Indy 500's coming, genelmen Start yer engins.

[Greg Myers]

Too bad there's no hot rods in there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=liqoMjRT81A

What's in your garage ? You wish.

Edited May 16, 2014 by Greg Myers

[Ace-Garageguy]

You got me pining for the front-engined Indy-roadster glory days, and I came across this mid-engined, Offy-powered Zink I've never seen before, from 1961.

[Greg Myers]

[Greg Myers]

1958 Winner from Phoenix Arizona

[Art Anderson]

No hottrodders at Indianapolis? You never heard of the Winfield Brothers, Ed and Bud? (think Winfield carburetors and camshafts). Among their other pursuts, the Winfields created the firebreathing Indy cars known as Novi's--with their track-gobbling 183cid (eventually down to 161cid) supercharged Novi V8 engines that started out pulling dynamometers at 550hp, eventually ramping up to well over 800hp YEARS before the likes of turbocharged Offenhausers, Ford V8's and Cosworths.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

No hottrodders at Indianapolis? ...

Art

I think Greg was referring to...ummmm...in the video link that he posted immediately at the beginning of the post. You know, no hot rods in the video.

Mickey Thompson, of course, was another very well known American hot-rodder who had a presence at Indy with some radical machinery over several years, running a number of different chassis configurations and both Buick and Chevy stock-block power. He was quick to embrace the mid-engine concept.

Edited May 16, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[bbowser]

I miss the roadsters . Back in the 60's my dad, uncle, and grandpa would go to the first weekend of time trials every year. When I got old enough they let me come along. It was the tail end of the roadster era after Jimmy Clark and the Lotus' showed the way. I'll never forget the "whoosh" of the #40 STP turbine in '67 however!

[mikevillena]

For those who are nostalgic for front engined indy cars but also want the latest mid engined style:

Start your ENGINES....literally!

BTW, Lancer made a 1/24th scale slot car bodyshell.

Edited May 16, 2014 by mikevillena

[Art Anderson]

For those who are nostalgic for front engined indy cars but also want the latest mid engined style:

Start your ENGINES....literally!

BTW, Lancer made a 1/24th scale slot car bodyshell.

Frank Arciero out of Albuquerque NM was the car builder I believe--Mexican road racer Pedro Rodriguez drove it.

Art

[Art Anderson]

I think Greg was referring to...ummmm...in the video link that he posted immediately at the beginning of the post. You know, no hot rods in the video.

Mickey Thompson, of course, was another very well known American hot-rodder who had a presence at Indy with some radical machinery over several years, running a number of different chassis configurations and both Buick and Chevy stock-block power. He was quick to embrace the mid-engine concept.

Mickey Thompson, with this series of cars in 1963, introduced Chevrolet engines to the 500, they being the first Chevy stockblocks to make the starting field.

Art

[Greg Myers]

???

[Greg Myers]

This one's for Danno

[Greg Myers]

Zoom Zoom

[Greg Myers]

This one's for Art Yes, I know.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Greg Myers

[Art Anderson]

And, the Grancor V8 Special was a rebuild of one of the 1935 Miller-Ford front drive specials. That project was promoted to Henry & Edsel Ford by none other than Preston Tucker, of 1948 Tucker fame/notoriety. The chassis and body were designed by the famed Indianapolis car builder of the 1920's, Harry Armenius Miller, and powered by specially prepared (by Ford Motor Company) 1935 Ford flathead V8's, which churned out slightly more than 150hp, or about the same power as a 255cid Offenhauser of that year.

There were 7 or 8 of these cars built, but just 2 or 3 made the race, all dropped out due to steering gear failure. However, in addition to the Grancor Spl shown by Greg, one chassis was purchased by Bud and Ed Winfield, who had Offenhauser engineering build up a 183cid supercharged V8 engine to fit in it. That car, the Winfield Special, went on to finish 4th at Indianapolis in 1941, and while the chassis did not return for 1946, the engine appeared in a new front-drive chassis built by the fast-rising carbuilder, Frank Kurtis, known thereafter as the NOVI--same basic engine as in the STP Novi 4WD Greg has pictured above, from 1963.

BTW, the Winfield 1941 NOVI Miller-Ford car still exists: After being displayed in the former Briggs Cunningham Museum in California for years, sans engine, it was bought up and restored by a Denver collector--Chris Etzel and I watched it turn many laps on the Milwaukee Mile at the first Harry Miller Club Race Car Reunion in July 1994, reunited with its original Winfield (AKA NOVI) supercharged V8.

