Recently found and purchased an "Holynski Special" In the short time of ownership I have been told it is a racing sports car built by a 15 year old kid named Holynski from the Buffalo, NY area, where he and his brother built Midgets, Sprint Cars, Modifieds and Indy cars. As related to me, it was suggested that this car was built for sports car racing and it was reported that the Holynski Brothers owned a Rambler Dealership in Buffalo and they utilized a lay down Rambler six cylinder engine initially in this car. I was able to find one period photograph of the car as a BM/SP and it raced with what appears as a Flat Head Ford with Fuel Injection in drag racing at some point in time. I am interested in finding out further information regarding this car, ie. when built, by whom, where it was raced, by whom, what forms of racing was it involved in, who modified the car to drag racing specs and when that occurred, any racing successes, as well as any further information will be helpful and greatly appreciated. Thanks, Ralph argo19c@aol,com
I am pretty sure that I posted that in here: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/hot-rod-sports-cars.956823/ You may have to look for it because it was awhile ago and I didn't post it with a name. @1934coupe Pat may remember it. Or try looking for info here: https://doverdragstrip.com If I found it it raced here.
Thank you for your replies, so far I haven’t seen anything about the car in those posts. Still looking.
Actually, the Holynski look very much the same as in the drag racing photo, minus the engine, gear box and the BM/SP on the sides
Someone was looking at something I had for sale a few year's ago an Showed me pictures of that Car.... They had it! Just can't remember who...
"Actually, the Holynski look very much the same as in the drag racing photo, minus the engine, gear box and the BM/SP on the sides" I see a CRAGAR Slot and Dot steering wheel. Very cool Do you also have the hood?
That car is a beauty. I'd love to see more pictures of it from different angles, with the bird shit and dirt washed off.
Holynski roadster was a hot runner at the Oswego Speedway . Oswego super-modifieds were(and still are) bad-ass race cars, and the Holynski car was a good one.
It looks like the car in the Hot Rod Sports Cars thread (and here) is a different car. This has an Almquist Sabre body. The Holynski car appears to have a Sorrell SR100 body, which would have been significantly larger.
From the original picture, I was thinking Sorrell too, as the nose is shaped similarly, but with a modified air opening and covered headlight openings. But, in viewing the later picture, the front fender dips considerably behind the wheel, and the rear fender has a pronounced rise, before the wheel (sort of like an MGA). Most pictures of Sorrells show a fender line that was a continuous gradual arc, from front to back wheel. The red/white/blue car pictured does however show the humped rear fender, but the same almost straight, horizontal fender line back to the rear fender.
You're right, it probably isn't a Sorrell. The front portion (ahead of the wheel center) looks like a Sorrell, but the rest looks different. I looked up the red/white/blue car. It's a replica of the one-off Sorrell SR-200. More about it here.
The story appears to have been jumbled over time. If the Holynskis that I found are the right ones, the sons were 15 in 1950 & 1953. As best as I can tell, their father bought the dealership (Franklin Motors, Hamburg, NY) in 1957. Hamburg is about 15 miles southeast of Buffalo. I doubt the period picture shows a flathead (and it does not have laydown Rambler). B/MSP had a weight rule of 7.0 - 9.9 lb per c.i. (7.5 - 9.9 lb per c.i. for 1962) for unsupercharged cars. Full street equipment was required before 1962. By then a flathead would not have been competitive in B/MSP. Do you have a side view, particularly the driver's side? What is the wheelbase? You should contact Geoff Hacker via his site (he hasn't been on here in a while). Geoff may know more about the car.
