Geez that's a great photo. I can look at it for hours. I did a bit of research after our short discussion on the Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb and found out an ERA holds the record for preWWII cars. Interesting.
Might be slightly OT, but some cool pictures nonetheless from the Packard Museum in Dayton, OH. Don't have many details.... Grey Wolf- wood body. My favorite car- Jesse Vincent's personal test platform: This car is pure sex. The docent told us stories of compaints of the citizens when they used to thrash this thing through detroit. Hired a airplane pilot to test top speed.
Thats what draws you to the place, it hasn't changed in over 100 years, it drips history with evry brick and blade of grass, this was take last year still the same. I love the older shots showing the crowd on the grass bank - wish it could be so today
Kurtis and Model A Keith some great shots. Oldsrocket, the Grey Wolf in the Museum was owned and restored (??) by my grandfather. I was never happy with the finished product. Ted Davis out of Oklahoma created a spectacular replica of the Grey Wolf. They had a couple different bodies on the car depending on the venue. The car is not wood except for the dash and portions of the tail. I still like the car but then I am partial to anything Packard racing. I bought an old stereo scope viewer and hundreds of stereo scopes slides and one night looking thru them I noticed that one was of the Grey Wolf on the beach at Ormond Daytona. As to the Vincent Speedster, a pretty nice car restored by a friend of mine (who also restored the 1916 Packard Twin Six racer). I remember when it went thru the Kruse auction for $80,000. Worth more today most likely.-Jim
I have a fairly detailed account of that race, it was held is very poor weather that caused near death exposuer to the cold. I'll dig it out and make a copy if you'd like.
Back on post #227 we were wondering who drove this MERCER now owned and restored by George Wingard. It is the car Spencer Wishart was killed in, repaired andl ater driven by Eddie Pullen. The car and George Wingard were at Hershey, every year he brings a different race car to display, one of the highlights of my Hershey trip.
Keith, That's the car i was referring to. Thanks for the photo. Another ERA that Mays drove was the restored example i posted previously in reference to Mrs. Kay Petre. {see: Post #366} That car was also steered by Richard Seaman, Tim Rose-Richards and Lord Essendon in the Vanderbilt Cup and ofcourse Petre. I did some searching and found quite a bit of information on these cars. More photos can be found here.. www.tops.co.nz/CARS/Donington/prewar.htm Excellent historical info here.. http://forums.autosport.com/lofiversion/index.php/t53901.html another photo of Raymond Mays at Shelsley-Walsh.
Bob, It would be great if you could make a copy. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion about the Mercer. It's a great looking car with lots of history. I'm really starting to learn alot about preWWI racing in America, my favorite period.
In the photos above, the Grey Wolf also looks like it has a wooden frame, or at least wodden side rails, possibly capped with steel angle. Is that right?
Great! Send me a PM with your mailing address and I'll send it off. Just found it (I'm more organized than I thought), race covered 52.4 miles, winning time was 10 hours 23 minutes. Here is a quote from the umpire riding in the second place car, a Benz owned by Oscar Mueller. " I became the driver for the last hour of the race to the finish line due to Oscar Mueller becoming unconscious from exposure. Earlier in the afternoon, Charles G. Reid, an observer also unconscious from exposure had to be lifted our of the car into a sleigh in Riverview Park. This account was published in 1945. The race winner J. Frank Duryea drove his own car to win the race, 50 years later he restored a twin to it #37 and retraced the course. The car is now in the Henry Ford Collection
plym49, Looks can be deceiving. I thought the same thing when i first laid eyes on the car. Because the car didn't have a conventional mounted radiator, copper lines were used.
I'm sure Jim Dillon will be back with some info on the the Gray Wolf. I hope I don't offend anyone, but the replica is more proper looking than the original IMO. Both cars were at Hershey within the past 5-6 years.
Clever!! I was wondering how they cooled that thing. What a neat idea for cooling - and looking at the photo again, I now realize what I was looking at. I wonder if that system worked and also if something like 'skin' cooling has ever been tried at Bonneville.
Plym49, Here is a shot of Walter Christie"s 1907 G.P car (First American car to race in a European GP) cowl section is all radiator. Sorry for the poor photo quality, but you can see the steering column and his feet through the core. Car was frontwheel drive V-4 powered, built in NYC.
