA GT Championship as the event held at Brands Hatch.

It was suggested at FerrariChat that the #1 was chassis #2021GT, but that car is credited as having been driven to victory, in the same race as seen here, as the #2 with Lindsay Owen-Jones at the wheel.

The #1 and #2 cars looked more or less identical in the race, however during practice the #1 carried a white band across the yellow sunstrip and more importantly the #1 features the original door type with a bent top rail that was straightened on some of the later cars. This eliminated #2021 and another 250 GT SWB #2443GT which had also passed through Fabrizio Violati’s hands.

Finally I managed to pin down the identity of the early door 250 GT SWB Berlinetta in my photograph as most likely to be #2025

#2025 was originally purchased by Edoerdo Lualdi in 1960 who won several class victories on the Italian Hillclimbing circuit in 1960 and 1961, in mid 1961 Luciano Conti acquired the car and continued its successful career on the Italian Hills until the end of 1961.

The following year turned up badly wrecked in Sicily and it’s motor was removed and sold to some one in the USA to be replaced by a motor from a 250 GT Lusso.

Fabrizio Violati acquired the #2025 in 1976 and so far as I know the car is in the Maranello Rosso Museum, founded like Ferrari Club Italia by Violati with the cooperation of Enzo Ferrari.

Violati came to prominence after being photographed jumping 12 barrels with a Vespa Scooter aged 16. After a racing car accident put him in hospital for six months, Fabrizio’s family put a stop to his racing exploits in 1959. He purchased a Ferrari 250 GTO while on honeymoon in Monaco in 1965. Fabrizio has the record for continuous ownership of a 250 GTO.

While mounting an unsuccessful attempt on the 1975 Admirals Cup yacht race Fabrizio started collecting cars including three different 250 GT SWB Berlinetta’s and eventually started competing in historic events with them.

In 1984 he was summoned by Enzo Ferrari to start Ferrari Club Italia and given permission to use the Maranello Rosso name for his collection of cars in San Marino.

Fabrizio who was crowned 1985 European FIA Historic Champion, passed away aged 74 in 2010.

My thanks to Peter Stenning, Tim Murray, Terra and Daytonasme for their help in tracking the identity of today’s featured car.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Early Doors’ edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be featuring the still born Lotus Indy Car. Don’t forget to come back now !

PS subsequent to my original post the story behind the fate of the original #2025GT motor with photographic evidence has come to light at FerrariChat, turns out the original motor for the car featured today now sits in another 250GT SWB Berlinetta Competizione chassis #1953, for more details see this link.

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Aerodramatically Different – Avanti by Studebaker

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Thirty seven days after becoming President of Studebaker Sherwood Egbert stepped of a flight from Chicago with some doodles, drawn in flight, for a vehicle that was to be marketed as America’s most advanced automobile and handed them to Raymond Lowery and his team and sent them to Palm Springs for 40 days where they were to turn the doodles into a design featuring a fiberglass body mounted on a 109″ Studebaker Lark Convertible chassis.

The finalised design was launched in New York on the 28th of April 1962 and one would be sent to the Indy 500 the following month to act as Honorary Pace Car alongside a fleet of Studebaker Sky Lark Convertible Official Pace Cars.

Studebaker Avanti, Indianapolis

According to the period Avanti promotional film linked here, the “Aerodramatically Different” automobile feature a Jet Thrust V8 engine, available with a Paxton supercharger, coupled to a Power Shift automatic transmission that put ‘traction at the point of action’ and for the first time on an American production model front disc brakes to bring this symbol of elegance to a safe rest.

The Avanti was in fact powered by an uprated 240 hp 4.7 litre / 289 cui Hawk V8, production of the elegant fiberglass body was outsourced to Molded Fibreglass Body Co who had been responsible for manufacturing the first Chevrolet Corvette bodies in 1953.

Studebaker Avanti, Indianapolis

Sherwood Egbert hoped to manufacture and sell 20,000 Avanti’s in the first year however despite plenty of interest in the new car Molded Fibreglass Body Co had problems manufacturing the bodies and only 1,200 Avanti’s were built causing orders to be cancelled.

