14 replies to this topic

[Cheater]

As I think I've stated before, one of my very favorite old car sites is David Geenlees' The Old Motor. The quality of historical information on the automotive world consistently presented there is outstanding and unmatched by virtually any other wesbite I frequent.
 
Monday's feature was part 2 of a look at just about the most iconic race car in all of American racing history: the 1906 Locomobile known as "Old 16", which won the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup with George Robertson behind the wheel.
 

 

 
The car, which carries a 990 cubic inch, 120 HP, four-cylinder engine, is largely unrestored but is still in running condition*. Unlike most race cars, Old 16's racing career ended with the Vanderbilt Race, as it was afterwards transported around the US for publicity purposes and then found its way into the hands of its designer, Andrew L. Riker, who kept it on his farm in Connecticut. The car eventually passed to the famous automotive artist Peter Helck, who owned it until his death in 1988. The car now resides in the Henry Ford Museum, a fitting home for such a historic vehicle, which some have termed "The Greatest American Racing Car."
 
* Small cracks were discovered at the top of several of Old 16's cylinders after the car arrived at the Henry Ford and though it is likely they've been present for years, and would not effect the running of the engine, the museum has decided for now that Old 16 will no longer be regularly operated.
 
Here's a LINK to part 1 of The Old Motor's Old 16 series.

[Cheater]

Here's a short video by Academy Award winning film maker Sue Marks narrated by the late Paul Newman, who was no slouch behind the wheel of a racing car.

[TSR]

Qualifying "Old 16" of being the greatest American racing car might be pushing the ball a bit too far today, but was accurate in 1906. Today, I can think of a half-dozen cars that deserve the qualifier a bit more than this fantastic Locomobile, from the Duesenberg that won the 1921 French GP to the Miller-8 that won the Indy 500 and so many other races to the Watson-Offy that dominated the 1960s to the Eagle-Offy that dominated the 1970s.
 

Nevertheless it is a great racing car and especially an amazing survivor, and few racing cars have endured over a century without losing their originality that this timewarp machine still retains.

 

You can see it running here:

 

 

I have a signed print by the late Peter Helck of his great painting, depicting the car winning the Vanderbilt Cup:

 

[Cheater]

P,

 

Of course, that wasn't my claim; I just repeated it. But I think the case could easily be made for it to be on the very short list of contenders.

[TSR]

Absolutely. The quote was of course from 1906!
 
About Peter Helck who was Old # 16's owner for many years:
 

Peter Helck (1893-1988) was an American illustrator who specialized in depicting racecars. He estimated that he had produced more than 600 sketches, drawings and paintings during his career. Helck developed an early interest in automobiles, and as a boy caught rides with the race car driver who tested Simplex cars. He attended the Vanderbilt Cup on Long Island in 1906. He studied art in New York City, where he could observe the new automobiles displayed in showrooms. His first sale was to the Brighton Beach Motordrome, and he was soon receiving commissions from the Sheepshead Bay Speedway.

Helck worked for many of the major automobile magazines, in particular The Autocar, which took him to England and to major races in France and Italy. In the 1930s Helck was commissioned by the Sinclair Oil Company to produce a large format road map. This map did much to build Sinclair's reputation and to promote driving for pleasure.

In the mid-1940s he was commissioned by Esquire magazine for eight paintings depicting early motor racing. These did much to further interest in the old car hobby.

In 1941 Helck acquired the famous Locomobile Old 16 racecar, which had won the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup, the first American-made car to win a race against international competition. Helck kept the car in its original paint. Old 16 was given to Helck's son Jerry, who later sold it to the Henry Ford Museum.

Helck was one of the founding faculty for the Famous Artists School. He also wrote and illustrated many articles, along with two books, The Checkered Flag and Great Auto Races.

 
I am very lucky to own no less than four original sketches by Peter, that  Briggs Cunningham gave to me when he closed his museum, plus the print of Old 16 signed by Helck. I treasure them along with my four original paintings by the late Frederic Gordon-Crosby, one of the greatest British automotive artists of the 20th century.

[MG Brown]

I would vote for the 1968 Eagle being certainly one of the great American built racing cars. The so called Mk V Eagle was an Indy "500" winner (3 of the top 4 finishers in the 1968 race were Eagles), the 1968 Champ Car series winner, a F-5000 race/championship winner, and dang beautiful to boot. Tony Southgate's design was competitive for many years after that in both oval and road racing events.

