Features VINTAGE SPRINT CAR PIC THREAD, 1965 and older only please.

mac....found this one too.....haven't a clue on this one.....just liked the look of it...

 

Here is a pic of the 1966 version of the MG Liquid Suspension car that became the Sneva sprint.

 

That car is the 1966 Roger Ward Lola/ Supercharged OFFY. It was a Mecum team car to winner Graham Hill and almost winner Jackie Stewart.

Roger pulled into the pit in the middle of the race, got out of the car and retired on the spot. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the car.... Roger just picked that moment to announce his retirement from driving.


mac miller in INDY

 

And Eddie Baue was the mechanic on it when it was a sprint car

 

..you guys blow me away.......

 

Hey, I remember that car filling up my mirror every 4 laps at Phoenix.
Ricky Ward was behind the wheel.

 

Gentlemen , after the tip from Michael Ferner I wonder if I have found the elusive #36 car we have been discussing??
A search for "Ron Ward chassis" led me to a site wagtimes.com/lostpauljones which has a fantastic picture of what I believe is the car.
I just don't have the computer skills to add the link or the picture to this post.
Can someone help??
The car looks identical and the font on the lettering , this time on the tail, looks spot on.
The text says that Paul Jones won at Champion Speedway, San Francisco near Candlestick Park in the #36 Bromme Offy on April 3rd 1965.
On behalf of Mal Church ,Jim Grant ,and myself thanks for all the help
Cheers Greg

 

Click here>>>>>>> http://www.wagtimes.com/lostpauljones.html

 

Don't think so, thats Bromme's 'Andy Gump' car, a sprint car.

 

Paul's car also doesn't have the double-deck torsion tubes.

 

Rootie's correct.
Also, "Andy Gump" was a sprint car, campaigned with an Offy still in it by the Bromme's into the '70's, then converted to Chevy power and as such was the first of many Bromme sprinters driven by the late, great Dean Thompson.
Bruce Bromme restored the car back to its' 1966 livery several years ago, as beautiful as the night I saw it running at Whiteman Stadium that year with Paul Jones (Parnelli's "little" brother) at the wheel.
The second picture is as I remember seeing it at Ascot in 1972, Paul Jones still in the seat, battling for the lead with Donnie Hamilton in the Morales Brothers' Tamale Wagon, the last two Offies regularly running with CRA, and still up front.
It now resides at Speedy Bill Smith's Museum of American Speed.

 

FWIW- it just occured to me that the Aussies probably have no idea what a 'Andy Gump' is. Many years ago there was a cartoon character by that name with a long, distinctive nose like the sprint car had, hence the nickname.

 

Once again, Rootie's on the ball.
I read somewhere once that Bruce Sr. had started out building a Champ Car, but changed his mind midstream and shortened it a bit to the Sprinter configuration, and that's how the nose ended up being as long as it is, and led to the nickname.
It sounded in the article like Bruce didn't care for the car's looks, which is why he named it Andy Gump (the namesake is a tad on the homely side). I always though it was gorgeous; the nose and tail were both longer and formed differently from any of the other cars. I also like the way he integrated the bumper into the nose, to form a grille.

 

Well guys, its a long ways away and I was giving it my best shot!!
The #36 is still elusive!!
Next thoughts???

 

There's so many inconsistancies in that car it's impossible to make any viable conclusions. Having said that and assuming the nose and number are intrinsic to the rest of the car it narrows it down a lot. Near as I can tell there were only 2 #36s in the Champ/early S/C years and it isn't a 53 Kuzma. So that leaves the Rogala #36. While there are a lot of differences between the Coles 1972 pic and now, but those changes could have been made during the several years it ran as M. Ferner indicated. Most of my stuff is pre-1970, so I can't help much with pics or info, also, Stan L. may have already investigated the Rogala connection though and can save you the trouble. (?)

 

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The Rogala car was the Leader Card car that Branson drove it is restored alive and well. Honest guys if I had history it would be still in my barn.

 

Maybe we (or at least me) are barking up the wrong flagstand assuming it was (or was intended to be) a USAC Champ car. Maybe it was intended to (or did) run with the IMCA, URC or ?. Don't know about the URC or others but ex-USAC Indy Champ cars ran with the IMCA sprints often. I assume they didn't have a max. w/b rule.

 

Stan's probably right, but it's been a fun trip going through old stats and photos, doing a little comparison-shopping, finding out about the history of some cars that, while they may not be connected to the car in question, are little snapshots of days gone by in their own right...