Studebaker closed down completely in December 1963 with around 1,600 Avanti’s sold and 2500 in the dealer supply chain. The story of the Avanti did not end there. A succession of entrepreneurs managed to build further models up until 2006, using initially the original stock of parts, then switching to first GM and then Ford floor pans and running gear. For a while a short while 4 door model was in production but the very last, built in Mexico, was a one off powered by a Roush Racing V6.

Ed Arnaudin’s photo’s show the Avanti being driven around Indy on race day, top, and during one of the qualifying days bottom, this car was part of race winner Roger Wards prize package making him the first person to become a private owner of an Avanti.

My thanks to Ed’s son Steve for scanning and sending his Dad’s photo’s.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Aerodramatically Different’ edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow for Ferrari Friday. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Goat Nimble Variomatic – DAF 600 Luxe

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Despite innovations like the worlds first four wheel drive car, a 60 hp Spyker, with a single engine the Dutch motor industry failed to really take off prior to the Second World War.

DAF 600 Luxe, Goodwood FoS

Prior to the war Hubert Van Doorne founded a trailer manufacturing business with finance from a brewery in 1932 Van Doorne’s Aanhangen Fabriek that was abbreviated to DAF.

DAF 600 Luxe, Goodwood FoS

In the early 1950’s after the reestablishment of DAF, now as a manufacturer of military and commercial vehicles and trailers the company became Van Doorne’s Autombiel Fabriek and Hub van Doorne set about designing a passenger vehicle.

DAF 600 Luxe, Goodwood FoS

Allegedly impressed by the Dyna Flow automatic transmission in his Buick Roadmaster, but unimpressed with it’s inefficiency Hub developed his own belt driven vacuum controlled continuously variable transmission CVT operating with centrifugal clutch, getting inspiration from the belt driven machines operating in his factory.

DAF 600 Luxe, Goodwood FoS

In 1958 the 22 hp DAF 600 with variomatic transmission was demonstrated and became the second commercially available motor car CVT, after the British Clyno system which was available from 1923 to 1927.

DAF 600 Luxe, Goodwood FoS

With additional design work attributed to Johan van der Brugghen the DAF 600 was manufactured from 1959 to 1963. Harry Walton in the December 1959 edition of Popular Science applauded the DAF 600 for it’s fully automatic drive, and positive differential action, which meant the car was unlikely to get stuck in mud, sand or snow because if one wheel slipped additional drive would automatically be transferred to the other wheel.

Harry also noted that the 600 although standing on only 12 inch wheels it had seven inches of ground clearance making it as “goat nimble on rough roads as the mourned Model T”. One thing Harry did not notice, or try as I once inadvertently did on a far more recent CVT equipped vehicle, is that it will go as fast backwards as it does forwards, all of 57 mph in the case of the DAF 600 Luxe.

Thanks for joining me on this “Goat Nimble Variomatic” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a 1965 Studebaker which made an early appearance at Indianapolis. Don’t forget to come back now.

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Buried And Covered In Concrete – MG 14/40 MK IV Sports

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Towards 1927 production of MG’s moved to a new factory in Edmund Road, Oxford and production of the MG 14/40 MK IV commenced, with MG Car Company becoming a legal entity in 1928.

MG 14/40 Mk IV Sports, Bristol Classic Car Show

14/40’s were built around bare Morris Oxford chassis, unlike earlier MG’s that were built from completed frames that were striped and rebuilt to MG specifications, as the MG 14/28 had been but were now given MG chassis numbers, MG badges and motors, optimistically, estimated to produce 40hp.

MG 14/40 Mk IV Sports, Bristol Classic Car Show

MG publicity at the 1928, London, Motor Show mentions Land Speed Record Breaker Malcolm Campbell as an owner of a 14/40, a model which was struggling to sell at the time in part due to the age of the Oxford chassis and side valve motor underpinning the car.

MG 14/40 Mk IV Sports, Bristol Classic Car Show

MG founder Cecil Kimber went to great lengths to differentiate his cars from their Morris inheritance before fitting MG bodies, his alleged obsession with octagons is said to have been frequently overdone.

