Art & Inspiration Aero-Engined Vintage Racers

Surfing further into this site was this,the Wolseley Viper .It was as reported the first race car to use a Hispano Suiza engine. What is more interesting is that for decades after Wolseley built a lot of cars with Overhead cam engines using the technology learned from this one car.


Issotta-Franchini Special
Alfieri Maserati was a successful builder and driver of racing cars before he and his brothers founded their own marque. Maserati won the 1922 Circuit of Magello in the Issotta-Franchini Special by more than two minutes over Count Brilli-Peri's Fiat. The Issotta-Franchini Special boasted a four-cylinder single-overhead cam engine utilizing one-half the block from a Hispano-Suiza aircraft engine – From the book The Roaring Twenties, by Cyril Posthumous, published in England in 1980

 

Don Harkness Special.
Don Harkness was mentioned in an earlier post as being a partner with Wizard Smith in the attempt on the world speed record in new Zealand in 1932.
heres Don's Hisso powered special.

120 Mph in October 1925 as timed by the RACA .

 

I saw the majority of a one that had been cut down into a 4 cylinder at Turlock a few years ago. Would really make for a cool speedster mill.

 

Dirtynails, there was a Lenny Duncan that ran midgets in the 60's. Was it the same guy or relative?

 

Same guy.It's amazing, Len Duncan drove forever.

 

Anymore of this thing!? Totally insane!!

This thread has really ruined me...

 

Hell is freezing over.

A cool Honda is posted on the HAMB.

 

I think I do somewhere. It is a pair of Harley 45's bolted together on a Citroen chassis with chain drive. Kinda like a even more stripped down GN. I think it is called the Hornet, or something like that. It has been run all over the english hill climb circuit, but I do not know if it is an original piece or a modern creation. But very cool none the less.

 

Yes, and I think a fellow HAMBer may claim to have owned the very car in those photos!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Dirtynails, Thanks for the link to the HISSO site,http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=221543&page=16. For the record the Walter Lezotte #37 and Larry Beales #37 and the RENUMBERED Larry Beales #24 are the same car. It was a 1908 Mercedes Factory GP car inported by Spencer Wishart and finished 4th in the first INDY 500, ran again in '12 and finished 15th. It sat in the Tompson collection in Ohio for years untill they needed money. Went home to Germany for 1.2 Million looking just as it did in the Larry Beals photo. Sad thing is it will be restored to the 1908 GP look. Got to see it and sit behind the wheel before it left, truely great car.

 

There were lots of Bike engined specials built in the prewar years but most used J.A.P,Matchless and BSA engines. So that would be a recent ( relatively speaking) creation as harley engines weren't available until post war in the UK. I did know the name of the guy who had most of the Army surplus stock in London ( name escapes me..again ) and the WLA engines were virtually given away. A mate bought a WLA bike in OZ in the 1960's and decided to go on a world trip. He shipped the bike to the UK,rode around england and wrecked the engine. So for a few pounds he bought a complete brand new engine. The story in itself is amazing,he went to India with the bike and rode through Afghanistan right up into the Soviet union ! in 1963!. About 20 years ago he asked me If i could help get an old bike going and i went to his house to discover this WLA,Still in olive drab with windsheild and gun rack! and after 20 years sitting idle it fired right up.

 

Early 30s Anzani built Curtiss-Marvel 122ci V8 40hp and 137mph

 

the Sunbeam bluebird is also one of my favorites! this picture looks like it was from the beaches here in denmark! note the picture in reply # 225..the bluebird in its 1924 look. the new look was done with help from an aeroplane factory called BOULTON & PAUL. the bodywork was done by the bodyshop called JARVIS!
campbell were racing on the beaches here in denmark..mostly on the the island called fanoe! the last race was in 1924..and Campbell where the reason for the end off the race! his right front tire ran off, and only cause of campbells driving skills, he avoided a total tragedy. he kept the car on track...but the tire hit a 15 year old boy, and he died later that day.
this was the ending of the races on the beaches at Fanoe...
i better try to scan some pics from the book i have..
one of the best thread ever! keep the pics coming!
-palle

 

heres the 1924 version!
fur bicuit..you have some fantastic photos..thanks!

 

1917 Sunbeam "maori" .


Docile enough to go shopping with..

More information here;
http://www.lummisauctions.co.nz/wings/index_sunbeam.htm

 

37Nash, THANK YOU for posting these photos, I had a photo from 1923 with a lineup of cars at the Pottstown track. Bought it from a dealer who bought it from Larry Beals. His Hisso #24 was on the far right and the Kennedy car was in the photo with a note that the radiator was from the "Blitzen Benz". Another car in the lineup was powered by 1/4 of a Bugatti/King U 16 aero engine. A copy of this photo is in AACA Headquarters, at some point in the last 10 years I sold the original, and regret it to this day. Still have Larry Beals cloth driving helmet.

 

The Sunbeam "Maori" engine was also used by the Germans who in 1919 in the R34 Zeppelin made it's first roundtrip aerial crossing from UK to Us using five Sunbeam Maori DOHC V12 engines.
And,i found this a site where the car is described in a bit of detail.
http://www.classic.orconhosting.net.nz/text/sunbeam.htm

 

Looking for more info on Frank Lockhart's early car,... seen here....
Any ideas??? Thanks guys!

 

SR Fronty Jiggler.

Front wheel brakes...

the picture is taken it Ascot Speedway.

 

Most of these guys must have had some serious money.
I went to the funeral of my dads best mate a couple of years back, Ned was a big influence on me, my dad could not find a spark plug let alone clean it, Ned taught me how to weld and I made an expansion chamber for my mini bike out of an old sign in his work shop lesson day 1. They had a slide show in the church a bit strange I thought, but the picture I remember is of him in the his youth in a hand built race car rounding a bend in his waste coat and tie. that's when you had to look good as well as go fast. Hmmm whats changed.

 

Hope you guys will like a little interlude with some younger machines...

[SIZE=-1]“Silent Sam” was a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]1967 Studebaker [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Indy[/SIZE][SIZE=-1] racer made by Andy Granatelli[/SIZE][SIZE=-1], the STP-Paxton 4WD with a 550bhp Pratt & Whitney turbine engine.

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Just curious... has there ever been a car show dedicated to these kinds of cars? Or perhaps part of a concours, or..? I think it would be great to get a bunch of them in one place, especially ICW an airshow like Oskosh or the Fly-in at Lakeland, FL. Gary

 

I agree it would be great to see a good bunch together and especially on an airfield!

you're most welcomed and thanks for adding these precious tid-bits of history...

back to our original programing with a repost of:

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Last but not least, forgive me for maybe yet another repost but likely from a different view angle and the age of the picture itself:

 

Anymore photos around of it anywhere? Where was this photo from, (as far as a book, etc?)

thanks

 

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I'm pretty sure this was the car that inspired my first "build". In the summer of '69 I built this:

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=126054&highlight=museo

cant say its aero powered but the style is there. posted these a while back

 

Why does his fuel pressure pump resemble an old grease gun? I know that handle and I could swear its the same handle on an old grease gun I'd seen before?

 

I think Pebble Beach had a display of Aero Engined cars last year.