 

Anything is possible. But with a 97" wheelbase and a grill with a hole for a starter shaft it's still more likely that this was a Championship car. There is a story here somewhere and someone will figure it out. The car is too distinctive otherwise. Maybe the way to go about this would be to eliminate all of the Champ cars that couldn't be the #36. At least you then would have a list of cars that might still be possibilities. I keep thinking that a car like this one might have shown up as one-off entry at some place in the East like Langhorne or Nazareth.

 

Oh. One more thing before I bow out of the conversation; just because a car has a Dzused-on tail cover like the #36 we've been discussing, don't think it isn't a Champ Car.
If you have a copy of Scalzo's "The American Dirt Track Racer", take a peek at Page 96 and you'll see a picure of a '51 Kuzma that had a pretty good career, minus a bit of its' bodywork.
I think this setup was pretty common before Mr. Saldana and others started making the now-ubiquitous one-piece tail tank.

 

I see what your saying. I'm thinking that it probably was a Champ car frame to begin with but the lack of 75 gal. tail tank makes me think maybe it wasn't really intended for 100 mi. racing. No claims of fact or anything, just throwing it out there.

 

And when you look at some of the details on the car it might also help to date the chassis. For instance, much of the construction details that show in the photos of the frame appear to be arc welded and are pretty gobby looking in places. That's consistent with how just about all of the original roadster and dirt champ frames looked since TIG welding generally wasn't used until later. And the oil and brake lines also look to be of a 1960s (or even a little earlier) period as well. No metal braided Aeroquip type lines or fittings to be seen anywhere in the photos. And even the metal dzus pads appear to be homemade. That's also how it was done back then. I know of roadster replica builders today that won't use pre-manufactured dzus pads just because it wouldn't be how it was done back in the '50s and '60s. There are probably even more clues in the photos that others here can discover as well.

 

Your right of course, but looking at the halfassed pics that were originally posted it looks, to my eye anyway, that the yellow object under the tail is the fuel tank and is in no way big enough to hold 100 miles worth of fuel.

 

I know that the 75 gallon figure is always mentioned but I'm not sure that was really the case. You wouldn't need anywhere near that to go 100 miles. And even some of the Indianapolis roadsters only held around 60 gallons or less. I guessing that an Offy dirt car would probably get close to 3-4 MPG on methanol but I'm not really sure. No claims of fact here either.

 

I got the car from the gents estate that restored the
regala car. Whatever he did he used the original nose off the 36. I needed another big Offy for the Deb Snyder Mirical Power Hillegas. The
deb Snyder car has the dash tag Most of the original body
, enough of the tail to use and a Manning Steering which was almost Imposible to find.
I find that it costs just as much to feed a thorobred as it does a mule. A car without proven history is only worth as much as the sum total of all the parts. A car with history is worth whatever you can get for it, I got a bunch of cars the prettiest one has no history and another I need more confirmation on. I have cars that I spent more tracing the history on than I paid for the car. I sold Dean Lowe a car that I spent years tracing I got real close but never did get it complete.
I wish I could have solved the 36 for Malcom, heaven knows I tried . Maybe some day it will all come together. I`ll take a photo of my pretty old railframe sprint, with a lot of neat well thought out stuff on it maybe someone on here can give me a clue and tripple i`ts value.

 

Speaking of Champ Car tanks, Dave Laycock showing off the tank for the Forbes car circa 1962.

 

>>>"I got the car from the gents estate that restored the
regala car. Whatever he did he used the original nose off the 36..."<<<

Well that's another mystery solved. Kinda like peeling an onion.

That Laycock tank is a work of art; I understand why they use fiberglass & sheet aluminum bodies and Tupperware tail tanks these days, but those old panel-beaters were amazing...

A little O.T., but is anybody else tired of seeing a bright, colorful sprinter come at you, all stripes and graphics, and as it goes by and off into the turn all you see is an ugly flat-black blob with a number stuck on it?

 

That sound you hear is Eddie, Lugi and Wally turning in their graves.

 

75 gal. is just a number I threw out as it is the max. cap. allowed with 59 gal. the min. Don't know if its always been that way or not though.

 

Back to the #36

How about the glessner car. in the set of pictures is one with the funky oil tank. Also has the watsonish nose.

perhaps?

http://www.colesracingphotos.com/Ke...0s-60s/10716978_kb2MkZ#!i=746486790&k=Qp3QsCW