 

 

[Dennis David]

Peter Helck AND Gordon Crosby? You are very lucky to have those. I can only own several books on both.

Interesting fact (or fiction) is that he often painted racing scenes he did not actually witness in person. A great illustrator all the same.

[TSR]

Dennis, this is correct of course since he was unable to attend all these races... but he was very good at imagining them in color from period B & W pictures published in newsprint! 

I have four of the Gordon-Crosby caricatures published in "The Motor" (in black & white, no color!) in the 1930s. One of Dick Seaman in the Delage, one of Capt George Eyston in the Magic Midget, one of John Cobb in the massive Railton (with Pat Driscoll in his diminutive Austin 7 providing a strong contrast in sizes!), and the winning Riley of Ed McClure at the TT.
 
They are really hard to photograph because they were framed and glazed in the 1930s and I am not about to undo them!
 
Here is a sample:
 

 
I got them in the "Motor archives" auction in London in 1990. I wanted some of the other paintings but the prices were over my financial means... even then.
 
I agree that Old 16 at this time, should not be run until there is enough funds to PROPERLY rebuild the engine with new liners (leave everything else alone!) while preserving its patina. It is important for future generations (and hopefully there will not be in America, a radical administration that will decide, as in China in 1946, that "all bourgeois thought and artifacts must be destroyed") that it would be kept in running condition.
 
The radical Chinese administration under Mao Tse Tung, the hero of American youth in college dorms, destroyed an estimated 90% of all historical artifacts, some of them over 4,000 years old, during his tragic tenure, not counting the estimated 100 million murdered for impure thoughts.
 
It is important that younger American generation be made aware of their histoty, and that includes automotive history since without the invention and advent of the automobile, we would not be here to talk about it.

[Dennis David]

At Berkeley it was all about the Albanian People's worker party. Mao was considered a revisionist.

[TSR]

 
And all this time I thought that they all lived in UC Santa Cruz!

[chaparrAL]

Was it not in '64 or' 65 Team Chaparral won something like 20 of 24 sportscar races? Then won at Sebring?
 


The two team cars where very different cars, one with a fiberglass frame, and the GM-made aluminum one. These evolved into later race-winning coupe FIA GT winners at Nürburgring and Brands Hatch.

And did not we all lust after 1/24 versions by Cox and BZ, and HO by Aurora?

[TSR]

The two team cars where very different cars, one with a fiberglass frame, and the GM-made aluminum one.

Not exactly. The two 1964 team cars had the same composite (fiberglass, marine plywood and Araldite resin) tubs. Three of these tubs were ever built, one never used until the cars were restored in the late 1980s.

One of the 1964 cars used a Chevy 327, the other (driven mostly by Sharp) a small 3.5-liter Oldsmobile engine (that one is the one with the exhaust above the body and pointing back). The two cars evolved in 1965, gaining coke-bottle bodies, wider 'wire" wheels, and still with the same tubs and now both with Chevy engines, and Hall won the USRRC championship with one.
 
By the end of the year, an aluminum tub supplied by GM and identical to that of an experimental car called the GSIIB was sent to Midland and the sole Chaparral 2C was built with it. After Hall crashed it and hurt himself, that was repaired and another tub was copied and built to make the two 2E that would race in 1966.

The two 1965 open cars with composite tubs were converted into two 2D coupes for endurance racing.

[Hworth08]

A 990 cu. in. four-cylinder sounds incredible! I've seen a few 900+ inch diesel engines like what's in 18-wheelers and the pistons and cranks are giant compared to small block gas engines. Just guessing but the pistons in that big honker might have 16 inch or so in diameter!

 

Car Model wrote an article on the Chaparrals probably in 1966. Oscar K. of Auto World was on the trip so the article was probably correct. I was surprised at how "mild" the Chevy engines were. Stock cranks and pistons though Chevy had some good forged one at that time. Those type cars "went wild" in a short time.

[S.O. Watt]

Shouldn't overlook the Ford program to win Lemans. I would think that the Mk2 and Mk 4 would have to be up there on the greatest American list.

[Gator Bob]

Or the MK-Ultra program.