14 replies to this topic

[Tweddell]

it is about nearly 40 years that i acme across a report of the Nassau speed week. very exiting cars were entered by John Mecom jr, as the well known Grandsport Corvette, the Lola MK 6 and the Hussein. what happened to the cars of the Mecom racing team . the Scarab, the Lola and the Grand Sport did survive, but what happened to the Hussein. it was later entered as Zerex special, but with the end of the 1965 season the car disappears from the scene.
I once saw it again in a movie, (a criminal series...?name forgotten, and it could have been at riverside raceway) the Hussein had a spin ,sliding in the dust beside the track.
does anybody know , where the car is today, if it survived, if it had any appereance anywhere .
John Mecom´s car would be shurly an attraction at Goodwood, especially Hussein /Zerex .

[T54]

That's simple enough.
After Foyt's heroic drives in the Hemi-powered, re-bodied Cooper CM63, it sat for years in the open, sans engine or tranny, in the All American Racers yard on Broadway Street in Santa Ana. Later, it was somehow acquired by the Indianapolis Speedway museum where it still is today, unrestored last time I checked. John Mecom's several attempts to get it back through negotiations with the Speedway have so far failed. No idea where the actual engine or Cooper C5S gearbox are now located if they survived the bin.
Regards,

T54

[xkssFrankOpalka]

I think there is a Hussein II which is being raced at various Vintage races. I was at Road America some yrs ago when Mario A drove it, lasted one lap. Was being preped by Holman and Moody for Ford.

[T54]

Are you sure? The Hussein II was powered by a NASCAR Dodge Hemi, so I am wondering about a Ford involvement.
I am not sure that there was a second chassis either, but it is possible. I always assumed that the Hussein II was the same old modified Cooper with body and chassis alterations within one year (1963 to late 1964) after the first version revealed itseld as especially scary to drive. I know that the body was built by the same person who fashioned the Zerex Cooper in Moline.
I am sure that the car which languished at AAR was the "II" because it had the chrome plated round air box from the Hemi still attached to it, and this is how it ran last.

Now it IS possible that the Indy Speedway museum has or commissioned some entity like John Holman to actually restore this car, but in which configuration? Does anyone have pictures of the car as described by Frank?

[WINO]

Frank,

You probably saw the Honker rather than the Hussein.


WINO

[T54]

The Hussein 1 and 2 were (is?) deep metallic blue. The Honker is eeer... candy-apple puce?

[Tom Glowacki]

You're confusing Hussein II with Honker II.

Hussein II (a/k/a "Insane II") was the re-bodied Cooper Monaco with the Chrysler 426 Hemi. Before cooler heads prevailed and they reverted to the NASCAR 4 barrel carb, the thing had 8 Weber carbs. There's a picture of that configuration on page 238 of Vintage Motorsport's "Road Racing Specials". Unfortunately, the picture was taken from some distance, but you still get the anti-aircraft battery effect. That car ran in 1964-65, without success. The car was named in honor of the King of Jordan.

Honker II was a Holman-Moody effort. It was designed by Len Bailey and looked like his F3L without a roof and with an attitude. That was painted the same shade of purple as the late Fireball Roberts' '63-'64 NASCAR Galaxies. It ran in the Can-Am in 1967 and had as it's only success bringing Mario Andretti and Paul Newman together. Newman sponsored the car and Mario made the famous quote: "How about I paint my name on the nose and he drives it?" The name was a take-off on John Holman's nick-name, Honker, for his proclivity to blow the horn on the team trucks.

[Dennis Hockenbury]

What were the differences between the Hussein I and II versions, or cars if they were individual chassis? I have been confused on this point for some time as several accounts reflect that one of these cars (or the single car) was powered at some point with a Traco Chevy.

I agree that the photos of the later Hussein shows a Hemi.

[Tom Glowacki]

Hussein I was the king, Hussien II was the car.

[T54]

Hussein I was the king, Hussien II was the car.

With all due respect, and before I even begin consulting my old mags, I believe that there were two distinct versions of the Hussein. The first as shown in Sports Car Graphic with a smooth rear deck and a Dodge engine with a crossover Weber setup. This was at the end of 1963. In 1964, the car was modified with added aero details on the nose and tail and the engine was changed for a huge Hemi similar to the one used by the Dodge Chargers in NASCAR. The rear deck was opened to clear the four-barrel Holley carb and the enormous air filter on top of it. Another version used TWO of the Holleys on a special manifold.
The first version was definitely called "Hussein", while the improved version was called the "Hussein II". Amazingly there is virtually no info available through the Internet, but collectors of old slot cars know quite well the two distinct versions: the first issued by AMT with an injected body and with the smooth deck, simply called "Hussein", and several vacuum formed versions a year later called "Hussein II" produced by Pactra, Lancer and Du-Bro.

King Hussein was of course a pal of John Mecom, and yes, the car was named after him. Interestingly a plane owned by John Mecom was "accidentally" shot down by the Egyptians in November 1964 just after the racing season, causing pres. Johnson to begin cutting the flow of US dollars to Egypt after some very unkind words by Gamal Nasser. Racing and politics do mix...
Now I made a couple of telephone calls and sure enough, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum has the car, and at this time it has only been partially restored.
Regards,

T54

[Tweddell]

thanks very much T54 ,

Amazingly there is virtually no info available through the Internet, but collectors of old slot cars know quite well the two distinct versions

yes, and so i went looking in this area and found some old material concerning Hussein I,( I do not think that there is a Hussein II, only a further developed of this MK I Hussein I, but its racing career was too short).
http://www.vsrnonlin...C_V3N5_p220.jpg
http://www.vsrnonlin...C_V3N5_p224.jpg
Here is exactly that car, which raced at Bahamas in the end of 1964, where ,it was reported, other cars were nearly thrown off the track by the airpressure, when the Hussein was passing them. You see the unpainted nose, later the area around the air-inlet was painted white, at this later stage the decals Zerex Special appear on both sides (the Zerex Ford came one year later ,I think) .
is there any picture of the Hussein in its condition at Indianapolis museum today?
what about the movie-sequenz I mentioned?

By the way, Mario Andretti , beeing asked about the worst car he ever drove, said, it was the Honker.

[Tom Glowacki]

OK, I went into the archives and found the Ocotber, 1964 Road & Track article on the car. It was called Hussein I, not II. Same name for the king and the car.

The R&T article has a number of pictures and is 3 pages long. The body as shown in roll-out photos is the same as it was later. The article says, and a photo shows, that initially, it used a 364 c.i. Traco Chevy with side-draft Webers. However, the article mentions that the Chevy was due to be replaced an engine from an unnamed "American manufacturer whose engines have been tearing them up on the stock car circuits." The article in "Road Racing Specials" mentions that the Hemi was originally to have been cast in aluminum, which probably explains starting out with the small block Chevy, as clearly the aluminum Hemi was either delayed or never showed at all.

The engine picture in "Road Racing Specials" shows a battery of down draft Webers on the Hemi. The body is unchanged from R&T story, same nose fins, except for the hole cut to clear the Hemi carb.

[xkssFrankOpalka]

Thanks for the correction, I was thinking of the Honker of course, I seem to remember a photo of King Hussein sitting in the Hussein when it was first built.

[WINO]

Frank,

He did sit in it, in Houston. It was not that John Mecom, the car owner, was such close buddies with Saddam's Poodle. More a case of flattery of a good customer. His dad, Mecom Sr., was a wild catter and he had just signed a 40-year oil exploration contract with Jordan.

WINO

[Dennis Hockenbury]

Really good information gentlemen. Many thanks.

This raises the question of how this car evolved even more.