Art

[Art Anderson]

And, the Grancor V8 Special was a rebuild of one of the 1935 Miller-Ford front drive specials. That project was promoted to Henry & Edsel Ford by none other than Preston Tucker, of 1948 Tucker fame/notoriety. The chassis and body were designed by the famed Indianapolis car builder of the 1920's, Harry Armenius Miller, and powered by specially prepared (by Ford Motor Company) 1935 Ford flathead V8's, which churned out slightly more than 150hp, or about the same power as a 255cid Offenhauser of that year.

There were 7 or 8 of these cars built, but just 2 or 3 made the race, all dropped out due to steering gear failure. However, in addition to the Grancor Spl shown by Greg, one chassis was purchased by Bud and Ed Winfield, who had Offenhauser engineering build up a 183cid supercharged V8 engine to fit in it. That car, the Winfield Special, went on to finish 4th at Indianapolis in 1941, and while the chassis did not return for 1946, the engine appeared in a new front-drive chassis built by the fast-rising carbuilder, Frank Kurtis, known thereafter as the NOVI--same basic engine as in the STP Novi 4WD Greg has pictured above, from 1963.

BTW, the Winfield 1941 NOVI Miller-Ford car still exists: After being displayed in the former Briggs Cunningham Museum in California for years, sans engine, it was bought up and restored by a Denver collector--Chris Etzel and I watched it turn many laps on the Milwaukee Mile at the first Harry Miller Club Race Car Reunion in July 1994, reunited with its original Winfield (AKA NOVI) supercharged V8.

Art

Addendum: When the Granitelli Brothers decided to exit the speed shop business in suburban Chicago, they sold out to the guy who became "Honest Charley's Speed Shop" down in Tennessee.

[Danno]

This one's for Danno

Nice!!

{I gotta get some of those pyjamas!!!!}

Edited May 17, 2014 by Danno

[Bernard Kron]

Cost containment + safety = standardization =

But then again...

Edited May 17, 2014 by Bernard Kron

[Greg Myers]

Woooosh !

[Greg Myers]

Edited May 17, 2014 by Greg Myers

[High octane]

Cool video at the beginning of this thread Greg as I had to "crank up" the volume. All those cars are big bucks and belong in the "high rent district" except for the Camaro and Mustang as everybody who wants one of those already has one.

[Art Anderson]

Hot Rodders at Indianapolis you say? Well, no car speaks the start, the beginning of hot rodding than the Model T Ford--the first car to have truly an entire speed equipment industry built around it. More than one Indianapolis 500 driver from the 20's and 30's cut his racing teeth, several winning drivers having started their racing careers driving hopped up Model T's on short dirt tracks--men such as Frank Lockhart, Wilbur Shaw, Louis Meyer, Kelly Petillo.

In 1924, Indianapolis Ford dealer, Barber-Warnock Ford, entered a team of 5 cars, all Model T based, using the then newly introduced Frontenac 16-valve, DOHC Chain Drive cylinder head (Frontenac speed equipment was designed and produced by Louis and Arthur Chevrolet after the demise of their passenger car company by the same name). They were virtually all Model T Ford based, from engine (with the Fronty DOHC head--same version as found in the AMT '27 T Touring Car kits) to chassis, suspension and driveline.

One of those Fronty T's, a nearly perfect example of the hot rodder's art, finished 5th at Indianapolis in 1924, ahead of a bunch of Duesenbergs and Millers--not bad for a Model T Ford, and that run included a long pit stop to replace a broken front spring--which was scavenged off a stock Model T found in the infield (it was replaced after the end of the race, allegedly before its owner discovered it!).

In the driver's seat in this photo is non other than Henry Ford. His son Edsel is to the right, and the man standing behind HF is the legendary Barney Oldfield.

Art

[wisdonm]

"May 21, 1972 was another last day of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500. It had been several years since Hurtubise had entered the race with any kind of chance to win it, lead it or even qualify well for it. For most of that time he had been engaged in a quixotic attempt to qualify an improved version of the outmoded front-engine "roadster" that had dominated the Speedway until the rear-engine revolution of the mid-1960s. With time growing short, there was a fever of activity around Hurtubise's Miller High Life Special, as it slowly moved toward the head of the qualifying line. The crowd buzzed. Would the old Mallard, as Hurtubise called his car in tribute to its ducktail rear end, get a chance to make even a ceremonial tour of the Brickyard? No. Precisely at 6 p.m. the gun sounded, locking in the field for another year. At which time Hurtubise removed the cowling from his Mallard to reveal neither an Offenhauser nor a Ford, but rather five cases of his sponsor's product, already chilled and ready for folks to drink. Which is what most of the Speedway officials soon did. Erk, erk, erk."

