205 replies to this topic

[bobbo]

Hello, all!

HELP! I am looking for some history on the Scarab F1 effort. After reading what little I could fine, I think they could have been World Class (I DIDN'T cay WC!) cars in 1957 or 1958 (too bad they appeared in 1960!). Any one have any sources?? What happened to the cars after 1960?? I'm also interested in the other Scarab stuff (sports cars & their histories).

[Buford]

Well all I know is the story of one of the Scarab sports cars that were the Meister Brauser cars that were driven by Augie Pabst, Harry Heuer, and later a young rich guy named Dan Devine. I went in to Playboy in 1978 to interview for a position as Director of Accounts Payable. A gorgeous woman was to interview me named Carol, mid 30's, Asian. She led me into her office and I sat down and then she left for a minute. I was looking around the office to find something for the small talk that was coming before you get down to business and I saw a photo on the wall of one of the Scarab race car. So when she came in and we got past the "how are yous", I said I see you have a Scarab picture.

She perked right up (actually she was pretty perky to begin with) and said "Oh, you are the first person who ever knew what that was. Do you know who is driving it?" I said it would have to be Harry Heuer or Augie Pabst. She said "That's good but there was another guy too."I looked at her name plate and it said "Carol Devine." I said, "Wait - Dan Devine - are you related?" She said, "Yes, he's my husband." I told her I was a sports car racer too and was just getting started racing Sprint Cars. So that got the interview off to a good start.

Did I get the job? Yes and No. I would have but they putzed around for several weeks and let it go past January 1, 1979. They got a message from the top there was a freeze on full time hiring because Playboy had just found out they were going to lose their casino license in London, and that meant they would lose their license for a big casino they were building in Atlantic City and that was going to be big money problems. So Carol called me up and said they wanted to hire me but they had this freeze. But they did have a budget for consultants so if I wanted to work for awhile (at a reduced rate) they thought they could get this job pushed through to hire. Especially if the guy was already in the building doing it. So we did that for 9 months and they never did open the hiring and then I got another job.


But I went back 5 years later to do another consulting job and carol told me in a real crestfallen manner they had suffered financial setbacks (Dan was a land developer) and he had sold the car to Dick Barbour in San Diego but it was a secret. So Barbour had the car as of 1985. I don't know if he still does.

[Felix Muelas]

Bobbo,

I will suggest you try to find a copy of "Scarab - Race Log of the All-American Specials 1957-1965" by Preston Lerner. Motorbooks International, 1991
ISBN 0-87938-499-9

Now that I see it, I think I´ll read it again asap ;)

Felix

[bobbo]

Felix:

Thanks bunches!! I will order the book!

Aslo, I'm interested in some "unofficial" or apocryphal stories or memories anyone might have.

[Barry Boor]

Bobbo, I seem to recall that this has popped up on an earlier thread, perhaps before you joined TNF, but anyway, I can tell you that at least one Scarab is alive and doing very well.

Admittedly it is running with a 3 litre engine, but a guy named Don Orosco is pedalling one around the Historic race circuit at present. Last July I saw him place second in a very competitive field at Silverstone's Coy's Festival. The car looked superb and gave me for one, immense pleasure to see it running so well; and being driven so expertly, I hasten to add.

[Gary C]

I think that car was out at the Goodwood Revival Meeting last year too.

[Vitesse2]

Sorry Bobbo, I think you're being very optimistic in thinking that the Scarab could ever have been a competitive F1 car, in 1957 or any other year of the formula. A few selected quotes from LJK Setright's "Grand Prix Car 1954-66" may explain why:

"This machine was too beautiful to be good: it made an excellent impression in the quality of workmanship of its construction ... but it was designed according to out-dated principles ... it was all done very nicely, very tastefully even, and it might have worked very well had the engine been capable of developing perhaps 60 per cent more bhp than the hopelessly inadequate 230 claimed for it"

Even the earliest Maserati 250Fs were developing 240bhp in 1954 and the V12 from 1957 was developing 310bhp (from a car that was never fully developed since Maserati withdrew at the end of the year).

I'm afraid the Scarab was always destined to be a turkey - a classic example of too little, too late.

[bobbo]

Vitesse2:

Ah, but what a LOVELY turkey! BEsides, I'm prejudiced!!

