Thread: Historic race car websites

Thanks for those Brian, the last one looks to be really interesting and has gone into my favourites

I love the vintage and historic race cars, particularly the old Riley's and Bugatti's. I spent many days at Prescott and Shelsy Walsh Hill climbs before settling here. My friend runs the HSCC in england and as you can imagine, the benefits that came my way were priceless I really miss that.

I will post more sites as I come across them.

I am currently trying to find some parts to complete an Offenhauser midget engine to go in a pre WW2 Kurtis. Found a parcel of stuff at a museum in Nebraska but still trying to locate camshaft housings, camshaft housing covers, and camshafts.

The Nebraska parcel has a lot of bits we don't need as well as bits we do need but the owner wants to sell in one line. Price is good so it will likely be purchased and "overs" kept for spares.

Also trying to find a big Offy (Indianapolis engine) 270, 255, or 252 for a project that will go ahead if an engine is available and affordable. The engine will get its compression ratio lowered from around 15:1 to about 9.5:1 to run on 98 unleaded instead of a methanol blend.

Here is another site. Bill Smith Collection : Museum of American Speed : Speedway Motors Collection : Lincoln, NE

This museum has the parcel of Offy parts mentioned in post #3 above. The parts belong to Ken Walton of Kansas City and the museum has had the parcel for 6+ months prevaricating about purchasing. Ken says the parcel is for sale to all comers. First with the money applies.

Ken wrote the heavy book "Offenhauser - America's Greatest Racing Engine" which is an extremely detailed and illustrated historical work and the closest thing to a workshop manual ever produced for Offenhausers.

Neither Offenhauser Engineering Co. nor Meyer and Drake ever published a workshop manual, only a list of torque values. They assumed that anyone buying an advanced and complex racing engine knew what they were doing.

Originally Posted by jerryd

Thanks for those Brian, the last one looks to be really interesting and has gone into my favourites

I love the vintage and historic race cars, particularly the old Riley's and Bugatti's. I spent many days at Prescott and Shelsy Walsh Hill climbs before settling here. My friend runs the HSCC in england and as you can imagine, the benefits that came my way were priceless I really miss that.

Re Bugatti- The milleroffy web site photo gallery has a photo of the Miller 91 "Packard Cable Special" currently in the Indianapolis Speedway Museum. This car was raced in Europe by Leon Duray, 1920's, and sold to Bugatti. Bugatti copied the Miller twin cam design and Bugattis henceforth were dual overhead cam replacing the dated single ohc design used up until then. Compare photos of the Millers engine and a Bugatti twin cam like the Type 57 and you will see the resemblance is remarkable. The car was bought from Bugatti about 1959 by Griffith Borgeson, returned to the US and restored.