~"Specials"~

[aeronca65t]

One thing I miss from the early days of road racing and sports cars is all the "specials". Many, but not all, were built from Brit-cars. I realize thatg many fine cars were cheopped up build some of these cars (a former boss of mine chopped up two Ferrari 250s to make a sports racer!).
But most of these specials really have more "character" than the cars they were built from. Here's a few:


Triumph Special

MGA Special (I've seen this one...it's super)

Baldwin-Mercury Special

'49 Jaguar Special

TR-3 Special

 

[Paul Johnson]

Yes, I recall in the early '60s, there were many, including many home built FVees. There was a Testa Rossa from SW Louisiana with a V8 of some kind. Jim Hall was still running club races with a Birdcage (best I remember) and a Chevy engine. Penske had a F1 car with a fendered body. In Minnesota I ran across an fellow who built a roadster to race and had a matching coupe for the street. Was told he was a retired metallurgist who went so far as to cast his own wheels. An acquaintance in Baton Rouge built a beautiful little coupe using a HD police tricycle for the then H Modified class, which was limited to 850cc. (Don't know if those were the good old days, but they were a magic time for me.)

 

[coldplugs]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

[ QUOTE ]
One thing I miss from the early days of road racing and sports cars is all the "specials"....

[/ QUOTE ]

Nial - same here. This whole topic is one of my all time favorites. I dug up some pictures of my favorite specials and had a hard time limiting them to 10 or 11. Captions are from memory so spellings could be wrong.

My favorite - Candy Poole's PBX. Fiat running gear, Crosley 750cc engine. At one time, Candy (Chandler is his real name) had a twin cam Bandini head on the Crosley. (Not easy, since Crosley's had integral heads...) Candy was an occasional source of illicit paddock passes since I was underage at the time.

and

The 2 above show Stu Rutherford's Chevy powered rocket. Ugly but I think the loudest, fastest (in a straight line) car of the era. The engine pic shows it as it is today.

Another favorite was the DKW powered Zink Petite. A baby Birdcage Maserati. Here it was owned by Malcolm Donaldson. Not the best picture, but I like the cars in the background.

John Sherrigan's Brahma. It is not a Lotus 23, even though it looks like it. I last saw it at Lime Rock in 2004.

An early Special at Thompson (CT) - powered by a six cylinder Chevy.

Many people loved this car - John Keene's N&B Special. Chevy engine, frame from a Lister Bristol. The Lister was the first Lister imported to the US. I finally talked with "JK" a year back and finally learned what "N&B" stood for - "Nuts and Bolts".

A special of sorts - Ollie Schmidt's Lola Mark 1 with a 750cc OSCA engine. Thompson, about 1960.

A pretty Riley special at Lime Rock a few years ago. (Nial - do you know anything about this car?)

A modern special for land speed racing from the "SO AL" team of Keith Turk and his wife. It's a Berkeley!! Both Keith & his wife have exceeded 240 mph in this car.

Sorry about all the pictures. I couldn't contain myself.

 

[Steve_S]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

The MGA is a Byers body which was actually intended for a wider car. It's beautiful and I have a few photos of it from the pits in Monterey.

 

[DrEntropy]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

What fun that was! Thanks!

I could hear 'em and smell 'em!

 

[tony barnhill]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

Neat photos...we call them kit cars nowadays, don't we?

 

[jsneddon]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

[ QUOTE ]
Neat photos...we call them kit cars nowadays, don't we?

[/ QUOTE ]

let's not... Kit Cars in my mind are those dreadful fiberglass TD knockoffs on a VW bug. Or a VW bug with a rolls royce grille. Or a VW bug with side pipes and ghetto-fabulous spare tires on the side....

or a VW bug turned into a Ferrari wannabe Coyote in "Hardcastle and McCormick".... those are kit cars.

Kits are wanna-look-likes... specials are cool bodies on a car that actually can perform.

Sorry... I'm better now... I got sick of people asking me "Is that a kit car???" every week when I was driving the TD.

 

[sammyb]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

There are still a good number of specials running here on the West Coast. A few of the Old Yallers (Max Balokowski's old racers,) plus some Devin-bodied cars.

Although not really a special like these others -- My personal fav is the famous "Pooper." Pete Lovely (who is an old friend of my dad's,) was a VW dealer...he dropped a Porsche engine into a Cooper and ran it all over the country. It was even tested in Road and Track. It is now owned by Dennis Aker.