Bobbo

[Don Capps]

Here is some info from 8W: http://8w.forix.com/8w-1299.html

Who? Chuck Daigh
What? Scarab
Where? Monte Carlo
When? 1960 Monaco GP (practice)
Why? By anyone's standards, Lance Reventlow was a wealthy young man. He was the Woolworth heir, who on his 21st birthday inherited the equivalent in today's money of $60-70 million, but even before then had enjoyed a large allowance. Like many other young man born to wealth, he enjoyed spending his money and was not out of his teens before he had the reputation of being something of a playboy. Also like many young men who have not had to make his way in the world, he needed a personal challenge and he found it in motor racing. While still only 19, two years below the SCCA's "legal" age, he bought a Cooper-Climax T39 Bobtail (CS 15-1-57-FPF 430/3/1037) and a Maserati 200S and entered racing with some success. His ruse was rumbled, however, and he was banned for a year. Undaunted, he came to Europe in 1957 and wrote off the Maserati at Snetterton. He also took time to visit some racing car constructors and was astonished to see how apparently backward they were. His reaction on seeing a Lister chassis at the Cambridge works was, "Hell, I could build a car better than that!". He was confirmed in his view by a later visit to Maserati, which was run in a typically Italian way, in a state of apparent chaos. Since Archie Scott-Brown's Lister-Jaguar was regularly beating everything in sight in Britain and Maserati was taking Fangio to his fifth World Championship, as well as making the fastest car in the WSCC, it was easy to draw the conclusion that Good Ole American Know-How, properly financed and directed, could stand the racing world on its ears. In August 1957 Lance established Reventlow Automobiles Incorporated (RAI) and recruited the best available talent. RAI would start with a sports-racer, and since there was no capacity limit the car would use a modified Chevrolet Corvette engine, as it was a known factor and could be tweaked to give adequate power. Warren Olson would oversee the project. The car would be designed and developed by Dick Troutman, Dick Barnes and Ken Miles, while Chuck Daigh, who would be No. 1 driver, was also the chief mechanic and expert on fuel injection. Work had begun and then suddenly the FIA announced there would be a 3-litre limit in the WSCC from the start of 1958. Reventlow apparently explored the idea of buying 3-litre Maserati V12 engines, but Maserati withdrew from racing for financial reasons and this avenue closed. He therefore decided to press ahead with the Chevrolet-engined car and run it in SCCA races, while preparing for Formula 1. The resulting car was lovely to look at, superbly crafted and prepared and was called the "Scarab". The name was a private joke, for a scarab is a compost beetle, as low a creature as one could find, and was a deliberate reaction against the exotic and macho names other cars were called. As the two cars run by the works for Daigh and Reventlow steam-rollered the opposition in the "B" Modified class, the name "Scarab" itself became macho and exotic. After a single, great, season the sports cars were sold on, and continued their winning ways, while RAI decided to concentrate on F1 for 1960. The team had explored the idea of a WSCC season by running a 3-litre Offenhauser engine in one race, but Reventlow was so buoyed by success that he decided the time was ready to tackle the Europeans at the highest level. It was ironical in view of the debacle the F1 project turned out to be that the 3-litre car was not much slower than the 5.5-litre Chevrolet-engined ones, although whether the team had either the experience or the driving talent to undertake long-distance racing is another matter. Troutman and Barnes drew a front-engined space-frame car with independent suspension by coil springs and double wishbones, front and rear. Leo Goossen, an Offenhauser engineer, designed a 4-cylinder engine of 2441cc (85.25x85.73 mm), which had dohc and desmodronic valve gear and was fed by Hilborn fuel injection. This engine gave about 230bhp and was canted over in the frame, virtually on to its side, to keep the bonnet line low and to make for a low drive train alongside the driver. A 4-speed Chevrolet gearbox was fitted, although a 4-speed box within a Corvette casing was under development, but the most unusual feature of the original design was the braking system. This was to have aircraft-style "bladder" brakes at the front, i.e. expanding bladders within conventional drums, and a special disc brake on the final drive (whole plates would press against the disc rather like a clutch). All this was taking time to develop, and the rear brake proved impossible to cool, so it was decided to simplify matters by adopting conventional Girling discs all round. While it was a wise decision, it was not made without some heart-searching, for Reventlow had hoped his car would be entirely American and the use of an English brake system went against the grain. When the F1 Scarabs appeared at Monaco, the opening round of the 1960 World Championship, they were greeted with interest and respect. As with the sports cars, the finish and construction were immaculate and Scarab's achievements in American sports car racing had been well documented by the motor racing press. In his attempt to be all-American, Reventlow had decided on Goodyear tyres, but he and Daigh quickly found they were much too hard for Monaco and switched to Dunlops, whereupon times improved but neither looked like qualifying. Moss was persuaded to try one and he was 7 seconds a lap quicker than either Daigh or Reventlow, but even his best time was only 1 minute 45 seconds, while his pole-winning time was 1 minute 36.6 seconds and the slowest qualifier (Trintignant) was 1 minute 39.1 seconds. Reventlow was later to claim that his car was two years late and had he tackled F1 in 1958 the Scarab would have been competitive, but when one looks at Monaco qualifying times in previous years one discovers that he and Daigh would have only just been on the grid in 1954. Scarabs next appeared at the Dutch GP, where Reventlow and Daigh both qualified but not in the top 15. Since the organizers were prepared to pay starting money only to the top 15, Scarab withdrew. Both cars qualified for the Belgian GP, and Reventlow was the quicker in 4m09.7s (Daigh did 4m18.5s) but nearly 20 seconds off Brabham's pole. Reventlow retired after the first lap when a con-rod broke, while Daigh soldiered on for 16 laps, last, when his engine began to drop oil. They turned up for the French GP at Reims, where Richie Ginther was released by Ferrari to drive Reventlow's car. In practice, however, the cars encountered problems, used up their stock of spares, and called it a day. The cars went home. Back home, RAI moved to a new factory and Goossen began drawing a 4-cylinder 1.5-litre engine for the new F1, but it was never completed. Ferrari showed the way with its V6 and then was overtaken by the V8s from BRM and Coventry Climax. There was no point in completing it. British manufacturers had woken up late to the realities of the 1.5-litre formula and, in 1961, attempted to upstage it with a 3-litre alternative called the Inter-Continental Formula in an attempt to use existing F1 and Tasman cars. RAI shipped a Scarab to England for Daigh to drive. The car was no more competitive, and though Daigh finished seventh in the wet International Trophy at Silverstone and eight in the Lavant Cup he was simply too slow. Then, whilst practicing for the British Empire Trophy, he crashed badly, and that was the end of the F1 adventure. Then came the idea of Formula 366, a precursor of F5000, which allowed stock-block 5-litre engines or racing engines of 3 litres. RAI designed a rear-engined car with an alloy Chevrolet engine for this formula, but the class never got off the ground and the car's sole appearance was in a race in Australia in 1962. By this time Reventlow had lost heart and, anyway, under American law a loss-making company can be written off against tax for up to five years, so before RAI reached its fifth birthday he wound it up. He had been fooled by the apparent disorder of the European constructors he had visited, for it had hidden years of experience and expertise. It had, however, been a brave try. Reventlow cut himself off from racing and was killed in a light aircraft crash in 1973. (fm)
How? This is a strange car. You would think that this might turn your job into living hell but in fact it makes life quite easy for you. First of all, it's a big fat front-engined machine, so if this is a sixties picture we can only think of 1960, the final 2.5-litre season. Second, the shape as well as the high starting number will have you discard all major contenders. And then there's the familiar Monaco background, which leads you directly to Chuck Daigh's No.46 Scarab entry.

