9 replies to this topic

[gbl]

I have 3 unidentified chassis:

-Art Pollard #40 and #20 (the car he used in the race and or the red/white one with the Plymouth engine) : Some older threads don't identify it 100%. It looks like a modified Lotus 56, but the entry list calls it a "STP" and it doesn't have a big Lotus logo on the front like all the other team cars.

-Art Pollard Super Wedge car #20:



who built that car?

-Al Unser #3: listed as a "Parnelli" chassis and doesn't look like a Lola, more like another wedge car.

Any ideas?

[philippe charuest]

mcnamara or something like that?

[philippe charuest]

http://www.motorspor...year.asp?Y=1967
indy stats . well base on that site al unser car was a lola and art pollard a "gerhardt"

[philippe charuest]

http://artpollard.tripod.com/1969.html
Art Pollard's 1969 Stats. its definitly a gerhardt . but the car was use in trial only

[jimclark]

philippe - Not so...the #57 Gerhardt Pollard borrowed in practice did run the race driven by the assigned driver, Carl Williams, breaking on the 50th lap . Art drove the #40 Lotus Offenhauser from 12th on the grid to a lowly 31st, breaking on lap 7.
(Also, the McNamara was used in 1970.)

gbl - In '69, Andy Granatellis team used a plethora (well, almost anyway) of combinations of chassis, engines, and drivers with as many as four cars in a race at a time. Mario Andretti was lucky to have the Hawk Ford all year (after the hub failure on the 4wd Lotus at Indy). Not even including the dirt track cars...(sheeesh)...they used different combos: the aforementioned Hawk Ford for Mario; different combinations, seemingly weekly, of Lotus and Gerhardt chassis and Plymouth and Offy engines for,,,(phewwww...) Art, Carl Williams, Greg Weld, Sam Posey, Joe leonard, and Jim Malloy. Oh....I almost forgot, George Follmer did a race or two also.
(If I left anyone out, I claim weariness as a defense. Don't even think about asking me about the dirt track car driver combinations...I ain't goin' there!!! lol)

[gbl]

I'm trying to "correct" the data from motorsport.com and I'm pretty sure that Al Unser's car was not a Lola T15x.

For the STP team at Indianapolis 1969 I have the following lineup:

Mario Andretti #2 HawkIII
Mario Andretti #2 Lotus 64 4WD
Carl Williams #57 Gerhard (69?)
Graham Hill #70 Lotus 64 4WD
Jochen Rindt #80 Lotus 64 4WD

Unclear are:

Art Pollard #20 Gerhardt Super Wedge (now identified)
Art Pollard #20 Lotus 56 (4WD by trackside report)
Art Pollard #40 Lotus 56 (4WD by trackside report)

It remains unclear if the Lotus 56 were original Lotus or copies by the STP team

[Allen Brown]

The #57 car was a new (69) Gerhardt with an Offy turbo. The #20 and #40 cars are harder as accounts differ and I think the truth may only have emerged when Doug Nye talked to Andy Granatelli when finalising the Lotus 56 histories for "Team Lotus". It appears that the Lotus 56s didn't race again after the end of 1968 but Granatelli built a couple of replicas to race with orthodox engines in 1969. I've called these cars Granatelli-Lotus 56s in my records. BTW, Parnelli also built a pair of replicas of his Lotus 56 and it was one of these "Parnelli-Lotus 56s" that Joe Leonard drove as the #3 car later in 1969. The Parnelli story only became clear when the two #3 cars were included in the Parnelli auction some years ago.

The #40 (Offy) car at Indy was almost certainly one of the Granatelli-Lotus 56s but I'm less certain about the #20 (Plymouth) car which may have been a second 1969 Gerhardt. If it was a 4WD then I'd say it was a Granatelli-Lotus; if it was 2WD I'd say it was a Gerhardt.

As the season wore on, I have Pollard swapping between Granatelli-Lotus and his #57 Gerhardt with Posey, Malloy, Follmer and others also enjoying rides in the Granatelli-Lotus.

Allen

[gmw]

I think that I can help with the 1969 STP chassis identification. I was a Chrysler engineer in the STP-Plymouth engine program in 1969. I was responsible for the interfaces between the STP chassis and the Plymouth engine/transmission and the Ferguson transfer case.

Both the #20 and the #40 cars had STP built tubs and suspension that looked to me like direct copies of the Lotus 56, although Vince Granatelli insisted that they were original designs, not Lotus copies. They were definitely not Lotus built chassis. For Indianapolis car 20 had a Plymouth stock block engine and car 40 had a turbo Offy. Car 20 had two bodies, the "Super Wedge" and a smaller body that looks like a Lotus 56 at first glance. The "Super Wedge" was built in a small shop just down the street from the STP facility in Santa Monica. I don't know who designed it.

The Super Wedge was designed to fit the stock block Plymouth engine with stock iron heads. However after the body was designed we switch to Weslake designed aluminum heads. These heads were very similar id design to the Gurney-Weslake heads, but were to fit the Plymouth engine. Harry Weslake deigned, built and delivered these heads in less than 90 days, and they gave a power increase of over 40 HP. But they were too tall to fit under the Super Wedge body. Andy Granatelli was happy to exchange 40 HP for the trick body, but wanted the body on the car when it arrived at the Speedway. Andy knew that the body would generate a lot of positive PR. The engine with the Weslake heads arrived at the garage two days after the car. The engine was installed together with the smaller body and the Super Wedge body was put in the garage and never seen again. Art Pollard was the assigned driver for the #20 car and did all of the test driving. Unfortunately we had some lubrication problems and wiped out the crankshaft thrust bearing on three engines. With the questionable reliability of the Plymouth engine, Pollard switch to the #40 Offy powered car and qualified it. We withdrew the Plymouth engined car from this race. The whole program wasn't started until the January 20, so our time to design test and develop the engine was very limited.

The #40 car retried with a failure in the lube circuit of the Ferguson transfer case.

The #20 car with the Plymouth engine ran in eight races driven by Art Pollard, Sam Posey and Jim Malloy. Its best finish was third in the first heat at Kent, Washington.

For the final race of the year at Riverside car #40 also ran with a Plymouth engine, divan by George Follmer, with Sam Posey in #20.

Car #20 at Kent and both cars at Riverside ran automatic transmissions based on a Chrysler Torqueflite.

The Plymouth engine was also run in four races in Grant King's Gehardt chassis, #57, driven by Art Pollard. Art won the race at Dover with this car.

The original iron head version of the engine was installed by Grant King in two of his dirt cars driven by Greg Weld and Art Pollard. A Plymouth engine sat on the pole in all of the Champ Car dirt races that year.

GMW

[Gerr]

gmw, Harry Bradley was the designer of the "Super Wedge" body.

[gbl]

Did the Gerhardt Super Wedge debut at Indianapolis? Pollard also drove a #20 Gerhardt at the spring races but that could have been the later #57 car.

What about the Mongoose? At Indianapolis Ruby had a #4 older (67 or 68?) model and a #25 wedge shape car (I have an ad with that number and livery at Phoenix calling it a new model). At Langhorne he had a #25 older chassis.