If you guys like specials, you should check out Martin Rudow's book on Northwest racing in the 1950s and early 1960s. Some great pictures and details on many of the guys who started by racing specials (then went on to British, American and Italian production sports cars.)

 

[jsneddon]

bunch of stuff on west coast specials racing and a ton of original pics from back in the day here:

https://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net/

 

[TRMark]

Find the book: American Road Race Specials 1934-70 Glory days of Homebuilt Racers by Allan Girdler. 200 Pages of pictures of cars, people and commentary. Many of the pictures are of the cars mechanical details.

Subject of the Edit: Good Grief, I looked up the book on Amazon after I posted. Best price is $98.00. its just a paper back that sold for $24.95 in 1990. Crazy! My copy is not for sale.

 

[kennypinkerton]

Wow, Jim. That's a cool site. I spent the past 3 hours looking through it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

 

[aeronca65t]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

Great pictures and info.
Tam's site has been a great site for many years.
And do not forget our own John C's "coldplugs" site either!
https://www.coldplugs.com/

Thanks for all those pictures, John....excellent!

John: I've seen a racing Riley at Lime Rock, but not that special. I have always had an interest in Rileys due to the neat twin cam hemi engine (used in early Healeys) plus the "Riley Sprite", which probably influenced the name of the first small Healey.
Here's a link to the Riley I've seen:
https://www.atspeedimages.com/limerock_2004/concours/1934_riley/mptn-1934_riley.jpg

One more favorite special that many folks will recognise is "The Flying Shingle", a famous special based on a '55 MG.

Flying Shingle

Another neat one. The Buchanan / TR4 Special (Austalian company that built bodies for TR2s through TR4s).

Some of my favorite "specials" are built from the Austin 7, including the various Brooklands racers, modifed Ulsters and various A7 TT cars.
In fact, I'm building a small "r" replica of one.
Here an Austin 7 Brooklands special:

I would guess that many of you have already seen the 6 page "Spridget Specials" thread here at BCF, but if not, here's the link:
https://www.britishcarforum.com/ubbthread...e=5&fpart=1

 

[tony barnhill]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

Sorry, Jim, didn't mean to get you wound up!

 

[kennypinkerton]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

Yea, I spent a few hours on the coldplugs site learning about berkleys last week. Also a cool site. I like any site that has mystery cars.

 

[MGAdams]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

Pete

and the Pooper

Can't recall the source ... likely the SCCBC archive.

MGAdams

 

[William]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

I met Pete Loveley at Road America a few years back, when he was driving his Lotus 49 with the HGP. Nice guy!

I can recommend two books at a rather better price on this topic. First, go over to Vintage Motorsport magazine's website and see if you can still order their book "Road Racing Specials". It's reprints of all the articles they ran back in the early 90's on this topic. Many articles by guys like Dean Batchelor and Joe Scalzo, and well worth the money. Also, "Vintage American Road Racing Cars 1950-1970" by Harold W. Pace and Mark R. Brinker is a must read on this topic, well written and pretty much comprehensive. The only "flaw" I can see in this book is a slight reliance on new photos of the cars, most of which appear to have been taken at Laguna Seca. This book also includes cars like the Shelby Mustang, production cars, not just one or two offs.

And, cause I feel like sharing:

[image][/image]

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[image][/image]

Ol' Yeller, a Dolphin, and an Echnida. Three cars named after animals, oddly enough!!!

-Wm.

 

[MGAdams]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

A Canadian book I can recommend that has an entire section on Specials.

 

[coldplugs]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

[ QUOTE ]

One more favorite special that many folks will recognise is "The Flying Shingle", a famous special based on a '55 MG.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'd forgotten about that one - Ken Miles, yes? It looks to be in far better condition today than it was back then.

(I'm not sure about the Shingle but one of my pet peeves is over-restoration of many old cars...)

And speaking of Canada - Bill Sadler built some beautiful specials. I have no pictures handy but google will find some.

There were also some factory prototypes that I think qualify as "specials". I'm thinking of, for example, the Corvette SS that ran at Sebring in '57 that later morphed into the "Sting Ray" driven by Dr. Dick Thompson with such success. The Corvettes announced in '63 (C2's?) strongly resembled it.

 

[MGAdams]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

Another prototype that went on to bigger things.

and attached a Sadler from 1963

 

[kennypinkerton]

Re: ~"Specials"~ [Long reply]

It shoulda stayed the same. We'd (LBC collectors) all have one then. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif