Resta in what appears to be a Peugeot, he looks like a true gentleman driver in the light sweater, shirt and tie. Could you imagine what a sweater like that would look like after 300 miles?
It's the Resta Special in 1918. We had an interesting discussion about this car at TNF several years ago (http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=58244), but no real conclusion as to what it might be. The chassis frame and a few other components look very Peugeot, and only yesterday I found an article which hints at the possibility that the engine was built by Harry Miller.
Great Oldfield photos T-head! That Oldfield road car in the center photo strikes me as a really ugly car. Barney and his wife,I believe,in the Mercer.
It does have that look only a mother could love, but I like the unusual windshield treatment which was in vogue at that time.
Looks like "wing Vents" built right into the windshield. I wonder what make the running gear on that one is?
The Standard Catalog of American cars lists it as 130" WB with a 6-cylinder Wisconsin six. Another reference lists it as an overhead valve. The one and only car built was put together at the plant of the Kimball Truck Co. located in Long Beach Calif. in 1924. He drove it to Indy for the race to promote it and then back to LA where a showroom was opened and it became an eight cyl. (possibly a Miller). And that is where it ended, he fell in love, married his third wife and took off to Europe for the honeymoon. Afterward in typical Oldfield fashion he bought her an eighteen thousand dollar diamond ring. In todays money that is two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars (proves there is money in exhibition racing).
I found two more good Duesenberg four cylinder photos I have not seen before. The first photo is a Mason driven by Robert Evans in the 1913 Indy 500. He started on the outside of the front row qualifying at 82.01 MPH in 4th and finished 13th going out on lap 158 with clutch trouble. Note the car is still on artillery wheels. The second photo is from the 1914 Vanderbilt cup where it looks like the winner De Palma is about to pass Carlson in his Duesenberg.
I've been interested in the Butler Petrol car built by Englishman Edward Butler in 1888 but finding information is proving to be very difficult as the car was scrapped not long after it was built. The engine patent was later aquired by Harry John Lawson and used in his motor boats. Lawson founded the Motor Car Club of Britain and the London to Brighton Run. I'm searching for drawings, blueprints or photos of any kind whether they are of the car, the engine or carburetor.
Michael, that is an interesting car that raises more questions than answers in my book. I have a feeling it may be the chassis of his Peugeot but the engine is in question. The only real good side shot of the car I have seen shows the belly pans so it is difficult to tell which engine he has in it. Somewhere I have read it was an engine of his own design although I cannot put my finger on that quote (will keep my eyes open). I have seen reference to his working at Harry Millers on an engine back in 1916 but I have found that to be a blind alley and may be just talk as to modifying his Peugeot engine (who knows). I have never seen any reference to a Miller engine in his car. It would be great if that is the case as it would fun chasing down that lead. I have the car running several events in 1918 and I have one picture of it on the pole at Sheepshead (although I have not scanned the magazine picture). The picture would not help in any detective work and it is probably the same day as your pic as it is carrying the #1. I have no references to the specifications of the engine in the 1918 contests regrettably.-Jim
Browsing through Motor Sport for 1937 I found an interesting sidelight on UK midget racing of the time: it was seemingly an outlaw series as far as the RAC (which controlled the sport) was concerned. Any driver who competed would automatically lose his RAC competition licence! And in case anyone's wondering, the Miller referred to above is the ex-Zborowski 122.
