@Ryan you need to find a copy of Gordon Elliot White’s Kurtis- Kraft, it’s informational overload on everything Kurtis. Here are some outtakes from the book that show the Aguila in the flesh- But wait, there’s more!!! White touches on a lot in the book including Frank Kurtis’ work for Dean Lowe, well actually he was a friend of Dean’s dad and Dean benefited from that connection. Maybe @Dean Lowe will add some first hand commentary an Frank Kurtis
From Petersen Archive https://archive.petersen.org/pages/...es=&recentdaylimit=&foredit=&go=prev&offset=0
Pure Automotive Art. That black one, Sex on wheels ..... can't believe I said that but was an instant reaction Picasso, Rembrandt in the speed world.
The automotive world is far reaching, did Frank Kurtis and Bill Mitchell have some influence on the illustrator of the Mach Five? I see some Aguila and late C-2/C-3 Corvette styling elements here.
Pure sex is right, it's like the guy working the English wheel had a photo of Sophia Loren on the wall as a blueprint!
It is quite pretty, something a lot of racers are not. I think car's older sister was hotter by far I tend to "follow the crowd" in that this may be the most beautiful ever. Surely we can all see the resemblance, yes? How about we do this one next cap'n, it's history is also something of legend. And if the Kurtis is Sophia Loren this thing can be Marilyn
Frank Kurtis was a man who lived for balance. He knew where weight belonged, where to shave it, where to stack it. Barnes and Troutman understood it too, and the Scarab proved it. But both of them were chasing Ferrari ghosts - most specifically the 250. The thing is, the 250 had already been there and done it better. Nearly a decade older, five years off the circuit, and still ahead of the curve. It came in at 1700 pounds, a feather compared to the Scarab’s 2200. Sure, the Scarab (and likely the Aguila) had more brute horsepower than the Ferrari’s 300-horse V-12 in most configurations, but they couldn’t deliver it to the ground with the same savage efficiency. It took another five years before Americans cracked the code on power-to-weight balance at the track. Still, in their own way, the Scarab and the Aguila carried a beauty close to that of the Testa Rossa. I personally think the 250 is the most gorgeous car ever assembled, but it's so obscene that I almost discount its existence.
The Pontoon 250 might be pretty but the front fenders promote lift and the later cars were more enclosed and most of the earlier cars modified within a year to enclosed body style. If we’re on about American sports racers I’m a bit of a Jim Hall fan.
Jim Hall is from my home town (midland, tx) and a close family friend. I’ve driven many of the chaparral cars… in a parking lot, but still. Dude is a straight up genius…
Ed Justice Jr. could probably add some to this, his Dad Ed Sr. and his Uncle Zeke both worked for Frank Kurtis for years. I was fortunate enough to have met all of those guys multiple times at Gale's Gear Head Bash gatherings and you could not ask for nicer people. Justice Brothers has a very large collection of Kurtis cars in their museum and Ed Jr. is an expert on the Kurtis Cars and is great to talk to. He is on instagram frequently.
Off topic, but I stumbled into this shot in my archive and it damn near stopped my heart. That red beast is a Ferrari 250 LM, the bastard child of the Testa Rossa that so many Americans tried to mimic... Kurtis, Scarab, the whole lot. Ferrari wanted it homologated as a GT car, the FIA told them to piss off, so they rolled it out as a prototype and in ’65 it smashed the freshly minted and under-developed Ford GT at Le Mans. Naturally, the movie skipped that part. Next to it, the Ford GT, one of the first out of the womb, still in factory war paint. The first American sports car, built like a weapon, maybe the best we ever managed. And then the Porsche 906, the razor blade of the bunch. The balance was supernatural, like it wasn’t even of this world. Thirteen-hundred pounds, 210 horsepower, and enough grip and poise to murder anything with a V-8 on everything but the longest of tracks. Anyway, this photo shows the evolutionary ladder of the problem the Aguila (and other American attempts like it) could never quite solve. The 906 is the apex predator of low-powered finesse. The LM was the brute that knocked everything sideways in ’65. And the GT40, by ’66, made it clear to the world that Americans weren’t just along for the ride anymore. Big power, light bones, balance good enough, brakes mean enough... Nobody would’ve taken this picture in ’65. By ’66, it was a warning: Ferrari and Porsche, step aside, the Americans are here. And somewhere in that DNA, hidden in the shadows, you can still see the fingerprints of Frank Kurtis.... or at the very least, his basic ideas realized.
Also... Speaking of Jim Hall... Here's my old man climbing out of the Chaparral 2E a few months before he passed away. He drove it from the parking lot into the museum... while wearing a suit. This was.... uh... a wild evening in Midland, TX that I will someday write about. Mixing allergy meds and pain meds... it got bad. I drove the 2F and ended up in the hospital. But this is the car that competed against the Ferrari LM and the Ford GT in '66.
found one Aguila reference on the Atlas F1 Nostalgia forum, mentions "Herb Stelter's new Aguila Kurtis" in 1962. link from the forum is https://www.flickr.com/photos/kccornell/22937001313/in/photostream/
Precious isn't a term just for softys, that pic of your Dad proves it. While none of these cars would be within my means I've become more and more a fan of this era in sports car history. 906, didn't they build a 908 as well? A flat 8 with brutal HP, which then ended up in the fleet of Panzers that essentially ended Can Am. Still, I had cartoon thought balloons full of question marks when the Ford/Ferrari movie kept calling the GT40 ugly. Yeah right. 427 inches of throbbing fury in what looked like a body builder wearing a t-shirt a size too small. The recent re-release emulated it quite well IMO. 250 LM? Incredibly sexy, as was the 250 GTO with the LM roof mods. I'm fortunate in that I get to see these cars up close and personal at auctions and concours events. I swoon every time, and usually those I'm with don't "get it" as to why. Dammit, I was born 10 years too late.
The 907 was the first flat-8 from Porsche... Then the 908 and 910. All of these were sort of precursors to the most dominant race car to ever exist on any continent - the Porsche 917. It was Flat-12 powered, but the lineage lead there. Just to give some context: The 917 typically turned Le Mans in the 3:15 second range. Topping out at around 240 mph on the Mulsanne straight. Meanwhile, the fastest lap ever turned by the Ford GT was something around the 3:31 range. The Fords were doing around 215 on the Mulsanne. Nothing has dominated race tracks like the 917 - before or since. All less than ten years after things like the Kurtis and the Ferrari LM were built.
The Jalopy Journal
