Hot Rods Hot Rod Sports Cars

What is that? Other then nice?

 

Muntz Jet

 

Standing next to Sam Parriot with the squirt can is Bonis Herd. He was the transmission guy at a Lincoln-Mercury dealer in Whittier, California, ran the scales and tech inspection at Irwindale for years. His daily driver was a 1957 Thunderbird, factory blown 312 with a 3 speed on the floor. One of the really nice guys in drag racing.

 

Only have three words for this thread.YUM,YUM,YUM.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Yeah, but if the car had one of Bandini modified Crosley engines it would have been a fun ride at least on a road course..

 

WOW! Hahaha
Thats a nasty looking little thing!
There is definately something to be said for having a car that needs a little bit of time to get speed up rather than instant warp drive. Nice to feel it pull thru the gears and build its speed like that.
I've always had a love for the Clubman style cars myself!

 

1967, my dad built this for his friend Jack Smith. I think its an Elva. It has a Ford 1600cc with Webers a a hot cam and head work. This is Cotati shacking the car down.

I'm trying to find a pic of my dads Climax powered Elva Courier.

 

About 1963 or 64. MGA with my dad driving. The cowl behind rollbar was made by Jack Hagamann. A friend of my dad's worked for Chevron and supplied my dad with special gas. He did real well in this car.
One time the blend was a bit Hot, blew the thing into shrapnel.
Cotati again

 

#326 is a Kurtis SC, not a Muntz Jet. Check the wheelbase. Note the support truck says Kurtis Kraft. I believe the car you see here is easily one of the most significant American sports cars in existence--or hot rods, for that matter. A '49 Kurtis, it bears serial number KB003, which makes it the third Kurtis sports car ever built and the first production model. Powered by an Edelbrock-prepared Ford V-8, it was Frank Kurtis' personal car for several years. In August 1949 at the first Bonneville Nationals, Wally Parks, founder of the NHRA and HOT ROD's first real editor, drove the Kurtis to a two-way average of 142.515 mph taking the Sports Car class record. From the HOT ROD perspective, this is the very first American sports car/rod--and with a pedigree second to none. It was also the cover car of the first ever issue of Motor Trend magazine, in 1949.

Muntz bought the rights to the SC, but bastardized it in many ways including a longer wheelbase.

 

Thanks for the history update Wisdom! The Sam Parrot car was also a Kurtis Kraft car, saw it this past June in the NHRA museum. The U.S.Mule II beat it at the US Nationals in 1965. Bob

 

To help clarify for the guy who asked the original question --
The Muntz was developed from the Kurtis sports car by Kurtis himself, responding to Muntz' requests for a production design based on a passenger car chassis with a longer wheelbase. The first 30ish Muntz cars were built at Kurtis' shop in Glendale, and then production moved to Illinois where Muntz built about 300 more cars.

 

Not to hijack, but note that the support truck is an M-5 Studebaker.

 

Thank you, Gary - I do value my health.
Here's how I look at it.
The engine will likely only be about 200 hp.
It's a 2.56:1 rear, so it's not going to have a lot of snap off of the line, but at 1700 lbs, I am expecting good fuel economy.
My calculations put 100 mph at less than 3 grand in overdrive.
Truth be told, I'm not so much interested in thrashing it. The suspension is stock and the brakes are late model Sprite discs, so I'll be driving with that as a constant reminder of the vulnerability of the chassis.
By my nature, I'm more of a "gently lean into it" kind of a guy.
Nothing to prove - just rolling up to a stop light with a slightly cammy Buick burbling through a pair of glass packs in a car the size of a Radio Flyer - knowing is enough.

 

Thanks for the Kurtis-Muntz adage here, too! I bought a hard bound book on Kurtis, had it in my office, ready to read, and some ditz walked off with it when my wife was out of the office...
Never replaced it, have to read that someday soon!
Runs right up there with the Miller Dynasty...

 

Yeah...but sometimes, proving it is way over the top!

 

Originally, Kurtis planned to power the car with the new Studebaker overhead-valve V-8, much like the Cadillac OHV V-8 but smaller and more economically priced. However, his South Bend connections failed to come through. But Benson Ford, son of Edsel and brother of Ford Chairman Henry Ford II, having seen and admired the Buick special, that Kurtis had built, instructed the Los Angeles Ford plant to make sure Kurtis had all the parts he needed. So this car, as well as the succeeding vehicles in the series, was equipped with a Ford engine. This one features Studebaker running gear, while the rest were built mainly with Ford parts.

 

I took ownership of Seret's sports car last year. Plans to finish it are more long term but I'm hoping to have it powered by a 57 283, t5 quick change rear etc.

 

Whoa Jeffrey! Beautiful.

 

Please post updates of this project.

 

Here's a photo of of Frank Kurtis and Earl "MadMan" Muntz together (in a Muntz Jet). Frank's original intent was to sell his Kurtis Sport as a "kit" car. I have a pricelist from 1949 with illustrations and prices for various components. Yes, the original design incorporated a Ford flathead engine, but when other manufacturers came out with newly designed, and more powerful engines (Cadillac OHV), they were quick to make the change. The first Jets (built in Glendale California) utilized the Cadillac mill, until General Motors refused to allow them to continue advertising using the Cadillac name. This, along with having to pay for the motors before the cars were sold, forced Muntz to look for a more favorable deal. Ford offered up the 337 cubic inch Lincoln engine, along with the perk of not having to paying for them until a car was actually built and sold. To lessen the time gap of shipping engines and transmissions (Hydramatics), they moved from Glendale to Evanston Illinois, to be closer to the actual point of origin.

 

^^ He's got his Nash Healey with some new whitewalls and his best girl by his side - and a grin on his face that says I'm gettin' lucky tonight!

 

Milwaukee Midget, what you are building is what my original post had in mind. My TR3 has a 2.9 rear end and at 3800 rpm its doing about 100 mph. The motor pulls to 5500 rpm. It will brake the tires loose from a roll but it really works best on the road. Its just a 240 ci six but the sound the 2 g-packs and Weber carbs make it just fantastic. The sound gets better when you take the windshield off and put on the areo screens as you can really hear the Webers through the louvers then. It is a blast to drive. I put 14,000 miles on it this summer and when the weather permits will probably drive it through the winter. Keep on building.
Greg

 

This one caught my eyes

 

I love this car. I was always waiting with baited breath until the next installment. I wish I had a tenth of the talent needed to finish that body. Please keep us informed when you start back on it.
Cheers,
Stewart.

 

Thanks George Klass

 

20170917_094351-jpg by Mike posted Aug 29, 2018 at 12:29 PM

20170402_122215-jpg by Mike posted Aug 29, 2018 at 12:58 PM

I have a '62 MG Midget equipped with a 283 Chevy, TH400 trans and a narrowed '57 Chevy rear axle with 3.08:1 gears. In this configuration, it is a very solid, manageable and nice driving machine that I can get really crazy with and go really fast when I want to.

The car was built back about 1967 here in Phoenix as a drag car. At that time it had a very hot 327 Chevy and 4.11:1 rear gears. It's supposed to have run in the 10 second range at the local drag strips back then.

The current configuration is more of a road race set up.
I'll try and post some pictures later.

20170917_094351-jpg by Mike posted Aug 29, 2018 at 12:29 PM

20170402_122215-jpg by Mike posted Aug 29, 2018 at 12:58 PM

 

That sounds very cool. Love to see some pictures.

Ryan.