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History Railton Special

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by Ryan, Jun 23, 2010.

  1. Ryan
    Joined: Jan 2, 1995
    Posts: 21,633

    Ryan
    ADMINISTRATOR
    Staff Member

  2. Russco
    Joined: Nov 27, 2005
    Posts: 4,327

    Russco
    Member
    from Central IL

    Now thats cool and pretty impressive for such an early design
     
  3. Ryan,
    Agreed that the Railton is one of the most gorgeous shapes for a competition vehicle ever. As you described the criteria, would it have been left out due to age?

    Not to nudge the topic, but I'm curious what was on the list?
     
  4. Ryan
    Joined: Jan 2, 1995
    Posts: 21,633

    Ryan
    ADMINISTRATOR
    Staff Member

    The list was made up mostly of 60's era GP cars, 80's CANAM cars, etc... It did, however, include one of my favorites:

    Stutz-Lockhart Special

    [​IMG]
     

  5. G V Gordon
    Joined: Oct 29, 2002
    Posts: 5,713

    G V Gordon
    Member
    from Enid OK

    Don't know if that was the first "pumpkin seed" car but if so it paved the way for a lot of others in all the streamliner classes.
     
  6. froghawk
    Joined: May 9, 2008
    Posts: 857

    froghawk
    Member

    What an awesome vehicle! Powered by a pretty amazing engine with a long proud history powering aircraft and racing cars.

    The Supermarine S.5 was powered by a Napier Lion, and is as stunning an aircraft as the Railton Special is a car!

    [​IMG]

    Thanks for some more great history, Ryan!
     
  7. dustdevil
    Joined: Mar 2, 2009
    Posts: 815

    dustdevil
    Member
    from illinois

    Great read! I can only imagine the people watching him run at that speed at the time, hell I'd love to see it now!! What a cool engineered vehicle.
     
  8. xderelict
    Joined: Jul 30, 2006
    Posts: 2,475

    xderelict
    Member Emeritus

    Like to see one with a 100 inch wheelbase. :) What a beautiful car.
    The Supermarine S.5 is too cool.
     
  9. flamingokid
    Joined: Jan 5, 2005
    Posts: 2,200

    flamingokid
    Member

    Imagine what those guys could have done with the technology we have available today.
     
  10. kookee
    Joined: Jan 19, 2008
    Posts: 526

    kookee
    Member

    WOW! Amazing that this is a little known vehicle. Very advanced, IMO, for the era.

    Out of curiosity, what diameter are those wheels?!
     
  11. They really didn't give a shit about driver safety back then, did they? :D

    Right at the front, no hint of a roll cage or any kind of collision protection. Imagine the uproar today!

    Is there any link to this Railton bloke and a Railton car I saw at the Blackhawk Museum outside of SF. From memory it was FWD and had odd looking headlights, c.1929 or thereabouts.
     
  12. hugh m
    Joined: Jul 18, 2007
    Posts: 2,143

    hugh m
    Member
    from ct.

    The thing that gets me is that the gentleman racer was sitting out in front on a lawn chair, with no structure at all. Hurts to think about it.
     
  13. Joe T Creep
    Joined: Jan 1, 2003
    Posts: 1,145

    Joe T Creep
    Member Emeritus

    That vehicle is just unreal.
     
  14. visualj
    Joined: Apr 20, 2009
    Posts: 2

    visualj
    Member

    There are more photos from the Brooklands Society page. Near the bottom. I picked it out from the Wikipedia page Ryan linked to.

    Just do not click on the logo or the mail title, it will take you to a 'site sitter' a page that holds the link and starts a bunch of pop-ups. If you want to see more, and there are a bunch 5000 or so, use the Archive Index Page link

    I really should not have found this at work over lunch hour... I may not get much done the rest of the day.


    Jay
     
  15. There was something magic about the days when designers thought making a car a beautiful shape also made it fast. Until Jim Hall came along and screwed it all up...
    [​IMG]
    Haha.
     
  16. Tom davison
    Joined: Mar 15, 2008
    Posts: 6,042

    Tom davison
    Member
    from Phoenix AZ

    Thank you Ryan; I knew the name but not the details. Very impressive.
     
  17. SDhotrod
    Joined: Oct 11, 2008
    Posts: 650

    SDhotrod
    Member

    I had to get a better look at a Napier Lion W12 engine. I'm not sure of the year or version this one is, but it gives you an idea of what they look like.
    [​IMG]

    3 tons indeed!
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2010
  18. shmoozo
    Joined: Aug 14, 2007
    Posts: 671

    shmoozo
    Member
    from Media, PA

    That is one funky looking engine. It looks like it has 3 banks of cylinders. How odd.

