Building a 1960s-style F1/Indy Racer

[LastOfTheLateBrakers]

A few of my friends and I, as a project, were planning to construct an open-wheeled, 1960s style F1/Indy racing car. We were planning to construct the vehicle from scratch, and we are seeking guidance and help from the knowledgeable veterans here at ApexSpeed. We want to build either a Lotus 49 style, rear engined racing car or a Watson Indy-style, front engined roadster. We all hope to one day become engineers at racing teams, and since all the great racing car designers, Gordon Murray, Bruce McLaren, Colin Chapman, among others have all designed and built their own racing cars, we thought we would try it as well. We seek advice and guidance, and also would like to know of any racing championships we could enter such a car in. Thank you.

[t walgamuth]

It is a huge task to take on to build a race car from scratch. Since you would like to race it I suggest you choose a class and buy a project car that will qualify to run in a particular class. This will support the value of the car should you decide to sell in the future.

Good luck with your project!

[chrisw52]

you should reach out to benbeames here on apex speed.

he built this from scratch, every rivet hand laid. He designed the car himself. It's a very impressive piece of work. This video is run #1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2LBPXwxPXU

[DanW]

My friend Ben Beames did almost exactly that. He cloned the Lotus 38 Indy car, mocking it up first from corrugated plastic board and then with aluminum. He uses it exclusively for autocross and track days. It would not pass the SCCA GCR requirements. He uses a smallblock Ford coupled to an Audi transaxle. Ben is a videographer so that's how he documented his builds. It was not an unreasonable cost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOAdkje2AII
https://www.facebook.com/ben.beames

[Rick Kirchner]

look for 50s, 60's indy car/open well groups on FB. There are a couple of guys in Indy building Watson copies with Alfa motors $$$$$. If you don't care about absolute period correctness, (like halibrand kidney mag wheels) then a lot of sprint car/dirt car stuff is at your disposal.

I believe one of the best builders is Gary Mondscheim.

Another way is to buy a wingless sprint car frame set up for dirt (no offset) and stretch the frame about 18" (that's the difference roughly between champ dirt and sprint car wheelbases. That leaves room for the transmission. If you get a non-downtube sprinter you can just cut the cage off and do a 60's roll bar in the back.

There's a Facebook group catering to street legal dirt cars. Dozens of them back east mostly.

[t walgamuth]

My friend Ben Beames did almost exactly that. He cloned the Lotus 38 Indy car, mocking it up first from corrugated plastic board and then with aluminum. He uses it exclusively for autocross and track days. It would not pass the SCCA GCR requirements. He uses a smallblock Ford coupled to an Audi transaxle. Ben is a videographer so that's how he documented his builds. It was not an unreasonable cost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOAdkje2AII
https://www.facebook.com/ben.beames

That car looks very nice! What class is he autocrossing in? A mod?

[S Lathrop]

A few of my friends and I, as a project, were planning to construct an open-wheeled, 1960s style F1/Indy racing car. We were planning to construct the vehicle from scratch, and we are seeking guidance and help from the knowledgeable veterans here at ApexSpeed. We want to build either a Lotus 49 style, rear engined racing car or a Watson Indy-style, front engined roadster. We all hope to one day become engineers at racing teams, and since all the great racing car designers, Gordon Murray, Bruce McLaren, Colin Chapman, among others have all designed and built their own racing cars, we thought we would try it as well. We seek advice and guidance, and also would like to know of any racing championships we could enter such a car in. Thank you.

All of the designers you list built cars to compete in specific race car classes. In short they built cars that were tested against similar cars. Today FV, FF, F500, F600 would be road racing classes that you could test you design skills.

Acquiring some driving experience will help you immensely as a race engineer. I worked as a race car engineer as well as designing and building race cars. As a race car engineer, it was my driving experience that helped me the most in working with drivers to understand what they were feeling as they drove a car. I raced FV and FF before I built my first race car, an air-cooled FSV. That car was very successful, especially on oval tracks.

[fvracerone1]

Coming to America....

https://www.carsales.com.au/editoria...s-near-120210/

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...&theater&ifg=1

[DD16]

OMG! I gotta see one of these!

[S Lathrop]

OMG! I gotta see one of these!

Remember F5000. I can remember being passie by a F5000, it was an experience feeling the pulses of a big V8 coming up behind you.

[Rick Iverson]

Remember F5000. I can remember being passed by a F5000, it was an experience feeling the pulses of a big V8 coming up behind you.

Yep. I remember Donnybrook, circa 1973, and Jerry Hansen in his Lola T330/332 F5000. Of course we only had seven (7) race groups back then. Lived you life in your mirrors.

V/r

Iverson

[E1pix]

Knew your name sounded familiar, Rick... What did you run back then?

You might mean 1974... track was still closed in 1973. I won the bicycle race at lunch on Sunday, a lap at 5:51. Go easy, I was 13.

I started a long friendship with Hermie (Johnson) that weekend. He was in a Titan Mk6C in FF.

[Pi_guy]

A few of my friends and I, as a project, were planning to construct an open-wheeled, 1960s style F1/Indy racing car. We were planning to construct the vehicle from scratch, and we are seeking guidance and help from the knowledgeable veterans here at ApexSpeed. We want to build either a Lotus 49 style, rear engined racing car or a Watson Indy-style, front engined roadster. We all hope to one day become engineers at racing teams, and since all the great racing car designers, Gordon Murray, Bruce McLaren, Colin Chapman, among others have all designed and built their own racing cars, we thought we would try it as well. We seek advice and guidance, and also would like to know of any racing championships we could enter such a car in. Thank you.

I could name a number of cars that had been constructed here on LI by well know racing names. But the catch all is they were built to a current set of rules at the time.

If you want to follow your dream go to a college with a FSAE team get involved and put your name on that before you go looking for a race engineers job.