Why of the Month (by Don Capps)
This was the first attempt of the Scarab to qualify for a race.

Life is often unfair. If the Scarab had appeared in 1958 or even at the beginning of 1959, it might have been able to enjoy at least some measure or chance of success. Had it appeared at the start of 1957, who knows? But, it appeared in mid-1960 and it was too late since the rear-engined cars had already changed the name of the game. The cars were superbly crafted, to the level excellence found and expected in the aircraft industry and in American Champ Cars which was well above the craftsmanship found in the Cooper, Ferrari, and Lotus machines on the grid. The level of finish and the paint scheme alone was enough to put all the others to shame.

As the son of Betty Hutton, the heiress to the Woolworth fortune, Lance Reventlow was able to indulge his passions, the foremost of which was racing cars. In 1957, the young racer decided to build American racing cars to challenge the Europeans in sports car and Grand Prix racing. The sports car was underway and progressing well when the CSI decided to place a limit on the displacement for the sports car championship - 3-litres. Since the Scarab sports car was being built around a Chevrolet engine of about 5-litres displacement, the rug was almost literally pulled out from under the team before it even got to the track. However, the effort went forth and was completed for use in the domestic sports car events in the United States. In the Fall of 1958, a Scarab with Chuck Daigh won the Fall race at Riverside. It was an huge win for the team.

