Trying to help a friend I.D. this car. He has owned it about 30 years and it has collected dust since then. He wants to rebuild it now, but is looking for help figuring out what he has. What he knows is: The car was built in the 50's in the SoCal area and first registered in the early 60's. It is an alloy body on tube chassis with a torsion bar Independent front end, early Chrysler Hemi with a Cad-La Salle Trans and a mid 50's Chevy rear end. Looks to be a very well built car.. Any help would be appreciated.
Looks to have some design elements taken from the big Healeys and AC Ace, but it isn't a big Healey or an Ace. That is all I know. One off special for road racing?
Could this be a Cunningham product? It looks incredibly well built to be homemade, and Cunningham would have used Hemi drivetrains in that period.
Like my son used to tell my wife when he was little..."Cant know mom" but what I call it is COOL. I will follow this one.
If you can't get an ID it may pay to contact http://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net Body is super nice suggesting coach builder.
Very unique road racer! Suggest you go spend hours checking the millions of pix on this: http://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net/
Yep, the TAMS site also has a mystery car submission port.....to send some pics and story to. The more pics the better. The more features captured, the better chance to identify. Also, even though it is not fiberglass......Geoffrey "Geoff" Hacker of ForgottenFiberglass dot com.....is a fair to great expert on factory, and homebuilt specials. His archives are quite detailed. I believe he has good history with this site.....with big boss man, Ryan as well. Hell....I wouldn't hesitate to send it to the aforementioned.......Ryan appears to be versed in all areas of this era. This may be a stupid statement, coming from a greenhorn member as me. I'm sure someone here has better advice.
Maybe not. Race cars don't always have titles. A former race car could very well be in the special construction category.....if someone wanted it to be street registered. Title laws result in all kinds of paperwork shenanigans in some states. Hell....you know that thing has some sort of history. Responses so far would be killer...if so. Cunningham ? Eoww !
Owner says he went to Cunningham and this is not one of theirs. It is a great looking car. Craftsmanship on the body is amazing. maybe an SCCA type will remember it...
Originally I thought perhaps OSCA but maybe not. The door opening into the cockpit is somewhat unique, this has made for an interesting afternoon looking for an answer. Great looking car and if it is in the way let me know.
It looks Italian, somewhat like a Cisitalia. Are the chassit tubes oval or round? Have you checked the hardware to see if it is metric or SAE? Nice car that deserves a good restoration AFTER you do your research. Bob
Originally I thought that or an Siata.. They sure look similar. https://images.search.yahoo.com/sea...rop=image&fr=moz35&va=Siata+sports+car+1950's
Found a Siata that looks real close.. 1952 SIATA 300BC one of 50 built aluminum body Barchetta Sport Spider
As an old road race nut, I find this fascinating. Need more pic's of construction for clues, torsion front makes me think of Kurtis. The fact of a 3 speed sounds like late '50's construction,,, ADD,,looking more closely at the rear set-up, looks like 1/4 eliptics and maybe a Watts linkage ?
It's interesting the 3 holes in the middle center. If only the emblem were still there, ay ? Yes more photos. An insane annoying amount of..........would be great.
Try exploring this site http://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net/HomepageNew1.html Somewhere I have an old Petersen "Sports Cars" special or yearbook from around 1959, that featured many of the cars that ran in SCCA events in SO. Cal. I will try to find it and see if anything looks similar. If it was raced, it might be in there.
made me think of singer barry maguire's hot rodded siata, but that car's hood, windshield and doors were different
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