The Sylva Roadster

I’m stuck in a Milwaukee Airport hotel due to weather with no hope of ever escaping at this point. And while I really do love the state of Wisconsin, I’m beginning to grow sick of her shit. I need to get home man…

In any regard, I’ve scrambled the best I could and found some decent content on my laptop’s hard drive. It’s Paul Sylva’s ’27 roadster. I guess you would call it Paul’s car. The build was actually started by Jim Nairn in 1950. He ran out of dough and sold the car to Sylva in or around 1951. Sylva ran the car for a couple of seasons and then loaned the car out to a couple of drag racing buddies. From there it ended up in Houston, Texas for a few years before it was ultimately sold to the Ferguson family who has owned the car for the longest stretch of time.

Even so, it was Paul Sylva that owned the car at the top of its performance curve. He ran an Ardun converted flathead Ford with a 3 5/8″ bore and a stock 3 3/4″ stroke (258-inches). It made good power, but the theory behind this car was to get the power-to-weight ratio as low as possible and to counter that light weight (1600 pounds) with excellent aero. It worked fantastically. At the ’52 Bonneville Nationals, the car went close to 158-mph on a bent valve.

Sylva returned to Bonneville in ’54 and turned an incredible 187.89 mph, but blew a head gasket on the return run. And while the car had some impressive outings on the drag strip later in life, that was really the pinnacle. The car has now been restored and was auctioned off sometime in 2011 where it “only” sold for $55k. Not a bad price for such a great piece of history.

Anyway, with any luck I’ll type at ya from Texas before too long… Until then, enjoy the images:

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