Nothing unusual here. There have always been specials arrive in the pits to be
tested against the big money-big-iron.
Phill Hill - #2jr. an MG-TD w/ Ford V-60 .
Huffaker built a tube chassis special with a Healey that had to run with the
2.5 liter Ferrari's and Masers.
Bruce Kessler was supossed to have run a Healey with a Jag stuffed into the
4cyl. engine compartment.
Bill McDonald had a Healey with a V8-60, then went to a chevy.
Tom Carstens had the Stove Bolt Special; an HWM formula car with a Chevy. One
of the prettiest conversions around, and driven by Bill Pollack at 7th Pebble
Beach in 1956.
Jack Hagemann built a whole passle of MG powered specials. His chrysler
powered car driven by John Barneson was raced with some success against the
high priced spread.
Jack Graham stuffed a chevy in his Aston-Martin complete with added tail fin,
and raced that car into the late fifties.
There's been a lot of them over the years. The added power to the existing
marque chassis's created a new area to deal with -steering geometry. Troutman-
Barnes were face with the added problem of turning this added powered into the
first turn. They started with their merc powered special, and
completed/solved it the Scarab they built for Lance Reventlow.
My guess is - if shows up at an event like Monterey, it probably appeared
somewhere else many years ago.
There have always been guys wanting their cars to go faster, and as long as we
have them I don't figure thats going to change much.
Ron Yates
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