As to the Resta Special-I will dig out a couple of old magazines and see if I can scan a couple of pics for whatever it is worth. I should not open my mouth I suppose until I look at my notes. I found some stats on the 4 cylinder engine with a bore and stroke of 3.67 x 6.75 with 16 valves in head with 2 OH shafts with a Miller carb (106 wb). This seems to be at odds with the 7.00" stroke of the 1916 Miller 4 with one overhead shaft. The 2 0H shafts would seem to be maybe a re-worked Peugeot?? although I may have to do a little sleuthing before I set that in stone I suppose. Several publications (Motor World and Motor Age) had the same quote "the car which Resta will drive is a combination of Peugeot chassis which he has previously driven fitted with an engine which he is understood to have built himself". I have one article written in 1951 in Bulb Horn I believe wherein Dr Roger Shaw states that the car was light gray and "the much touted Resta Special was home-made in a garage in Pelham NY, could not match it" (referring to the fact that he could not match DePalma five victories that day with the 299 Packard August 17, 1918 at Sheepshead Bay)....What became of the "Resta" no man can tell; nor does one know whereof were its components parts, except that it used KLG sparking plugs. It was presumably an imitation of and attempted improvement on the Peugeot as indeed were the various Frontenacs. Of such stuff history is made". I also have 5 events that I have listed in my notes an there may be a sixth. At Uniontown on September 2 he apparently flipped the car and I have not run across it in my notes after that. He apparently ran the car at Tacoma in July of 1919 but he did not fare too well and DNF-car was not set up for that track was the excuse given. Maybe the tar in between the boards was not in great shape that day.-Jim
Michael and Flipper, here is a side shot of the Resta Special and also a picture on the pole at Chicago. I have a zoom on my photo program and a magnifier on my mouse and blew up the picture on the pole and with the hoodside off it kind of looks a bit like the breathers on this Peugeot. Not definitive but curious for sure.-Jim
Thanks Speedy, I seem to remember some Cooper type rear engined cars known as Gnats but it seems to have become a generic name for small like Pullman is to luxury. I found this page on Reville's Gnats and wonder where Palmer comes in. The roll hoops are interesting. I think there was only the one ever came to these shores. I was going to fix my grammar but too late
One more pic of the Resta Special. I blew it up as close as I can until it turns into dots for whatever it is worth-Jim
I've got lot's of Christie photos, but I don't own the rights and I don't want to break any 'personal use only' rules or anything. Maybe just a few teasers - this is probably Christie's 1903 engine upon which his front wheel drive patent was based. Four automatic inlet valves were housed under each of the removable discs. Typical mechanical exhaust valves of the period. Copper water jackets. Bronze crankcase (not visible). All four cylinders are one casting. Each end of the crankshaft had a manganese bronze flywheel, grooved and fitted with layers of the finest woven camels hair!
Thanks, Jim, for those interesting pictures of the Resta Special! So far, I had only seen those in the Dick Wallen book "Board Track" (p68 & 70) which show the car at Tacoma in 1919. I hadn't heard of his Uniontown flip, but that would explain why the car was rebodied for 1919 - only minor changes, but definitely different from the above pics. I admit that the Miller link is tenuous, but it does make sense: Resta's claim of having built the engine himself is akin to Burman's in 1915, and not that unusual. He certainly was the brain behind the project, and Miller merely the handyman (if at all involved). There were precious few shops around that could've done this job, and Miller had already worked for Resta in 1915 (and possibly 1916, too). Let's look at the time line: Miller didn't start defense work until sometime in 1918, so he had plenty of time for various projects. What do we know? He built the first Single Cam engine in 1916, and then began his experiments with light alloy materials. There are reports in November of him desperately trying to complete the first "Alloyanum" engine for Oldfield, which eventually didn't hit the track until June 1917! So, Resta may have assumed to have Miller's services from December onwards, only to find that he was second in line, which could be seen as a reason for his failure to appear in 1917. Also, from an engineering standpoint, those specs seem to indicate that the Resta engine was very similar to the Peugeot, so what was Resta's improvement? Alloyanum??? As for Miller: after building a few lightweight Single Cams, what did he do to fill the gap until going East for defense work? Mark Dees tells us of a couple of aviation projects, hardly enough to support the shop. He surely had enough time to fit the Resta engine into his schedule. And lastly, what about the note in the 1951 article that the car was built in "Pelham, NY"? According to Mark Dees again, Miller's wartime shop was "at 109 West 64th Street, NY" - that is adjacent to Central Park, about ten miles from Pelham - certainly worth a closer look. In conclusion, this is too new a lead to get too excited, but it looks quite promising. If true, I expect to find further evidence. The most troubling thing for me right now is that all four of the 4.5-litre Peugeots appear to have survived into 1919. I need to look into the fate of the two 3-litre Peugeots that A. G. Kaufman and his Peugeot Auto Racing Co. brought to America in 1915. Would it have been possible to fit the engine of the 1916 winner into one of these?
