History Jim Hall's Chaparrals-American Innovation

What does the air scoop on the hood of No. 66 do?

 

66 was used on many of these cars, which are you referring to?

 

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>The Chaparral 2J was driven Friday, July 17<SUP>th</SUP> around 5:30 p.m. at The Petroleum Museum. The 2J ran for approximately 10-20 minutes in the front circle. The running of the Chaparrals is part of the routine maintenance to keep the cars in running condition. It's really cool that they are being keep in running condition and not just as museum pieces

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The garage area was open for viewing before the car ran, but we got there too late.

 

Sorry, very unclear question. I was wondering about the air scoop that leads to the driver on the hood of the open top car above.

 

You almost guessed it, it's to cool the driver. These cars were built and tested in Midland Texas after all!

 

I believe this would have been from the 2E. Possibly when the wing failed at Bridgehampton? The 2G version was converted to the 2F endurance car's upright Watts linkage to stabilize the wing. 2G had MUCH wider rear tires as well.

What an awesome look at the geometry that Hall tried so hard to keep "top secret"... Where the hell did you ever find that?

BTW I was also at Laguna in 05 to see that display. AWESOME. Seeing the Toyota Group 7 car was the thrill of a lifetime as well.

The weekend wasn't all happiness. I was crew chief for Brian Blain on the Lola T163. We had valvetrain problems in the 509, and worked half the week after the Pre-Historics getting it fixed. In the Can-Am feature Brian was running second right on John Morton in the Mc Leagle. They were leaving the field at 2 sec per lap and Brian was just biding his time. The shift linkage broke coming onto the frontstretch. That was bad enough...but on the NEXT LAP, Morton sheared the input shaft off the Hewland in exactly the same place! Nobody else was even close...

 

Was at the long beach california swap meet a couple years back and a guy was selling a pair of chaparral big block chevy valve covers. he wanted $700 for them, i looked at them, and only one had the chaparral script, the other had all the holes for the dry sump, would have bought them if both had the chaparral script. i thought about it and walked back a couple times and offered $500, said no he was selling for a friend . I was building a blown motor at the time and couldent justify it. Wish i would have bought them.

 

Note background right of Ed Welburn's desk in his office at GM Design. Could at least one of those be an upcoming Chaparral that GM has in the Skunk Works?

 

Not Right but Left of the picture cropped out

 

That was out of MotorTrend's Interview with Ed Welburn

 

Thank you. Presumably there was quite a lot of buffeting for the driver, otherwise they would have just taken out the screen? The addition of the duct must add weight (quite high up) and drag.

 

You bring up good points, Hall was a clever guy, especially with aerodynamics. The duct bleeds higher pressure air off of the nose with minimal drag, and the fibreglass and lexan duct is pretty thin and light, so weight penalty is small. His Chaparrals are FULL of tricks, and are quite amazing machines ahead of their time.

 

Thank you Miller 91, and thank you very much for posting all the pictures. I am familiar with the fan car but not so much with the other cars. The wing mounted on the hub in the drawing you posted is very similar to the idea in the much later Lotus 88, one of Colin Chapman's last innovations. If you have any more material, I for one will be a grateful reader.