Some More Green, the 1931 Studebaker Indy Special
Winning the Pike's Peak race, and placing 6th at Indy, this car went to auction with $6-700,000 estimates, and actually sold for $1.1 Million! Gorgeously restored, this image is from Laguna Seca, and the owner/driver let us sit in it with the Imposing steering wheel dominating your vision.
'As early as 1929, Ab Jenkins set his sights on Indy, but it wasn't until 1931 that he took his best shot. He'd already known George Hunt, Studebaker's testing chief, from his time racing Studebakers in endurance runs in the late Twenties, and according to Gordon Eliot White's "Ab & Marvin Jenkins: The Studebaker Connection and the Mormon Meteors," Studebaker owed Jenkins for his expenses, so he cashed in that IOU in the form of off-the-shelf Studebaker Commander axles, hardware, and a Commander 337-cu.in. straight-eight engine.
He and Hunt then took the lot over to Indianapolis-based Herman Rigling, who built one of his Indy chassis around the components and slid it under a Pop Dreyer-built aluminum body. Somebody - most likely Hunt - spent the time massaging the nine-main-bearing straight-eight with a 6.5:1 compression ratio aluminum cylinder head, four Studebaker truck carburetors, a Scintilla magneto, and a reground camshaft to bump the stock engine's output from 110 to 175 horsepower.
They built the car according to the so-called "junk formula" template that Eddie Rickenbacker initiated for the 1930 Indy 500. Over the prior 20 years, the race entries had grown ever more exotic, expensive, and removed from the vehicles that carmakers offered. In an attempt to lure those carmakers back to supporting Indy, Rickenbacker increased allowable engine displacement from 91.5 cubic inches to 366 cubic inches for heavier, naturally aspirated four-stroke engine-vehicle combinations and re-instituted the riding mechanic.
Jenkins's illness forced him and Hunt to find another driver, Indy veteran Tony Gulotta, who qualified in the No. 37 car at 111 MPH. Along with riding mechanic Carl Riscigno, Gulotta turned in a spectacular performance. While they started in the middle of the pack, according to The Old Motor, Guletta was given the signal to run flat our with 80 laps to go then "passed 18 cars in the next 46 laps and was running in first place when he hit a patch of oil left over from a crash, and went into the wall ending its run." The two men walked away unscathed and Gulotta was credited with 18th place.
Hunt took the car straight back to South Bend to repair it before entering it - still wearing No. 37 - in that year's Pikes Peak hillclimb. While White makes mention of Jenkins's involvement in the car throughout this period, Pikes Peak records list the car as the Hunt Special and another driver, Chuck Myers, drove the car in the event. Myers did well too, beating out Jerry Unser and Glen Shultz with a time of 17 minutes, 10.3 seconds, good enough for an overall win and a course record.'
thanks to Hemming's Motor News.
Double click on the image to enlarge for details
Some More Green, the 1931 Studebaker Indy Special
Winning the Pike's Peak race, and placing 6th at Indy, this car went to auction with $6-700,000 estimates, and actually sold for $1.1 Million! Gorgeously restored, this image is from Laguna Seca, and the owner/driver let us sit in it with the Imposing steering wheel dominating your vision.
'As early as 1929, Ab Jenkins set his sights on Indy, but it wasn't until 1931 that he took his best shot. He'd already known George Hunt, Studebaker's testing chief, from his time racing Studebakers in endurance runs in the late Twenties, and according to Gordon Eliot White's "Ab & Marvin Jenkins: The Studebaker Connection and the Mormon Meteors," Studebaker owed Jenkins for his expenses, so he cashed in that IOU in the form of off-the-shelf Studebaker Commander axles, hardware, and a Commander 337-cu.in. straight-eight engine.
He and Hunt then took the lot over to Indianapolis-based Herman Rigling, who built one of his Indy chassis around the components and slid it under a Pop Dreyer-built aluminum body. Somebody - most likely Hunt - spent the time massaging the nine-main-bearing straight-eight with a 6.5:1 compression ratio aluminum cylinder head, four Studebaker truck carburetors, a Scintilla magneto, and a reground camshaft to bump the stock engine's output from 110 to 175 horsepower.
They built the car according to the so-called "junk formula" template that Eddie Rickenbacker initiated for the 1930 Indy 500. Over the prior 20 years, the race entries had grown ever more exotic, expensive, and removed from the vehicles that carmakers offered. In an attempt to lure those carmakers back to supporting Indy, Rickenbacker increased allowable engine displacement from 91.5 cubic inches to 366 cubic inches for heavier, naturally aspirated four-stroke engine-vehicle combinations and re-instituted the riding mechanic.
Jenkins's illness forced him and Hunt to find another driver, Indy veteran Tony Gulotta, who qualified in the No. 37 car at 111 MPH. Along with riding mechanic Carl Riscigno, Gulotta turned in a spectacular performance. While they started in the middle of the pack, according to The Old Motor, Guletta was given the signal to run flat our with 80 laps to go then "passed 18 cars in the next 46 laps and was running in first place when he hit a patch of oil left over from a crash, and went into the wall ending its run." The two men walked away unscathed and Gulotta was credited with 18th place.
Hunt took the car straight back to South Bend to repair it before entering it - still wearing No. 37 - in that year's Pikes Peak hillclimb. While White makes mention of Jenkins's involvement in the car throughout this period, Pikes Peak records list the car as the Hunt Special and another driver, Chuck Myers, drove the car in the event. Myers did well too, beating out Jerry Unser and Glen Shultz with a time of 17 minutes, 10.3 seconds, good enough for an overall win and a course record.'
thanks to Hemming's Motor News.
Double click on the image to enlarge for details