Royale RP29 Sports Racer Project FSV

[Tiga 188]

Up for sale is my Royale RP29 which was converted to CSR in 1983 by its original owner, Jim Gauntlett, and participated in the Runoffs in '83, '85 and '88. The last race in the logbook was in '91. I bought the car in sad shape in '09 after it had sat in storage for 18 years in Connecticut (and YES, it was actually stored in a barn!). I had raced DSR & CSR in SCCA and had just began vintage racing and thought it would be neat to vintage race an older CSR. Typical with a long term project I got impatient and bought several other vintage cars to race while working on the Royale which got pushed to the back of the shop. The car has been sitting untouched for the past several years and I realize I will never finish it, so it is time to go.

The car was completely disassembled, the frame cleaned and painted, the brakes and suspension gone though (everything new or rebuilt), the 1.6L FSV motor was sent to Dennis Shaw Racesports where Dennis basically built a new engine from scratch (only the block and head were reused), the unusual Drake water/oil pump was rebuilt by Van Dyne Engineering, the Webster 5 speed was rebuilt by Apex Motorsports, a new fuel cell installed and that is pretty much where it stopped. The engine has dyno time only as I never finished plumbing the oil and water lines. Basically it is a rolling chassis in need of bodywork. I still have the original body, but it is in very tough condition and I was in the process of converting a Tiga SC82 body that I had to fit, but it would have been easier to buy a new body from Beasley to complete it.

I have a logbook for the car and recently spoke to Jim Gauntlett who was stunned to hear his car was still around. He sent me a number of period photos of the car including the wreck in '81 while it was still in FF trim that caused him to convert it to CSR. I have dumped more than $23k into the car and realize it is worth nowhere near that much. I would prefer to sell it as a project, but if I cannot get $8,000 for it (that is how much I have into the engine alone) then I will part it out. Email me for specifics and any detailed photos you might want.

Best to contact me via email since I don't get to this site very often.
Bill Ironside ironside1@rtconline.com

$8,000


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