There was a parallel effort to the sports car program which was much more ambitious, a program to build an American Grand Prix car. Dick Troutman and Tom Barnes - the famous Troutman-Barnes duo - were retained to build the chassis and Leo Goosen, the designer of the justly famous Miller and Offenhauser engines used at Indianapolis and in Champ Car racing, was to design the engine. Two excellent engineer-drivers were on the team to develop the car: Chuck Daigh and Ken Miles. Goosen chose a four-cylinder design which would be laid on its side - as some of the contemporary Offenhauser engines were in roadsters at Indianapolis. This was to reduce the frontal area and lower the driving position. Goosen also decided to use a desmodromic valve system similar to that found on the Mercedes M196 engine. The system proved difficult to get to work correctly and development dragged on and on with the entire 1959 season being written off due to engine problems. It was not until early 1960 that the problems seemed to be finally overcome and the engine actually worked.

The chassis was relatively large, but very light due to the well thought-out design of the multi-tubular frame. The engine, as mentioned, was canted to nearly horizontal the propeller shaft to the side of the cockpit to lower the seating position. Although quote the Scarab as having a four-speed gearbox, it was a five-speed gearbox housed in the casing from the Chevrolet Corvette. After trying several different approaches to braking systems, the team settled on Girling disc brakes. This caused some consternation since one objective of the team was to be as "All-American" as possible. The car was to run on Goodyear Blue Streak racing tires. These tires were a far cry from what Goodyear would later produce for road racing. They were truly awful when compared to the Dunlop R5 tires then being sported by almost all the European teams.

After finally getting the engine to work, the team loaded up and headed for Europe and its big adventure. The destination was Monte Carlo and the Monaco Grand Prix. They were completely off the pace and nowhere near the times the new Cooper T53 and Lotus 18 machines with their Climax FPF engines and Dunlop tires were making. The times on the Goodyear tires were slower than those of nearly five years prior. Stirling Moss took one of the cars around and set a time of 1 min 45 sec, which was much slower than his eventual pole time of 1 min 36.3 sec. Daigh finally got his car, now on Dunlop tires, around he circuit in 1 min 47.0 sec, while Reventlow managed a best lap at 1 min 48.5 sec. The slowest time that made the grid was 1 min 39.1 sec, a time the Scarab drivers could not even approach. A very perplexed, saddened, and wiser team packed up and moved on to the next race.

At Zandvoort, the organizers understood the attraction of an American team and "assisted" Daigh by finding a lap that was good enough to place him on the grid. However, there was a brew up over the starting money which saw Reventlow angrily withdraw the car from the race when the numbers previously agreed upon and those offered were not in synch. Aston Martin and the Scuderia Centro Sud Cooper of Masten Gregory also passed on the race.
Finally, both cars were on the grid for the Belgian race at Spa-Francorchamps. By now, the wear and tear of being so far from their home base in California was beginning to tell. The spares, especially for the engines, was starting to run dangerously low. Reventlow lasted all of three laps in the race when the engine failed. It was the result of a connecting rod breaking and did the engine no good whatsoever. Daigh managed to last 17 laps and was in 11th place when the engine started dumping its oil and he parked it before it blew. He did managed to pass Lucien Bianchi before he retired, however.

The team staggered on to Reims. Reventlow was now seeing that this Grand Prix business was much tougher than he ever imagined. It would have been tough in cars conforming to the current rear-engined design, but to do so in what was now a dinosaur was becoming more and more unrealistic. Reventlow hired Ferrari test driver Richie Ginther to join Daigh for the race. The result was another miserable outing. The engines simply were not up to it, the spares were now virtually exhausted, and when the engine in the Ginther car blew and when Daigh suffered the same fate, the team withdraw and went back to the States to contemplate its debacle. It was not a pleasant situation. The team had, like Aston Martin, completely missed hearing the pitty-patter of the rear-engined cars as they ran past the front-engined designs to the head of the grid.

