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

Thanks for the pics Rootie! I am a Nuts and Bolts Guy! I can study chassis pics for hours!

 

Pretty sure that was the last Front Wheel Drive car ever entered for the 500. The ramp thing that is sitting on was the starter. had rollers that turned the front wheels. I not sure but i think the car might have had three wheel steering

 

Michael.

How about Norm Batten on the right? I was thinking that the guy on the left was Lou Moore but the more I look at it I think you are correct about it being Billy Arnold.

Mike

 

It's a head scratcher for sure. There's no mention of it (1965) on M/Ts site. But they do show the fwd car that he brought to Indy in 67. It looks way different than the 65 car but maybe he reworked it in between. Also there appears to be a torque tube running from the transmission/transfercase (?) to a opening in the rear fire wall.

 

Rootie, thanks for the front drive photos.
What a beautiful job.
As a nuts and bolts man , take a look at the shop it was built and prepared in.
An old belt drive lathe,a drill press, a band saw, a compressor, a power hammer, a mill and a flat disc sander!!
I am sure there will be a rule , a pencil, some chalk ,and a slide rule in there somewhere.
NO billet, CNC,CAD, laser profiling,laser alignment ,corner weight scales or carbon fibre,
AND ,
all designed using someones "neck top computer"
So what if it never made the show , what an achievement !!

 

Yes!

 

The more I look at this the more flumoxed I get. Here's a upclose shot of a Novi engine. While the cam covers look slightly different the rest looks almost identical. Hmmmm???... Paging Mac Miller..... Paging Mac Miller... you have a call on the white courtesy telephone

 

Are you guys mixing the NOVI/Ferguson four wheel drive and its Granatelli copy with the Mickey T Front wheel car?

 

You missed the German milling machine (rack of files) on the work bench.

 

The center photo is the square tube framed 1964 Ferguson 4WD Novi. It somehow got mixed in with the Mickey Thompson photos.

 

Could be that I am. The HRM site said the 2 pics (w/HRM logo) are of the 65 M/T car with a dohc smallblock. Of course that doesn't make it fact, it could be, simply, a mistake with the wrong pic. Did the Novis use a square tube frame?

indyrjc is on top of it, Thanks.

 

I believe that photo of the Novi up on jack stands was taken in the Granatelli shop in Santa Monica.

 

I KNEW I had a copy of that photo somewhere. You jogged my memory. I finally found it...

 

Further investigation, and some dredging of my fuzzy memory:
1. The ortho drawing of the M/T car shows velocity stacks for fuel injection, not a centifugal blower.
2. RE: The difference in the cam towers in the Novi pic and the HRM shop pic - if you blow the shop pic up, it looks like the heads (and the distinctive Novi double magnetos) are wooden dummies...
3. I do believe the Furgeson Novi frames were square tube, not nearly so elegant as the previous Kurtis jobs. The wheels also look like the Dunlop rims used on the Furgies (and very different from the M/T wheels in the pit shot). Period pics of the M/T car (front-drive only, IIRC) showed a large aluminum-tube backbone frame running along the right side of the engine & driver. You can just about visualize it under the bulge of the bodywork.
4. Something to "stir the pot"; if the shop picture is Granatelli's, and it is a Novi (which I think it is), what's it doing on Goodyears?

 

I wonder if there were any other cars on the course when Jim was collecting his dough.

 

Michael Ferner you never cease to amaze me!

 

Definately not Petillo.

FYI, there were no Gilmore sponsored cars in 1928. Their first sponsored car appeared in late 1930. For Petillo to be in a "Gilmore Spl", it'd have to be 1932 or later. Post a pic of your pic, maybe I/we can identify the exact year/date.

 

Thanks jj.- Yeah my first thought when I saw the pic was that it was a Novi what with the distinctive blower and headers and all. The discription (mistakenly) said it was a dohc conversion on a sbc so I looked up what engine the 1965 M/T was listed as and all it said was 'Thompson'. Made me think that maybe M/T came up with his own heads based on the Novi design or something. I'm sure HRM had plenty of info on the car back then, I don't happen to have any of those issues though. Here's about the only other pic I've found of the 65 car.

 

This is a small portion of the origional picture as it is very rare and came from a racing shop in Glendale Ca. where it hung on the wall for many many years. I purchased this photo 18"x20" along with several others that were also on the wall. I was told by a person that knew Kelly personally that he thought it was taken in 1928 when the American Legion invited the AAA to come and race on their track. I do know it is Legion Ascot and it is also Kelly but I am only going by what I was told regarding the date.

 

Hmmm... I wonder how well this person knew Kelly Petillo? The photo is of Bill Cummings, NOT Kelly. The year is 1933, likely sometime in the spring. Nice photo though. I have this one too, only it is 4" x 5".

 

And from the fertile mind of........
This is Fred Gerhardts 1960 roadster with a wingy-thingy. I believe the plan was for the driver to deploy the wing (rudder?) entering the turns and then retract it on the straights. Looks more like a good way to visit 'spin city' to me though.

 

I think you may have hit it with Norm Batten! And the name Lou Moore for the guy on the left also crossed my mind...

 

Yes, definitely Bill Cummings in 1933! You can also spot Mauri Rose standing behind (or sitting on) the pit wall, which likely makes it the January 1 race - Rose didn't stay in California very long that winter. The car is, of course, "Poison Lil", built in the summer of 1932.

 

It wasn't that difficult...

 

Roy, Dusty Thacker, was he an owner with the URC in the sixties? Drivers Jerry Karl, Cookie Osterhout, Ron Lux, Buddy Martin etc.? Do you know his real name?

 

Hey guys, trying to make some room and came across a vintage fuel cell. It is a fuel bladders inc brand and came out of a VW Midget. It is roughly 18" wide 34" long and 24" tall not sure how many gallons. Didn't leak 5 years ago when I bought it.

If anybody on here needs it I will let it go cheap, if not its onto eBay.
Thanks

 

REF: an 18 x 34 x 24 "cube" holds 63 gallons. Let's start a contest to guess the volume. I guess 40.

 

Interesting! I think it is 28 gallon.

 

If we guess right do we win the tank? If so, I guess 24 gal.

 

H.W. "Dusty" Thacker

Herman Ward Thacker but he hated his first name lol