Ned, Thank you for sharing your expertise. It is greatly appreciated. I find the asymmetry of the aero screens interesting with sided by side seating.....the driver's aero screen is curved at the top and the passengers is straight across. Is that a South Africa trend? Here some pix I wanted to share.
Let's see...I first noticed this post nearly four hours ago, and I'm still rock-hard. Should I see a doctor?
If you're driving a car with one of those in the rain, seeing through your windscreen might be the least of your problems Of course, as we've all discovered at one point or another 'sensible' and 'legal' are not necessarily the same thing. If one's ambitious enough one could go find an Audi, Mercedes, Saab etc. with headlight wipers and do a little fabrication, hang it off the side in a temporary mount or maybe bowden-cable drive with the motor mounted under the cowl if you're really industrious. A little googling indicates that this passes inspection in at least some states: http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Hand-Crank-Manual-Windshield-Wiper,2301.html but apparently there are places where you have to have a washer, too...presumably that's the case only for new-construction vehicles. Washer on an Aeroscreen? Better duck. Thinking of California, and the prospect of snagging an SB100 registration for something, they're supposed to be titled as the year they resemble or 1960 as a default, which would probably mean wipers but no washer, not even sure how thorough their checklist is on matters not involving (a) smog and (b) money. Outfit says their Aeroscreens (which probably come from the same mfr as everyone else's) are laminated safety glass: http://www.vintagecarparts.co.uk/categories/vintage-car-parts-accessories-aeroscreen
I can't remember where I saw the image, but I recall seeing a home-built, "double-wide" Brooklands style windscreen. Essentially, it was based on the bottom and sides / corners of two small screens and had one wide glass panel (but no metal frame on the top) across the width of the cowl at the A pillar. It still appeared to be adjustable, and probably could even be folded forward, flat over the cowl. Much better in my mind for a two place car. Heck, just the idea that the mech / navigator somehow deserved smaller and less stylish eye protection is ludicrous, isn't it? Gary
Terry, That Ferrari, you had, and the 1955 750 Monza; are my idea of a "real man's" Ferrari (oh, I guess you can throw in a 375 4.9, as well). All created beautiful noises. Too bad that most current owners feel that their cars are too valuable to put on the track.
Not the usual approach to a special, but this Talbot 105 coupé features recent bodywork: http://www.prewarcar.com/magazine/previous-features/another-aero-special-019911.html
That would be the Jumbo Goddard car. My dad met Goddard when he was in England in the seventies. We have a picture of him looking at this very car. If I can find it I'll post it.
Somebody mentioned the Kiwis as being particularly keen on building specials. The most interesting one was this: It sports a O-290G Lyc GPU engine, air cooled flat four with no cooling blower. Apparently they drove it to the races on the road that way.
i'ld love to be able to see it (?) but interesting is relative; consider the Morris Minor/Ferrari ...
In the US a lot of Ferrari engines got put in a lot of other cars as the Eurotrash biggerdickers had not started buying them yet. That's why they are the gold standard of stupid money now, but there were Ferrari V12s in at least one Maserati and one Aston Martin (or, was it the Aston (Newport Pagnall 6) in a Ferrari??) and Bill Harrah's famous Jeepari. He built two of them if I recall. There was also a 750 Monza four in a MG based Bonneville car.
The Morrari had a Chevy engine. It got its name because it was a Morris Minor low light body on a Ferrari Super Squalo single seater chassis.
that (the ralph watson i mean) is special. ( and filed for reference towards GS citroen special ...) you'ld want to keep it moving / avoid waiting at lights, though. and how is it fed, anyway? the other thing is nuts, too. thanks both of you, btw
I'm pretty sure it has fuel injection. And the engine is mounted upside down in the car from how it would be mounted in an airplane because in a plane the intake is under the engine. That was not practical for a car, so he flipped it. Which meant he had to modify the oiling system, etc. I have the book that is written about this car, thanks to a NZ HAMBer that was nice enough to help me buy one. Great read about an awesome car...
I'm not sure I'd call the NZ allcomer racecars specials. ( which is what the Morrari was built for ) But I do think that they ( and the Super Saloons that raced in the UK ) were some of the most interesting racecars ever built... We've talked a bit about them on the Dogfight Forum. Maybe its time to wake that thread up, or start a new one about these cars...
In the late '80s I talked a bit with a British Driver/Owner/Builder who had a Citroen GS engine in his racecar. There is a just under 1300cc verson of that engine that would have worked great in the class I was competing in. ( a bit bigger than the regular 1100 something size of the regular one ) He said it was a strong engine that held together at very high RPM ( for an unmodified bottom end in a street engine ) and that twin Webers and a good exhaust system really woke that engine up.
The GS was never sold in the US but there are a couple here now. My ex-brother-in-law is a Citroen buff, he has a couple of D's and a 2CV. I liked the suspension on the D's but never had much love for anything else on the Cit myself.
The O-290s never had fuel injection from Lycoming. The engine here is a G, meaning ground power unit, version, which has a flange on the front so a bellhousing, more or less, bolts up to it. They were used in ground power gensets. Other GPU Lycomings were the APU used in the L-1049 Constellation and in Navy life boats. The Lycoming and Contnental aircraft engines, and this variant of the GPU, has the exhaust and intake on the bottom and uses a single barrel updraft carb. That's to permit gravity flow from the wing tanks on a high wing airplane and also to have an unobstructed line of sight over the engine. A few Continental GPUs are the other way around, if I recall correctly. EAAers usually cut the flanges off the 290G cases for streamlining and appearance when they are used in aircraft so finding a set of cases with flanges still on them might be very tough today. If I owned the car I would get a spare set of cases. The crank is the same as the aircraft and is available new, for a price. Lycomings with fuel injection usually used the Bendix system that has one automotive application, the 166 cid Turbo Offys on methanol. It is a very god system simlilar to Bosch K-Jetronic, sort of. Continentals use something a lot like a Hilborn system. Stu Hilborn said they stole it from him but he never sued them. So, if it is FI it's a homebrew system, probably a Hilborn style. There were lots of those at that time period, they are common on dragsters and Indy/sprint/midget cars, not so much on road racers.
MEP was an french open-wheel formula that started using a Panhard and switched to the GS motor, and then there was the TriHawk in the USA, 'planes, a helicopter, iirc and may even now be a military application as a source of hydraulic power for aiming some french gun-thing; they are a lovely little motor that can't be revved too hard, and with that ds-type suspension ... well, one like new would still be more attractive to me than any other car made now.
Molt Taylor of Aerocar fame built a couple aircraft with aircooled Citroen engines. All his designs used long driveshafts to drive the prop and a Dodge coupler, not a Dodge car part but an industrial drive that took up torsional resonance, it added weight and was never popular. I spoke to Taylor on several occasions, he was kind of a nut.
The Jalopy Journal
