The LeMay, officially called America's Car Museum, opened in June 2012 under this expressive, curved roof structure of glued, laminated beams. The primary architect was Alan Grant of Los Angeles, but input on that roof also came from LARGE Architects. The roof is a bit deceptive, though, because the museum tunnels into the ground by way of ramps like the one on the left above. There are a lot of those ramps, and there's a need for them, because the LeMay displays more than 300 cars, about a tenth of the collection originally amassed by Harold LeMay, who had built a fortune in the salvage business, and his wife Nancy.
There's a rotating display of cars from the permanent collection, and there are special exhibits like the current American Supercar show which opened October 25th. There can be plenty of discussion (well, argument) about defining a supercar, but if being noticeable is a requirement, then the Oldsmobile Aerotech speed record car above checks that box. In 1987, A.J. Foyd drove it to a flying mile record of just over 267 mph. This long-tail version used a twin-turbocharged 2.3 liter four making 1,000 hp. Cabin space allowed for the driver only...
But some supercars, like the mid-engined, Ford V8 powered De Tomaso Pantera at left above, had space for 2, and were aimed more at weekend fun touring than speed records, or even weekend racing. But about 7 years before the Pantera appeared, Ford Advanced Vehicles launched the GT40 in endurance racing, hoping to win Le Mans. Ron Bradshaw's body design gave the car its name, because it was only 40 inches from the road to the top of that inward-sloping roof. All the original GT40s were right-hand drive (maybe this one was converted to LHD), because somewhat in violation of the American supercar theme, they were built in Slough, England. But their V8 engines (usually 4.7 liters) came from Detroit, and sat behind the driver and ahead of a 5-speed ZF transaxle in this Mk. I example. The Mk. II got a 4-speed manual to go with a 7 liter engine.
After Ford offered a few (very few) Mk. III road cars to prosperous customers, they built the Mk. IV below. This won Le Mans in 1967, following the 1-2-3 finish by Ford's 7 liter Mk. II in 1966, their first win at the 24 Hours. Note the narrower cabin (less room for driver and passenger) and flatter flanks. After 1967, the big 7 liter engine in the Mk. IV was banned at Le Mans. No matter; Ford won again in '68 and '69 with a 4.7 liter Mk. I, the exact same car (not just the same type of car) in both years...
Rearward vision was almost nonexistent on the Mk. IV, so the driver really got some use of those fender-mounted mirrors...
Ford built a total of 105 GT40s between 1964 and '69, but only produced a dozen of the Mk. IV chassis like this red car, of which 10 remain. Attention to everyday practicalities was minimal; note the deeply recessed license plate, which conveys no information except that the lucky owner has driven it on the street...
The car that got Ford's Total Performance program rolling in the early Sixties, though, was not a Ford, and not even made in the USA. It was an AC made in England, by 1962 a 9-year old design with a lightweight tubular chassis, 4-wheel independent suspension and disc brakes, all covered by the sweetly contoured, handmade aluminum body you see below. Carroll Shelby saw it too, and knew that AC was looking for engines as the 2-liter Bristol six had gone out of production, and their own OHC six was even older. AC, in fact had approached Daimler for their V8, but gotten turned down, so they built about 3 dozen Ace roadsters in this style with an English Ford Zephyr 6. Shelby had other ideas...
He persuaded Ford to supply some of their new lightweight V8s (initially 260, then 289 cubic inches) and installed them in the AC roadsters. As soon as he was able to make a few dozen of these, they were cleaning up in road races across the US. Henry Ford II liked this. The rest of the story has been told (reasonably well) in a movie called "Ford vs. Ferrari."
Among the cars that Shelby's AC Cobras routinely beat were Corvettes. By the time they were competing against them, they were smaller, lighter Corvettes (Stingrays) than the curvy 1956-'57 design shown in front of James Dean (who raced a Porsche) below. Still, Chevy gets credit for being the first American manufacturer to put a modern V8 in a reasonably light 2-seater with a 4-speed transmission, and for putting 4-wheel independent suspension (and eventually, 4-wheel disc brakes) in their Stingray. By contrast, Ford's 1955-'57 T-Bird had been more of a boulevard cruiser.
There are plenty of surprises on those descending ramps, and on one of them we found a German counterpart to that Corvette (well, sort of). BMW's 507 appeared in 1956 with this svelte, graceful alloy body design by Albrecht Goertz and a 3.2 liter aluminum V8. Only 253 were built before the end of 1959, but one caught Elvis Presley's eye when he was in the Army in Germany, and he bought it on the spot. Not an American supercar, perhaps, but enough for an American rock star...
Right next to that 507 was a car that had perhaps convinced BMW there was a market for an expensive 2-seater, that being the Mercedes-Benz 300SL coupe that had gone into production in 1954, after a less luxe version had won Le Mans in '52. The 300SL was quickly nicknamed Gullwing because of its upward-opening doors, necessitated by the high structural sills. The 3-liter SOHC six featured mechanical fuel injection and a swing-axle rear end, and the coupe overlapped a roadster that replaced it in 1957. The roadster had lower sills, normal doors and less charisma, but offered disc brakes before the end in 1963. Next to this Gullwing is a Mercedes 220SE convertible like the one that Cary Grant almost crashed in "North by Northwest." But we digress...
If there were any American supercars in the late Twenties and Thirties, Duesenbergs qualified. They were big, with 420 cubic inch inline 8s, but they had race-derived engineering, with dual overhead cams and four valves per cylinder decades before that became a trend. The Murphy-bodied 1930 Model J shown here makes 265 hp; the supercharged SJ made 320 in "standard" form. Standard is in quotation marks because all Dueserbergs were sold as chassis to be bodied to customer specifications by firms like Murphy, and only around 470 of the J and related SJ and JN were made in total before the end in 1937. Included in that total were 2 of the supercharged, short-chassis, 2-seater SSJ, which may be the Holy Grail of Dueseys. Oh, and Duesenbergs introduced the phrase "It's a Duesey" into American slang...
In 1914, as Europe stumbled into a catastrophic war, Americans were thinking about cars. The Stutz Bearcat below is considered by many to be America's first supercar. Specifications included a 6.4 liter inline 4-cylinder engine developing all of 60 horsepower, a 3 speed gearbox, and mechanical brakes on the rear wheels only. There were no doors and no top, but the looking glass windshield provided the driver with a bit of wind protection. One thing that got established at this early stage was that if there was ever going to be a theme for supercars, it was not going to be about practicality.
Photo Credits:
4th, 6th & 10th from top: Duncan McKenzie
Bottom: LeMay Museum on youtube.com
All other photos are by the author.
No comments:
Post a Comment