Thank you for your reply and the advert from Franklin/Holynski Motors ad. Based on your formula and the Rambler engine offered in 1960 the Holynski was to have weighed between 1,365 # to 1,755#. for BM/SP in 1960. As the car is in North Carolina presently in storage and I am in Hawaii I cannot give you the wheel base yet. However see the side view of the Holynski in the attachment. So far no new information has come forward. Ralph
Ralph, Thanks for the side view. I can't reconcile the tangible evidence of the car, the story you were told and racing history. Since the car does not appear to ever have had full street equipment (full interior, lights, etc), it could not have been raced in the NHRA's modified sports car classes before 1962, and the altered classes required a production-based body. The marking 'BM/SP' is an oddity. NHRA and TANA, the Timing Association of North America (which was active in NY in the early 1960s) both appear to have used B/MSP. Was the marking just a hasty crewman's error or was it a different sanctioning body? I don't know what classes the ATAA had (before its 1959 merger with the NHRA). The AHRA class that the car would likely have been eligible for is X/MB. The small rollbar behind the driver points to a 1950s build. The four-point rollbar is a later addition. The sports car history is even harder to discern. It does not appear that either door was ever cut into the body. Since the SCCA required at least one operating door in that era, it appears that it never raced with them. Unfortunately, the records for other racing groups are scattered and much harder to come by. Most of them did use classes similar to the SCCAs. If the car had an early 50s Rambler engine, its displacement would have been at the top of the D-Modified category. The 56-up 3.2l six would have been at the bottom of the C-Modified class, competing with Corvette-powered cars. The laydown engine would have been designed for road racing, it would have given no advantage in drag racing. The push truck in the period pic appears to be a 1961-2 Ford. Can anyone identify the car in the background? That may help to date the pic.
Not much help, but that side view shot kind of has a Cheetah with the roof removed type appearance. Sent from dumb operator on a smart phone
Aloha and Mahalo again, The engine that was quoted to me for when the car was initially built would have been the lay down Rambler six. In the period photographs I have of the car in drag racing dress, it appears as if the engine might have been a V8-60? just looking at how close together the injection stacks are together. I do not know the class for that engine in drag racing form, but clearly the car did do some drag racing and it appears as if the class markings BM/SP were painted on and the USAC decals may also be a clue, however, I do not know if USAC sanctioned drag racing at one point in time. Within the next few weeks, "Undiscovered Classics" will be doing an article of the car on it's website. The website's owner, Geoff Hacker may come up with further information on the "Holynski Special" as a result of that story.
In the article, there is mention of one of the brothers being a crew chief for Rodger Ward. One of their sprint cars was an early Kurtis upright Indy car, that had previously been raced at Indy by Rodger, perhaps in his rookie year. Cut down to sprint car dimensions, that car ended up in the Parkersburg, WV area with a Ford FE powerplant in it. It is too bad that Jimmies Old Time Racing has gone away again, there was a good discussion on there about the car, and the Holynski Bros. also.
Do you have a link? Even though the site may be gone, a copy is archived at Archive.org. The search function doesn't work, but the site appears to be otherwise mostly complete.
I live in Orchard Park NY just south of Buffalo. The Holynski Race Shop/Rambler dealership was in Lackawanna NY. The building is still standing today
I'm sorry, I do not. I do know the original thread would be from 2008 or 2009. There may be a number of the old posters from there on the Ohio and West Virginia Racing History page on Facebook.
...I have to agree with Ralph, regarding "RoadRacing" History, as I was around ' back then' ...When seeing a car like this, most people under 60 will immediately think "road racing", which more than likely is incorrect. ...Most car nuts over age 70 know that many more 6 and 8 cylinder cars were raced on the dragstrip, and 'big' engine cars ( over 3000cc's) were not common in road racing East of the Mississippi. ...Very FEW early Corvettes and NO Kellisons were seen road racing , although today, there are a number of both, and similar cars Vintage Roadracing. ...This was an interesting car when it appeared for sale first 3 or 4 months ago months ago. ...Ignoring the body shape, and looking over the car back then, it seemed clear that it was not designed for road course use, when compared to steering and suspensions being used at the time, but I did do a pretty serious job of researching Road Race Event entries and results in the East and MidWest, and was unable to find any references to the Holynski's or any C Mod car similar to this one. ...Regardless, the car is still interesting.
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