I could be wrong, but are those external contracting band brakes on the rear axle? I thought all racing Peugeots of the time featured brakes with internal drum shoes?
I have Resta appearing in nine events in 1918/19 (ten if you include the Sunbeam at Indy): 1918 June 1, New York June 22, Chicago July 4, Cincinnati July 28, Chicago August 17, New York August 24, New York September 2, Uniontown 1919 June 14, New York July 4, Tacoma Most of the time, the car retired, and although it scored a few wins and places in sprint heats, it does sit well with Miller's reputation of not being able "to build a rat trap"!
With regard to Jim Dillon's post #2645 above, I talk about Dario Resta during the years 1917-1919, and his "Resta Special" on the Autosport Bulletin Board Nostalgia Forum's thread "AMERICAN RACING 1894 TO 1920" September 17, 2007 entry "U.S. 1894-1920 (cont.-37)". The "Resta Special" was a Peugeot chassis installed with a motor designed by Dario himself. The car as such ran in both 1918 and 1919 but was unsuccessful. It showed bursts of speed but the motor had absolutely no reliability. I have found nothing to link up Resta's motor with Harry A. Miller. There are two good photographs of the Resta Special in Dick Wallen's Board Track book (where it is not designated as such), on pages 68 and 70, when the car was at Tacoma board speedway in July 1919.
Three early Indy postcards one of which shows the large white wooden structures that almost look like light poles. I have always wondered if they were or if they had a different function? They do not seen to have anything on them. Could they have been used by officials to assign a location to a crash for emergency crews or for some other function? Or are they just light poles? They seem to have disappeared a few years later.
Michael, I agree that the engine was "modified" at Millers shop. I have a couple of references to Resta spending time there and rebuilding his Peugeot when he was on the west coast. Maybe the home-made reference may be in regards to the body moreso than the engine. I also do not try and come to rock solid conclusions without more to work with than I have so far on the Resta Special but my leaning is towards a modified Peugeot. Maybe I could be convinced to consider a Premier engine modified if I had the right source (s). As to Miller I believe he was quite the busy boy during this period. I believe he had two Burman Peugeots and possibly three. Although I may agree with you on Fox's claim I figured since he assigned the second car a number he may have had more access to information than I do. I also had nothing to claim the second car had a 300 inch powerplant. At Chicago in August of 1915 in a match race with Oldfield Cooper and Resta, Burman offered to give them a 2 mile handicap if they would permit him to drive his 350 inch Peugeot but they would not allow it. They reported he then drove his 300 inch car. He may have drove the 350 inch car anyway but I would have to research that a bit more. We know the main Peugeot was the ex-Goux car and in Rickenbacker's autobiography he regretted off loading his Peugeot onto Miller-which may have made it into Burman's stable. When you look at the two Peugeots in Dees book they most certainly are not the same car. When Burman died, the LA Times reported (6/1/16) on his three Bob Burman Specials, built in the shops of Miller. "For several weeks a corps of mechanics has been kept busy day and night getting the cars ready for Mrs Burman who was there taking a personal interest. One car is finished and the others are just about... the motors of the other 2 cars are copied to a certain extent after the original Peugeot motor and were built by Harry A Miller." (if there was a third Peugeot could it be the McCarthy mount that had been owned by Rick as well??) So Miller certainly had the experience and expertise with such modifications and I am sure learned along the way so another engine for Resta was not all that much of a stretch. To have the car ready of 1918 I imagine he had to have built or modified it in 1917 which is when I believe things were probably a little hectic at H.A.M. It would be great to have a little more insight to what was really going on there during that period. When you throw in what I believe is two engines for Ogren, one for Alley, two for Oldfield (Delage and Sub), one for the Cadwell car and some spare stuff, 1916 and 1917 was a beehive of activity there. In addition although I have not researched it, he played with the 12 cylinder engine and also put some of the aluminum Miller SOHC fours in airplanes (how many I am not sure but he had to build them and tweak them). War work back as it was in a number of shops was probably a bunch of mundane parts and weaponry etc. Much of the particulars of this work may very well be lost to history.-Jim