The Scarab effort did have one last gasp. The Intercontinental Formula series which ran a few races in 1961, saw the swan song of the Scarab. The team entered the events at Goodwood and Silverstone. At Goodwood Daigh finished eighth. At Silverstone, however, the Scarab crashed heavily and Daigh was seriously injured. Although there was the possibly that the remaining Scarab would be a part of the proposed Formula 366, last minute restrictions on the stock block engines made it unattractive to many would be participants, including Reventlow, and that was that for the Scarab Grand Prix effort.

[Roger Clark]

Moss was persuaded to try one and he was 7 seconds a lap quicker than either Daigh or Reventlow, but even his best time was only 1 minute 45 seconds, while his pole-winning time was 1 minute 36.6 seconds and the slowest qualifier (Trintignant) was 1 minute 39.1 seconds. Reventlow was later to claim that his car was two years late and had he tackled F1 in 1958 the Scarab would have been competitive, but when one looks at Monaco qualifying times in previous years one discovers that he and Daigh would have only just been on the grid in 1954.

This statement, about only just making the 1954 grid also appears in Mike Lawrence's Grand Prix Cars 1945-65. It is worth further examination.

First, if we are considering the competitiveness of the car, it's surely Moss' time, not Reventlow or Daigh's we should consider. 1 min 45s would have qualified for the back row in 1958, for the second row in 1957. Denis Jenkinson reckoned that a set of Dunlops would have given Moss 1min 43, if the car had fitted him properly he would have done 1min 42, if he had been trying he could have done 1m 41, and if starting money had been involved he could have done 1m 40. this would be good enough for the front row in 1958.

Also, when comparing lap time with 1954, remember that the chicane was made much tighter in 1956. Fangio's pole time in 56 was almost 3 secs slower than in 55.

Lastly, there was no Monaco GP in 1954.

[David McKinney]

Haven't got my records to hand at the moment, but I think Daigh's 1960 qualifying time at Zandvoort would have given him pole for the 1958 Dutch GP.
Perhaps someone with access to the relevant data can check that for us

[Vitesse2]

Can't find a time for Daigh in 1960, but as Don says he wasn't in the top 15, his best time couldn't have been better than 1m36.7 (von Trips). Lewis-Evans' pole time in 1958 was 1m37.1, so you may have a point there David. However, Moss' pole time in 1960 was 1m33.2, nearly 4 seconds faster! Like I said, too little too late.

In addition, I seem to recall reading somewhere that Daigh's time was one of those that the organisers "found".

[Milan Fistonic]

From Autocourse

Saturday Practice
Once again the Scarabs were painfully slow, Daigh being best with 1m 42.7s

Sunday Practice
Modifications to the Scarab suspension helped to reduce Reventlow's times to 1m 38.8s and Daigh was credited with 1m 36.7s, which nobody believed and some suggested that it was an underhand trick on the part of the organisers to give the Scarab a start.

Pole time for 1960 was 1m 32.2s by Moss in a Lotus
Pole time for 1958 was 1m 37.1s by Lewis-Evans in a Vanwall

During practice Stirling Moss had a drive of Roy Salvadori's Aston Martin to see if he could shed some light on the indifferent performance of the car but did no better than Salvadori.

[Vitesse2]

Thank you Milan! We seem to be in agreement about this!

[MacFan]

A former Nostalgia Forum regular provided me with the following information:

"The 3-litre Offenhauser engine was used in testing the Scarab F1 car in late 1959, as the caption to this picture on the cover of the September issue of Motor Racing explains. So it was readily available and able to be fitted to the car.

Regarding the rear-engined car that ran the Buick engine, not an aluminium Chevrolet, this diced with Stirling Moss and his Lotus 21 for virtually all of the 1962 Sandown Park International 100, the only race it contested in Australia. The engines were sold in Australia, however, and later saw life in Bib Stillwell's Cooper Monaco and Arnold Glass' rear-engined BRM, the BRM 2.5 engine moving on to Don Fraser's home-built Cicada in Adelaide."

[Roger Clark]

This rings a bell, but that race at Sandown seems to have been erased from Moss' (and Nye's) memory. It's not mentioned in My Cars and My Career. I also can't find a mention of it in Autosport either! I know that it took place because I have reports and pictures in another magazine. It looks like another one for the "How Could It Happen?" thread

[Rob29]

It was 2nd weekend in March 1962. If not in Autosport,must have been Motoring News. Sadly I no longer have copies that old,but I seem to remember the Scarab being on the front page.