MG 14/40 Mk IV Sports, Bristol Classic Car Show

This Mk IV Sports is one of 135 such vehicles built in 1928 and the only survivor in the UK of a total of just four that are known to exist.

MG 14/40 Mk IV Sports, Bristol Classic Car Show

The winner of Best Vintage Car award at the Bristol Classic Car Show, where it is seen in these photo’s, has no history prior to 1999 when it was found beneath a ripped up concrete base of a shed in Gloucestershire.

MG 14/40 Mk IV Sports, Bristol Classic Car Show

The disassembled car was found carefully preserved beneath a further layer of gravel complete with it’s guarantee plate and original number plates apparently ready for it’s ground up restoration.

Thanks for joining me in this ‘Buried And Covered In Concrete’ edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be going Dutch with a Daf. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Choices Choices – Simply Italian National Motor Museum Beaulieu

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In the interests of keeping my regular Friday readers happy I needed little convincing by GALPOT regular David Roots to forgoe the delights of the Avenue Drivers Club monthly meeting at Queens Square, in order to take a trip to the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu for the third Simply Italian parade on Sunday.

Ferrari F40, Simply Italian, NMM Beaulieu

On the way down I passed at several cars making their way to Queens Square, a magnificent Alvis and several other vintage cars taking part in a Vintage Rally, and a number of classic sports cars taking part in a Classic Rally before stumbling accross this F40 as it slowly made it’s way through the achingly picturesque village of Beaulieu, pronounced ‘Bewley’.

Vignale Gamine, Simply Italian, NMM Beaulieu

In the never seen one before category was the Vignale Gamine, one of just 300 vehicles, based on a FIAT 500 platform with a 21 hp 2 cylinder motor. This slow selling Alfredo Vignale pet project led to Carrozeria Vignale going out of business and the production facility being acquired by de Tomaso for their Pantera models.

Lancia Flamina, Simply Italian, NMM Beaulieu

One of my favourite toys when I was not yet six was a Lancia Flamina similar to the 1962 Coupé seen here which had yellow jeweled headlights.

De Tomaso Pantera, Simply Italian, NMM Beaulieu

Appropriately on the other side of the car park to the Vignale Gamine was this de Tomaso Pantera which with it’s Ford motor and running gear has to be one of the most practical and affordable ways of running a genuine Italian super car.

Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Balboni, Simply Italian, NMM Beaulieu

Speaking of practical this 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Baldoni, one of just 250 550 hp 200 mph 2 wheel drive super cars with a distinctive white and gold stripe was carrying a child seat on the passenger side. The owner told me he has had the car just nine weeks and in that time has driven it 5000 miles at 25 mpg on the road and as little as 5 mpg on track days. He has also had to replace a set of tyres !

HMS Sultan Field Gun, Simply Italian, NMM Beaulieu

Around lunch time the grounds of the National Motor Museum echoed to the sound of LEFT ! RIGHT ! LEFT ! RIGHT ! LEFT ! RIGHT ! LEFT ! as a squad of 13 field gunners from HMS Sultan ended a 56 mile weekend yomp with a limber and 12 pounder field gun, of the type used during the Boer War, in tow. The gun and breach alone weighs some 400 kgs, nearly 900 lbs ! All of this was to honour the men of 40 Commando in the Falklands Conflict who covered the same distance in 1982 to retake Port Stanley and to raise funds the Royal Navy & Royal Marines Charity, follow this link to find out more and make a donation.

FIAT Panda 4x4, Simply Italian, NMM Beaulieu

After lunch the results of a public vote for the most popular vehicle present was announced, the 1988 FIAT Panda 4×4 above, which came complete with a fitted tent was awarded a bottle of Beaulieu Bubbly, a local sparkling wine.

Lenham Healey ALFA Romeo Special, Simply Italian, NMM Beaulieu

A well deserved second went to GALPOT regular David Roots and his Lenham based ALFA Romeo 4C Special,

Maserati Merak, Simply Italian, NMM Beaulieu

while most visitors votes went to this Maserati Merak.

My thanks and congratulations to David for telling me about this fabulous event which was interspersed with visits into the National Motor Museum which I shall cover in greater detail on Sunday.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Choices Choices’ edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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