I thought maybe someone here was familiar with the works of Jake Sutton of California. I'm interested in coachbuilders and trying to find some information what cars he did build. I found following cars from just searching around on the internet: 1955 Kurtis 500KK Roadster 1956 Ferrari 375 Plus Sutton Spyder 1957 Kurtis 500X Sutton Sport Racer 1959 Balchowski Ol Yaller Mark III 1959 Hagemann-Sutton Special - The body used to sit on a special called the Orgeron Talbot Lago. Are anyone here familiar with any more cars of his? And also does anyone have some background information about his shop, like when did it open and when it closed etc? Thanks.
Here are also two period pictures of the Ol Yaller Mark III. The front eems to have been modified through the years. I prefer the earlier design. The other cars seems to largely be preserved as how Jake Sutton built them, although the body of the Hagemann car was supposedly shortened to fit the chassis when it was moved from the Talbot Lago base.
www.themotoringjournal.com/featured-cars/jack-sutton-metal-shaping-legend.html reprinted a 1958 article about Jack Sutton. Also check out the Kustomrama page about Jack Sutton.
' Thanks for the links. I've managed to find the Motoring Journal article on my own too and it currently is pretty much all the information I have about workings of the company. Sadly the article does not mention any concrete dates, names other than Jake Suttons or cars he built. It's also is written in period when Sutton was still active so it naturally have no information about when the company went out of business. Given that that article claims that he was nick named "America's Scaglietti" and seen elsewhere statements to the effect of (paraphrasing): "Jake Suttons bodies dominants the field of any American race line-up today", there should be quite a number of racing specials with Suttons aluminum bodies. I have so far only found 5, but I would think that there should at least be 20+ based on the period comments. I have not seen the Kustomrama article about him before. Sadly it don't appear to have much information about the man or the company itself, but does have some interesting information about the custom cars they/he also built. Thanks.
I think the article's author was referring to Indy cars, sprints & midgets as much as sports cars. I suspect that Sutton's company slowly wound down as fiberglass replaced aluminum as the material of choice for race cars.
Hi Galro: Nice thread on Jake Sutton. I keep looking at the Sutton Special at Fantasy Junction and admiring it's beauty. Also your thread segues nicely with jive-bomber's nice piece on the Dean Jeffries 356 Porsche. Good work! TEB
It's possible. I've also found three addiationl Kurtis cars which I think were likely bodied by him: They are all described as having hand-formed aluminum bodies and the fourth car in the series (which have a fiberglass body) is described as "Instead of using the Sutton body, a mistrace body was fitted" implying that three others have the Sutton bodies the fourth car did not use. http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z9195/Kurtis-500SX.aspx The building process of the wine red car was "chronicled in the February 1955 issue of Hot Rod magazine". Does anyone have that issue?
The body of the Morlang Porsche (356-based) was built by Jack Sutton according to the book Vintage American Road Racing Cars 1950-1969. Picture source: http://www.dogfightmag.com/forum/sh...6-Porsche-(-amp-SoCal-road-racing-circa-1959)
Jack Sutton have also been credited with the creaton of the body on Chuck Porters Mercedes-Benz 300 SLS. http://www.mercedes300sls-porter.de/
Hello- My first post. I just came across what I believe to be the 1954 Sutton Jaguar, raced in Monterey circa 1984 and 1985 by then owner Richard Van Rozeboom (listed in the program). As for the history that's all I know. I found a video from Monterey in 1985 and see it recovering from a spin out. It's powered by a Type C motor w/ Weber sidedrafts. .
Man, that one heavy duty english wheel! I'd love to have one like that till it came time to move it. I've always been fasinated by the coachbuilders. Never heard of Sutton, thanks for the thread.
Chuck Porter and Jack Sutton fabricated the all-aluminum body on Peter Culkin's iconic Mercedes-Corvette Special.
Yeah, helluva English Wheel! Never seen someone operate one dressed in 'business casual'. Shoot, I look homeless when I'm doing metal work in the garage.
That's my uncle Jack, I met him just once when he returned to England in 1964 on vacation (he picked up a broken arm on that trip which couldn't have helped his wheeling) - Jack's grandkids run - or used to run - a transmission shop somewhere here in LA. Great to see this discussion of his work!
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