18 replies to this topic

[R.W. Mackenzie]

This is the car that Len Sutton drove in the 1964 Indy 500 and that Billy Foster drove in the 1965 race. Art Pollard failed to qualify it in 1966 and then the car seems to vanish. It was the car on which A.J. Watson based his 1964 Indy entries for Ward and Branson and it was the car that Scalextric modeled as "C/80 Offenhauser (rear engine)".

Does anyone know what became of this car?

Also, the Scalextric slot car has the Offy intakes on the left and the exhaust on the right and this is how it is shown when featured in the September 1964 issue of "Model Cars". However, as driven at Indy by Sutton in 1964, Foster in 1965 and Pollard in 1966, the exhaust is on the left and the intakes are on the right. Does anyone know why the car changed from it's original configuration?

Both questions may be answered in the book, "Vollstedt From Track Roadsters to Indy Cars: The Rolla Vollstedt Story" by Rolla Vollstedt & Ralph Zbarsky but I don't have access to that book at present. I've search the forum and not found much about this car (only the "6/63" designation).

Thanks in advance,

Bob Mackenzie

[ovfi]

I'm curious about the Vollstedt car too. For the side change between intake and exhaust, I suppose they made the first 1963 tests with an old second hand Offy, an ex-270 converted to 252, and bought a new 252 for the 1964 race: the Offy 252 has the bigger intake valves on the right side, since 1957.
You mention an Scalextric slot racer with that body... I've never seen one, if you have a picture I'll thank you very much for posting it...
I like this Indy period and I'm thinking to make some scale models for slot racing... I'm making drawings for the Watson Roadster, the Watson dirt car, the Huffaker-Offy (MG Liquid Suspension), and the 1963 Thompson-Buick (not the pancake-car, but the yellow car that antonvrs photographed at Tompson's shop). I have drawings of the Thompson pancake-car and the Vollstedt, drawn by Walkden Fisher in the sixties... maybe the same on your magazine.

[R.W. Mackenzie]

Oscar,

There are two versions of the Vollstedt by Scalextric. An example of each is shown below from current auctions at eBay:

Red Offenhauser R/E

Yellow Offenhauser R/E

These cars were produced in the sixties and are fairly good representations of the Vollstedt in it's original configuration. However the colours and decaling don't match the actual Sutton car (silver #66). They seem to have mixed the the Bryant sponsorship with the Leader Card logo. They don't match the Watson cars either as Ward was a White #2 and Branson was a yellow #5 and he didn't have the Leader Card stars and stripes logo.

They also had two versions based on Foyt's winning front-engined Watson-Offenhauser:

White Offenhauser F/E

Blue Offenhauser F/E

Here are links to the "Model Car" article I referred to:

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Bob Mackenzie

[ovfi]

Bob, thanks a lot for the pictures.The Vollstedt drawing shown on Model Car is the same drawing I've mentioned, you can find a lot of old drawings on VSRN site, I think you know that.
Back to the theme, Vollstedt was the second American racing car builder to make a rear engined car that did qualify for Indy , but the car wasn't ready for the '63 Indy 500, so it only qualified for '64. It will be interesting to know what happened to this (these, if you count the two Watsons) car. The first (modern) rear engined American car builder qualified for Indy was Mickey Thompson with his 1962 Thompson-Buick and 1963 Thompson-Chevy (pancake car), and the third was Joe Huffaker: all these cars have been restored, but we don't know nothing about the Vollstedt.

[R.W. Mackenzie]

Oscar,

I believe I read an article many years ago that showed what might be Branson's car (it was yellow) hanging from the ceiling in A.J. Watson's shop. I also saw a picture from a thread here (don't remember which one) taken at a historic event in which the Ward car was in the background. So there is a good chance that they both are around. I also saw pictures of the 1965 Vollstedt at a historic event and the 1967 Vollstedt in a museum in either Australia or New Zealand. Just can't find any recent trace of the 1964 car.

Bob Mackenzie

[R.W. Mackenzie]

Oscar,

I found the picture showing Ward's rear-engined Watson-Offenhauser. It was taken at this year's Monterey vintage festival. It is the fifth post from your thread here:

http://forums.autosp...&threadid=97455

Bob Mackenzie

[ovfi]

Oh, I've missed that! the picture was taken by raceannouncer2003, maybe he has a better one of the car. Let's wait if he sees this thread... He's a Canadian slot racer too.

[helioseism]

I have a copy of the book "Vollstedt - From Track Roadsters to Indy Cars: The Rolla Vollstedt Story", by Rolla Volstedt and Ralph Zbarsky, 2003, ZED Engineering, ISBN 0-9733661-0-9. One of the features of the book is a car chronology. That source states that the car is currently (presumably as of 2003) owned by George Wingard, Oregon.

[Buford]

One of them was later run by Barny Navvaro (spelling) with the Rambler engine for Les Scott.

[Tom Glowacki]

Navarro's car was Roger Ward's Ford engined car. The Offy engine was of 1930's origin. The cylinder block was cast integrally with what normally would be the head, and the crankcase was a separate casting. The stud pattern was symetrical, so it was simple to reverse the cylinder/head casting so move the intake and exhaust to the opposite side.

[R.W. Mackenzie]

Here are some more pictures of the car:

Sutton

Pollard

Foster

Bob Mackenzie

[R.W. Mackenzie]

Here is a picture of the Ward car in 1967 with the Navarro Rambler engine:

1967

This page has a later picture of a Navarro Rambler Indy car. If it is the same chassis it is no longer recognizable:

Later

Bob Mackenzie

[ovfi]

The Offy was a wonderful piece of engineering, joining the 1910/1915 Peugeot and Ballot concepts, but introducing the low cost versatility typical of the Californian creativity of this time...On the 1930's the Detroit's state of the art was the flathead design, and engineers were lost behind wrong theories of thermodynamical efficiency... Fred Offenhauser and Leo Goosen believed in hydrodynamical efficiency, and the time proved they were right, they are my idols. Today's F1 engines use their design.
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[raceannouncer2003]

Originally posted by ovfi
maybe he has a better one of the car. Let's wait if he sees this thread...

Sorry, I don't have one...anybody else?

Vince H.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by R.W. Mackenzie
Here is a picture of the Ward car in 1967 with the Navarro Rambler engine:

1967

This page has a later picture of a Navarro Rambler Indy car. If it is the same chassis it is no longer recognizable:

Later

Bob Mackenzie

Barney Navarro recently passed, on August 21. He was 88 years old.

[DJSILLS]

The 1964 Vollstedt car is in a private museum in Portland, Oregon and is described in the Zbarsky book.
After 1965, the car was sold to Richard Compton, painted red with #44 (Compton's USAC number). I own an unfinished clone of the 1964 tube frame with no motor mounts attached, fuel tank shells with #44,Richard Compton, address and phone number written inside (much larger than the originals), bodywork and suspension parts. When Compton passed away, the frame and tanks were given to Rolla who glassed up bodywork found some left over suspension parts and sold the project to Zbarsky. It then found it's way to me. Compton obviously planned on continuing the life of the original 1964 car after 1967 and maybe someone out there has more information.

[ovfi]

I've found a beautiful picture of the Ward's restored car showed in the 2007 Monterey Historic, here is the link:
http://www.supercars...7649&first=true

[bradbury west]

Scroll the picture right and click on next picture at the top right for more marvellous shots of these Indycars Thanks for the link

Roger Lund.

[ovfi]

You're welcome Roger.
Here's the link for the 2007 Monterey Historic Indy cars page, with all cars showed:
http://www.supercars...513/1508/4.html