Why those? Because they can still be found or recreated at a modest cost.
Engines , suspension pieces , brakes and other hardware of the period-can be found really cheaply or even donated to get out of the way.
Lacking that regular visits to swap meets or old friends will often turn up Gems.
Some cars like the team of Echidna's can be made with nothing more complex than a Chevy chassis 55-57 a Devon body and Chevy engine.
Will vintage race groups accept a modern recreation? Something like a street MGTD that's been converted to period correct race spec, or must it have had a true racing history?
Depends on which club. If you want to race at Monterrey . ( And another group out East)It not that only has to be an original. With a race history. It Might be one of several offered. Then things like provenance and who the driver is, determine which is selected.
Most clubs? No race history is required, and Liberties are granted without a comment.
An MGTD with an MGA engine/trans would likely be allowed in group 1 for example with SVRA. Most clubs anything before 1960 is only checked for safety, not originality.
However. If you turn non typical lap times. 10 seconds faster then the group for example they will move you up in class.
Even An older car without race history might be allowed at the highly restricted clubs, if it's interesting and the driver seems to be a decent sort of chap
One final point , there are darn few people who bother to write down serial numbers of particular cars. Make something up. Explain how it won Indianapolis in 1944 and LeMans the year before. ( that was WW2 , no races) by
Both have questionable information. Some of which is common myths . Others is actually wrong facts.
Example. On my Black Jack Special the frame source was listed as an XK 140 MC with 4 wheel disk brakes. Except disk brakes didn't come out until the XK150. And work began in 1958 with the sale of El Toro which was based on an XK140MC
Data on the Scarab ( which has its own book) differs between books. Plus conversation with Augie Pabst who we frequently shared pit space with at Elkhart Lake and a few other venues. Plus many cars with actual vintage race Provence aren't listed at all .
Lots of specials made with Devin Bodies, a fair number of Canadian specials. And many, many cars that weren't in C modified. I don't believe it was all intentional maybe space constraints, or cars entered few, or smaller events.
Running my restoration and race preparation business I worked on 5 different Devins. Most notable was the DeMar Special. Yet in spite of 12 wins out of 13 starts one year in major national vintage races. and iterations of that car going back to the late 195o's It simply has no written history?!! Like many Devin specials versions of that car changed engines, frames suspensions, wheels, brakes and , owners, sometimes between seasons and sometimes between races.
One Devin worked on started out with an Oldsmobile J2 engine, switched to Buick, then Chevy. All in one season.
Another really had no race history at all. It was started and left semi finished as the original owner moved on.
That eventually was finished but again never raced. To my knowledge it's still up in some barn up in Northern Minnesota.
Devin was not the only body work used though. Kellison started out as a race car body but gradually improve in quality to be used on the street.
It's easy to take a mold off a body. The Cheetah has at least 4 different versions The Cro Sal was the first, another version in Wisconsin sold a few, and here on GRM we have one. Also a convertible like the Cro Sal
There was the modestly successful Bocar and Bocar stiletto . Currently there is a Allard J2X recreation plus the Chaparral 1 ( also called the Riverside special)
Briefly the Mc Donald Corvette parked next to my house. It was a sorta Corvette 17 inches shorter, 5 inches narrower, and 4 inches lower. The idea was my neighbor planned to go ice racing with it. It's since disappeared
Ol Yellar periodically appears at vintage races. With a fiberglass body ( Chevy not Buick engine)
I don't know which version of the Sadler is currently sporting a fiberglass body but that has appeared once at a vintage race.
Then there is the Peyote, a simple curved aluminum special based on the Triumph TR3 Restored and raced by Pat Starr. Not a single compound curve in the body work.
A brief history of the Black Jack Special
In 1958 after selling El Toro a Oldsmobile powered Jaguar XK 140 chassis powered by an Oldsmobile J2 engine. . Jack Baker bought a wrecked XK 150 and had it shipped from Florida in a railroad box car.
Shortening the frame to 88 inches he talked to his friend Don Skogmo and borrowed the nose from his D type Jaguar XKD 536 along with tail end of his bird cage Maserati. To make a fiberglass mold from.
Not only did he make a nose piece and tail for the BlackJack he also sold them to JC Whitney.. a parts catalog company. Jack never kept records of how many were sold, "A Few" was all he ever said.
Making the center out of aluminum because it was all simple curves. No compound ones . Was just roll it around and screw it down . ( pre pop rivets) then cut a hole for the driver.
By 1961. The original engine was not only tired but weak compared to some of the newer engines. Do he Bortowed Don Skogmo's DType engine.E2024-9 Probably a solid 85 horsepower more.
Following the first practice it was my job to wipe off any oil leaked. Wow! You can't believe all the oil thst leaked out.
In no time at all all the shop rags there were were sopping with oil. I found a roll of paper towels and by carefully using every square inch I eventually got it dry and free of oil.
After that I nut and bolted every single thing on that engine and was absolutely shock at how many were so loose.
When I checked the carbs, The front one was so far off turned out to be a simple slip of the throttle linkage.
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