[Art Anderson]

Back to the original premise of this thread, if I might: The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has a lot of hot rodding history surrounding it, not just in some of the cars that faced the starter's green flag, but drivers as well.

The end of World War II (and with it pretty much the end of a lot of the mindset that stemmed from the years of the Great Depression and its aftermath) brought three distinctive types of auto racing to the forefront in the US: First of all came the midgets. Midget racing got its start in the middle 1930's in Los Angeles, fostered largely by Earl Gilmore, principal owner of Gilmore Oil Company (Gilmore Red Lion Gasoline) along with Gilmore Broadcasting (radio stations). Midgets, of course, were much smaller versions in many ways, of the cars that ran at Indianapolis in the 30's, but were pretty much a low-budget thing. After the war, Frank Kurtis began series-production of his Kurtis Midget, of which over 1,500 examples were produced, both as complete cars from Kurtis-Kraft, along with hundreds of kits consisting of precut, pre-formed parts, ready for one to built his own midget in his garage.

Second came the "Roaring Roadsters", which were really nothing more than the hot rods that began dotting the streets of Los Angeles, ultimately spreading all across the USA--those days being the era of Model A and '32 Ford chassis with channeled roadster bodies (anywhere from Model T through '32 roadsters), being run on 1/4-1/2 mile oval tracks, most of which were dirt although there were asphalt ovals. Out west, they ran on tracks such as Ascot Speedway, Bakersfield, and Sacramento, Manzanita in Phoenix, with perhaps the ultimate being an oval track in Soldier's Field on the lakefront in Chicago--which races were promoted by non other than Anthony "Andy" Granitelli, then a partner in GranCor, a speed shop owned with his brothers Vince and Joe Granitelli.

And of course, Stock Car Racing, but that's another story for another time.

While of course, midget racing sent several stars to Indianapolis who won there: Most notable was AJ Foyt (1961. 1964, 1967 and 1977), along with Roger Ward (1959, 1962), but it was the hot rod "track roadster" that sent a few more: Troy Ruttman (winner in 1952), Bill Vukovich (1953, 1954), Bob Sweikert (1955), Pat Flaherty (1956, and a regular winner in Soldier's Field), and Jim Rathmann (1960).

In fact, the very term "Roadster" as applied to Indianapolis cars comes from the hot-rod "track roadster" era! Frank Kurtis (perhaps the most prolific race car constructor of all time--at least two thousand race cars (from 1/4 midgets all the way up to Indianapolis cars, with a hundred or so sports cars thrown in along the way!) kept trying to convince prospective car owners who came to him to consider letting him build a truly low-slung race car for Indianapolis and the AAA (American Automobile Association and it's "Contest Board") Championship Series (forerunner of USAC, CART and today's IndyCar, BTW). Finally, for 1952, he convinced Howard Keck, an Oklahoma oil man, to let him build a race car for Indy, with the Offenhauser engine offset to the left for weight bias on left turns, angled over 18-degrees to the right for low frontal area (a 274cid Offenhauser is a pretty tall engine!), with the driver's compartment set to the right, the driver sitting BESIDE the transmission and driveshaft (which spun--open driveshafts in those Kurtis racecars!) just past the driver's hip!). The car, named the "Fuel Injection Special", having some sponsorship from Stewart Hilborn (ever hear of him, drag racers?). For his driver at Indianapolis, Keck chose Bill Vukovich, the son of eastern European immigrants, who was a regular on the hot rod roadster and midget circuits in California at the time. The story goes that Vukovich, upon seeing the Fuel Injection Special (actually termed a Kurtis-Kraft 500A), announced that it was as low as the (hot rod) roadsters he was driving on dirt at the time--and the name stuck. So now, you know the hot rod tie-in to the famed, and often-considered beautiful Offy roadsters of Indianapolis fame from the years 1952-64.

Art

[Greg Myers]

The original premise of this thread was to listen to many great car engines start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=liqoMjRT81A using the ever popular "Gentlemen Start Your Engines" tag from the up coming Indy 500, with a comment that there were no hot rods in the clip. and a shot at a popular TV commercial asking "what's in your garage?"

Edited May 18, 2014 by Greg Myers