The frame is steel. When my grandfather decided to "restore" the Grey Wolf he had me drag the original frame from back in the yard. It was a twisted hulk as the car had supposedly hit a tree. I put it on two saw horses and it would not sit down-it was a mess. Right next to it my grandfather set up some steel rails and started to mock up the new frame. I watched it built-it is not wood. The tail section and dash are wood. I have never hid my feelings about this "restoration" but have bitten my tongue at times out of deference to the owners. The front sheetmetal hood section was not done in house but by some "expert" recommended to my grandfather. This fabricator should have taken up doll collecting as his work on reproducing racecars was not his strong suit. I remember the day the front section came in crated up. When we removed it, I told my grandfather to send it back. My grandfather was mad for a little bit and then we talked about pie cutting it but I got outvoted and it was put on the car as is. My grandfather had so many cars to restore that it was just not all that important-close enough I guess. When this car was on display at the Packard's at Speed meet I talked to the owners so they know how I feel. They are not stupid either but who knows what their future plans if any are. It is their car to do as they please. I have spoken to Ted Davis on his recreation and he knows that I am a huge fan of his rendition. I would love to see his body or one very similar on the car someday but then again who am I to talk as I have to have someone smack me upside the head to get my 299 project done as well.-Jim
As to the copper tubing acting in place of a normal radiator what is a normal radiator anyways but copper tubing? It must have worked as they had two very different bodies on the car (one with a tail section and the other with a very long body and just a seat at the rear-I have pics somewhere) and with both bodies they kept the tubing. Kind of a pain to lay out originally but once done it is not that difficult. You need a storage tank and a couple of manifolds and some brackets and sprinkle in a little patience to keep the tubes straight and you are good to go. Kind of unique for sure. They thought out of the box in those days (although I hate that overused term today)-Jim
Kurtis, that is a stunning photo, (note the twin rears, seems to have been a trend at one time) Here's a more recent shot of R4D (#152) in the Paddock at shelsley some ERA links for you Link to All ERA cars and their Specifications and History<O></O> http://members.madasafish.com/~d_hodgkinson/ERAcars.htm<O></O> ERA R1A link to the sales catalogue at Good wood this year<O></O> http://www.bonhams.com/Magazine/Issue15/Issue15.22.pdf<O></O> If I remember ERA R1A sold for around 650k (GBP) Keith . .
<O</O XXVIII Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France (1 July 1934) Montlhéry Louis Chiron (12), Achille Varzi (6), Rudolf Caracciola (8), René Dreyfus (18), Hans Stuck (4) Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo Tipo B, Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo Tipo B, Mercedes-Benz W25, Bugatti T59, Auto Union A . .
Bob, if you have time, another one, Mercedes W25 at Goodwood http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring...vellous-Mercedes-Grand-Prix-cars.html?image=3 Keith . .
It makes sense that they ran something like that back then. Material was cheap. Copper and brass tubing and pipe was the norm, if from nothing else all of the steam equipment around. A honeycomb radiator OTOH - that might have been more along the lines of unobtanium at the turn of that century. Larger diameter pipe does not conduct the heat away to the air as well as a tiny diameter with fins. They would have known this. So you just use more large pipe. Run it along the sills since that is wasted space, has good airflow, and is fairly well protected. Brilliant. I guess it worked well enough for that car to have done pretty well for itself. Sometimes you can better understand the way things were done if you put yourself in the reality of that time. This is a great example. Thanks again for your stories and insights.
One of the great facets of car design, then and now, is the differing ideas amongst the people who made them. Most of the designs came about only by the fact that as man progressed so too did the implementation of newer materials and metallurgy. Looking at some of the race cars from the turn of the century gives one a sense of bewilderment but also a great respect. Sometimes even I forget these guys were the pioneers of their day, always trying new things even if the idea presented a danger. Well, to me it does. Imagine sitting infront of this boiler. Scary. 1905 RENAULT 1903 PARIS to MADRID. ..unknown..
WHITE STEAMER @ 1905 VANDERBILT CUP ..and Walter White again but without a front tire after a blowout on the first lap and ironically in front of the Vanderbilt estate.
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