[Megatron]

I seem to be confused here. Was the engine that actually raced in 1960 an Offy or their own home grown inline four?

[Vitesse2]

The Scarab F1 engine as raced was their own design, although it owed much to the Offy - unsurprising, as it was designed by Leo Goossen and built by Meyer-Drake.

In addition, just came across a note from Doug Nye that during the development of the F1 car, what he calls a '3-litre Meyer-Drake' engine was tried in one of the sports cars and raced at Santa Barbara. Presumably this is the same engine that later raced in Intercontinental Formula in 1961??

[Milan Fistonic]

Preston Lerner's Scarab book has a photo of the GP car with the Meyer-Drake engine installed. This is the caption:

Emil Deidt pores over the Meyer-Drake four-cylinder installed on its side in the Scarab Formula 1 car. This shot was taken early during the development of the Grand Prix car, when the Offenhauser was substituted for the as-yet-unready desmodromic motor. It aslo demonstrates how the engine later was again fitted to the Scarab when Chuck Gaigh raced it in Interconrinental Formula events in England in 1961. Mounting Offys in this fashion had been an accepted Indycar practice since George Salih built his first laydown roadster in 1957 and Sam Hanks immediately drove it to victory at the Speedway.

[Megatron]

Didn't the cars switch back to Goodyear tires after Monaco?

[Rainer Nyberg]

How many Scarab's were produced? I have a source suggesting seven in total, including three sportscars and the single rear-engined single-seater. That leaves three GP-cars, but I have seen sources suggesting that only two GP-cars were built.


The rear-engined car :

[cabianca]

Like so many other marques, there are more Scarab single-seaters now than there were then. The Offy (not the F1 engine) was used in the Scarab sports car only once, at Santa Barbara in August 1958. Car was then converted to Chevrolet power, allowing Scarab to have a three car entry for the big Riverside professional race in October 58. Lance stuffed his car in practice and drove the formerly Offy powered car in the race, depriving Bruce Kessler of a drive. Kessler had driven the Offy powered car at Santa Barbara.

[dbw]

do i recall reading [many years back] that an exotic f1 scarab engine had gone missing and a reward was orrered???? is this true? ..anyone?

[Gil Bouffard]

Re: Scarabs Lance Reventlow and Chuck Daigh..

I remember reading in an old Vintage Motorsport Magazine, a story about Chuck and it said he still had the designs for the original Scarab engine and I think it also said he had one of the engines.

Ya know, after reading Preston Lerner's book, I'd go hang around Orosco and pick his brain..

Yikes! A gaff by the ever popular Don Capps?!? reading the 8W stuff I found this: "As the son of Betty Hutton, the heiress to the Woolworth fortune, Lance Reventlow......."

Lance Reventlow was the son of Barbara Hutton, heiress to the Woolworth fortune! Betty Hutton was a movie actress! Lance was married, for a while, to actress Jill St. John.

That is almost as bad as MOTORSPORT Magazine calling Sir Guy Anthony "Tony" Vandervell, "Tony Vanwall" !!

Gil

[Wolf]

Gil, I think You're making too much of a simple mistake (if it was, I wouldn't know )... It's nowhere near calling Tony Vandrewell- Tony Vanwall (I did it once too, pure slip of the mind ), it's not like Betty or Barbara Hutton were very relevant figures in motorsport.;)

[Gil Bouffard]

Wolf,

You know.....You're right.

What's a little screw up when it comes to history...

Like showing a picture of Tony Brooks in a Vanwall and calling it a Connaught.

Or spelling Sterling Moss or Juan Manual Fangio or Farrari.

Or the History Channel showing footage of an American circle track race and calling it the Grand Prix of Italy in 1953.

Or the same channel showing Korean war era fighters being launched from aircraft carriers while talking about Arizona Senator John McCain's Vietnam experiences.....

Aaaah what the heck! Nobody cares anyway....

Gil

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Wolf
it's not like Betty or Barbara Hutton were very relevant figures in motorsport.;)

True, but she was married to at least two different racing drivers at various times, and a third husband was the father of another

[Wolf]

David- I didn't know that, but that's why I used failsafe wording 'very relevant' in contrast to the man who won first WCC ever...