    Several things leap out to me when I look at that photo. First, yeah, the thing is FRICKIN' HUGE! :D

    Second, it appears to have independent front suspension with double A arms, and am I right that it's also 4 wheel drive with one engine driving each of the axles? If that's what I am seeing, then I can see how the driver wound up shoved way out in front of the rest of the car. There was just no room for him in the middle with those mechanical monsters and the huge tanks (Didja see that frickin' tank back over his left shoulder?!) taking up all the space.

    I wonder what that thing sounded like blowing past you at full speed. Hell, I wonder what it sounded like inside the cockpit at any speed!

    :D

    One last observation. Isn't it interesting that he's wearing a dress shirt and a tie? And are those pin stripes on his trousers?

    :cool:
     
  19. froghawk
    Joined: May 9, 2008
    Posts: 857

    froghawk
    Member

    I think this has been discussed before on the HAMB but there was also the Napier-Railton racer from the '30s...

    Shown airborne at Brooklands. Same driver, John Cobb.

    [​IMG]
     
  20. mustangsix
    Joined: Mar 7, 2005
    Posts: 1,403

    mustangsix
    Member

    Much smaller, but just as pretty, was the MG EX 181 driven by Sir Stirling Moss. [​IMG]
     
  21. Lost_N_Austin
    Joined: May 26, 2008
    Posts: 125

    Lost_N_Austin
    Member
    from Some Beach

    How much room do you think you would need to turn that thing around? Maybe a County? I'd like to see the trailer for it.

    Lost_N_Austin
     
  22. hugh m
    Joined: Jul 18, 2007
    Posts: 2,143

    hugh m
    Member
    from ct.

    The late Jocko Johnson was also very impressed with this car, and he did several editions in model form, including hand carved billet ones. This fiberglass version is the third one in, situated on the ill fated 555 streamliner, or at least the buck for it...
     

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  23. autobilly
    Joined: May 23, 2007
    Posts: 3,123

    autobilly
    Member

    Beautiful Behemoth!
     
  24. Hackerbilt
    Joined: Aug 13, 2001
    Posts: 6,254

    Hackerbilt
    Member

    What else would you expect? It IS an airplane engine ! LOL

    Awesome cars and drivers to match.
    Failure wasn't in their vocabulary...so who needs safety? You didn't get in the car expecting to crash....
    Unreal.
     
  25. SDhotrod
    Joined: Oct 11, 2008
    Posts: 650

    SDhotrod
    Member

    And there's another "frickin' huge" tank behind the right side engine. Are those fuel tanks? One for each engine?
    [​IMG]

    A closer look at this pic, you can see that the left side engine is angled towards the right front of the car and the right engine is angled to the left rear. I'll probably never get over to England to see this car, but it would be interesting to get a close up look at how it all went together to work like it did. Thanks visualj for the link to the Brooklands site. Awesome pics there.
    [​IMG]
     
  26. Shirt sleeves rolled up, and from the side shot it appears he couldn't afford full lenght pants....or socks for that matter;):D

    Class, the whole lot of it, and despite the enormity of the project, they still added the 'lightening holes in the chassis and wherever possible.....

    AWESOME....that is hot rodding with a very big hammer, shirts, ties, balls and all.

    Cheers,

    Drewfus:D
     
  27. Chuck G.
    Joined: Oct 27, 2008
    Posts: 381

    Chuck G.
    Member

  28. The37Kid
    Joined: Apr 30, 2004
    Posts: 30,628

    The37Kid
    Member

    The car was in a LSR feature in Ray Kuns Auitomobile Racing the fifth edition 1939. One of the tanks held 75 gallons of ice water, used to cool the brakes that were on the two prop shafts (drive shafts). Fuel tank held 18 gallons, oil tank held 15 gallons. I'll post a photo of a MILLER W connecting rod tomorrow if someone doesn't post one of these engineering masterpieces before me.
     

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  29. fullhouse296
    Joined: Jan 30, 2009
    Posts: 404

    fullhouse296
    Member
    from Australia

    If you want to see one of these creations doing the business at full song on sand , PLUS ! 2x 360 degree spins with oil leaks and flames , watch an old movie with James Mason , called "THE FLYING DUTCHMAN " .
     
  30. Truckedup
    Joined: Jul 25, 2006
    Posts: 4,661

    Truckedup
    Member

    Last edited: Jun 24, 2010

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