Good to see you here John. If the engine was in fact designed by Resta what are the particulars of the design? There were numerous references to Burman's engines being of his own design (both in regards to the Wisconsins and the Peugeot modified by Harry Miller) but even Indy did not buy into that argument. I liked his interchangable liner engine and may credit that with being unique but the others I am not sure. From the enlarged pic I have posted above is the only pic I have seen exposing the engine of the Resta Special and as I say it looks remarkably similar to the breathers on the Peugeot. If he started from scratch he may have taken a few ideas from Peugeot but I have not run across any smoking gun that he built the engine himself. You may have which would be interesting.-Jim
I second the welcome to John Glenn Printz - a true pioneer in autoracing history!!! Jim, the engine can't have been merely "modified", it was brand new - all four Peugeot L45 engines are accounted for, even in 1919! I agree that the close-up of the engine looks very much like the Peugeot, that's why I was thinking of an Alloyanum version ("copy") of that engine. As for the 1915 Burman Indy entry: I have seen several entry lists in contemporary reports, and all list only one car for Burman. Also, if you follow the practice and qualifying period in the newspapers of the time (especially "The Indianapolis Star"), you'll find many references to the "Burman Special" becoming the "Peugeot Special" for the race, and thus bumping one of the 3-litre Peugeots out of the line-up. The non-starter pages in the Fox book(s) are long out of date - there are many, many mistakes in those lists! There were only two 1913 GP Peugeots in the US - the third car stayed in England - and the second car went from Rickenbacker via Miller to Dario Resta, who won the 1915 Vanderbilt and Grand Prize in it. I don't know what happened to it afterwards, and it may well be that Burman acquired it as a spare. But, despite looking for a clue since I-don't-know-when, I still cannot confirm that, or any other fate for that car! As for Miller's shop being a hectic place in 1917: yes for the first half of that year, but no for the second! Ogren had only one engine, as far as I can tell, and it ran in late 1916 already, and the other four engines were all out of the shop by June. That's a full year until the Resta Special's first appearance, more than enough time to service the five Single Cams in the winter and built a couple of aero engines on the side.
Michael, in regards to the 1913 Peugeots, Rickenbacker had two at San Diego I believe, his mount and McCarthy's. How or where they progressed from that point it up for conjecture I suppose. In Dees book page 32 and page 33 have two very different Peugeots, both allegedly Burman cars. I agree with you there may have only been one car at Indy. I do not agree with your theory that Burman only had one Peugeot. We also will have to agree to disagree on whether there was only one Ogren with a Miller, I believe he had two and you are correct the first Miller engine to run was in the fall of 1916-Henning in the Ogren at Sheepshead. As to my statement on a "modified" Peugeot engine in Resta's car I agree it may have been a new casting as there were only a limited number of Peugeot engines. That being said I believe it may have had enough DNA of the Peugeot that it may strongly resemble a Peugeot. If we want to call this something of his own design then so be it.-Jim
Hey fellas, great little discussion you have going on. Obviously i have nothing to add but i would like to know what happened to Burman's car after he crashed it. In Gordon Eliot White's 'Offenhauser' book he mentions it went through several hands before the rule changes. BTW, welcome to John Glenn Printz.
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