Gil- what I was trying to convey was that I felt Your remark

That is almost as bad as MOTORSPORT Magazine calling Sir Guy Anthony "Tony" Vandervell, "Tony Vanwall" !!

was not only blowing thing out of proportion, but a tad offensive to Don's efforts both here and in 8W games; with all the good things he's posted, written &c, I think if he got the name of mother of one and wife of two drivers wrong, it is relatively harmless mistake (for there are different degrees of error). Not to mention that it wouldn't terribly hurt if Your correction was phrased more agreeably.;)

[Gil Bouffard]

Colonel Capps and I have a long history and I don't believe that he would take offense (or a stick, for that matter) to what I said..

His piece on Vanwall is a part of my website..

Come to http://www.norpaccrows.org click on "ENTER" scroll down to the Vanwall picture and click on it..You will enjoy reading his stuff..

BTW Don and I both share the same personal hero...Harry Schell.

Gil

[Barry Boor]

Well, gentlemen (and possibly ladies!), you can consider my gob as thoroughly smacked!

I thought I knew a fair bit about F1 racing from the late 50s/early 60s, but I swear I NEVER knew there was such a thing as a REAR-engined Scarab. What I cannot understand is how I missed it.

Thanks buckets to Rainer for posting that picture.

NOW, the question is, do I build a slot-race version......?

[David McKinney]

Your pride need not suffer, Barry. It's not an F1 car.
It was built with a small-block Buick V8 engine and AFAIK raced only once, at Sandown Park (Australia) in March 1962

[Barry Boor]

What would have been the capacity of that engine?

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Barry Boor
What would have been the capacity of that engine?

366ci = 5 litres. It was built for the short-lived Formula 366, the US successor to Intercontinental, but stock-blocks were legislated out of contention even before the formula started. It was a car that conformed to no formula and could only run in Formule Libre. Nice car though - Daigh drove it at Goodwood last year.

[Rainer Nyberg]

It was tested with a Buick 215 cu-in or Rover 3500 cc if you prefer...!

That motor is pretty well known on the British Isles too...

Tested with 3500 cc and 235 hp, it was taken out to 3917 cc and had 280 hp on tap and I presume it raced with that engine. It also featured a 5-speed Colotti Type 32 transaxle.

The magazine article I am refering (from C&D year '62) to talks about something called Formula 366, as in 366 cu-in or 6-litres. Did something like that ever take off?

[Rainer Nyberg]

Ok Richard, thanks for the clarification...

[Rainer Nyberg]

And I presume it is the car that ran at Goodwood, that is shown on this page :

http://www.amazing43.../Scarab_Eng.htm

Includes some detail shots of Barry still wants to build that slot-car...

[Vitesse2]

Oops! You're right there Rainer, it is 6 litres, not 5. F366 was for 6-litre stock blocks and 3-litre racing engines. Some sources say the Scarab engine was Chevy-based, but I think we established beyond doubt a while back that it was actually a Buick. The stock-blocks were killed off by the legislators whose restrictions meant that they wouldn't be able to get much more than 230bhp as against the 265bhp from the Climax.

But if you look at F366 (and I don't think there was ever a race to the formula) it was the root of what became F5000 via the SCCA Formula A.

Yep - that's the car. Beautifully presented and probably running better than when it was new!

[Ray Bell]

Buick or Olds?

The engine was more like 4.2 litres... one went into the Cooper Monaco of Bib Stillwell later in 1962 or during 1963. Another went to Arnold Glass' BRM, IIRC, but I don't have time to look these things up today so maybe this can be clarified later. Did the Stillwell engine finish up in the Chris Murphy wreck?

[Wolf]

Well, Gil, I may have overreacted (check Your PMs for details), and we'll presumably put the whole thing behind us if we say You meant no offence and I didnt intend to show what opinionated S.O.B. I am... As for Your website- been there, done that.;)

[bobbo]

. . .And I thought this thread was consigned to the "dust heap of history" . . .

Rainer, thanks for showing us this Scarab, I didn't know it existed!

And, if it was tested with the Buick 215 ci V8, wouldn't the REPCO 3.0 litre V8 have fit in? Maybe we could have had another Scarab in F1! What a thought!

Might-have-beens . . .

Bobbo

[Rainer Nyberg]

Wello, Bobbo, why create a new thread when we have existing ones...!

And apparently only TWO GP cars were built at the time, with the third beeing an unfinished chassis.

So I would not be surprised if we actually have THREE cars today...

[cabianca]

Since we're striving for accuracy, Barbara Hutton was not only a Woolworth heiress (What were then called five and dime retail stores) but also heir to the E.F. Hutton stockbrokerage fortune. Lance never had a lot of money in his own name and was dependent on his mother for an allowance, although it was comfortable. Don't know if he ever had his own money since he predeceased her.

[Gil Bouffard]

Barry Boor and others...

There was also a rear engined Scarab sportscar. Owned by John Mecom and driven at the Nassau Speedweeks by none other than Anthony Joseph Foyt Junior. AJ did his best but the car was not a contender.

Hey Cabianca!

Does "predeceased," mean he pre-died? We have a tendency to put "pre," in front of all sorts of words. We have existing conditions and now we have Pre-existing Conditions.

Does this mean that a divorced man or woman can be referred to as having been pre-married?

I know, picky, picky....

Gil

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Gil Bouffard

There was also a rear engined Scarab sportscar. Owned by John Mecom and driven at the Nassau Speedweeks by none other than Anthony Joseph Foyt Junior. AJ did his best but the car was not a contender.

So, remind us Gil, what driver in what car won the two big races at Nassau in 1963?

[Ian McKean]

Originally posted by Don Capps
The Scarab effort did have one last gasp. The Intercontinental Formula series which ran a few races in 1961, saw the swan song of the Scarab. The team entered the events at Goodwood and Silverstone. At Goodwood Daigh finished eighth.

I was there when Daigh raced at Goodwood and hoped that the car would be competitive. It was very quick off the grid, made up quite a few places, and looked very quick away from the chicane (which for those of you who have never been there was quite a slow corner at Goodwood). It seemed quite fast in a straight line but not so exceptional at the end of the straights as in the first part. The 3 litre Meyer-Drake must have had a lot more bhp than the 2.5 litre Scarab engine.

The car did not seem very quick on the corners, however, and this seemed to be where it was losing time to the British cars. Perhaps they went back to the Goodyears in 1961.

[David M. Kane]

For a brief period in the early sixties, the original F1 car was in the hands of the well-known criminal race mechanic Gordon Tatum. As a 19 or 20 year old I got to see it one Saturday when I was hanging around his original shop in Kensington, Maryland which was in walking distance from
our house. The other reason I remember the day so well was because two
American Astronauts were there looking a special Corvette Gordon was trying to sell.

The last I heard Mr. Tatum was in the big house for various acts of fraud
and embezzelment (sp?). He is not a very nice person.

[karlcars]

Several points of interest here!

I have to put my hand up as the person who created and sought to promote Formula 366. The idea was to equate 3-liter racing engines with 6-liter stock blocks in single-seater cars, the latter being the size then in use in stock cars. I managed to get quite a lot of interest going but about the time it was started I left Car and Driver to join GM, so I wasn't in a position to pursue it. The Scarab folks were indeed very supportive of the idea. Indeed, something very similar happened later with Formula 5000.

About the Scarab GP cars, I think a fatal error was not copying in all respects the Mercedes-Benz desmo valve gear. They used a much cruder method of adjusting clearance on the closing bell crank which made for a heavier part and a more fragile one.

As well, major problems were experienced with the bottom end. This arose because Travers and Coons insisted on a conventional bottom-end design instead of the inserted diaphragms with which Leo Goossen had so much successful experience. A more Offy-like bottom end would have been a much better idea.

At heart, as well, the Scarab people were caught up in the idea that a four-cylinder engine was the way to go, I guess based on the success of the Climax and the Vanwall. Six really should have been a minimum number of cylinders for 2.5 liters.

[BS Levy]

I was fortunate to do a story on the ill-fated and late-debuted Scarab formula one cars (including a sneaky drive, natch) and I believe the only race the rear-engined car ever ran was at Sandown Park in Australia with a hotted-up Buick V8 for power. When I drove the car I liked it very much (although the front-engined car was far nobler, but sadly past its sell-by date when it finally appeared) and I'm curious about it. I'm not doing a story or anything--just curious--how did the car fare at that race?
BS Levy

[Mike Argetsinger]

Burt - welcome to TNF!! I can't answer your question but I suspect you will get an in depth answer pretty fast. This is an amazing group. On the other hand you're pretty amazing yourself - so it's great to see you here.