I just dragged this home last night...
http://www.modelt.org/mtfcivb/showthread.php/174-Midget-Racer
It's on a modified T frame with T springs, but everything else is later. I'm guessing it was built in the late 40s?
I don't know any history on it, but it came from the Tomah, WI area.
That is very well made. They still run those cars today but put those ugly box like wings on them along with the necessary superfluous roll bars. They call them "Outlaws" and I suppose that all of the extra parts do save lives but they are double ugly. Are you going to restore it ?
They still have a ways to go in the driver safety area, just ask Tony Stewart....
I would like to restore it, but I have several other projects that are higher on the priority list right now...
It should be fun to look for the parts to make it complete though. Having too many cars that I can order everything I need out of a catalog has made swap-meets kind of boring. This should rectify that.
That isn't the type that used the 2 cylinder engines cut in half from a 4 cylinder is it? I had a friend who had a frame and wheels similar to that. There was a Chevy cut in half, a model A and a T with half an overhead with "JO" cast in it. Wish I could have talked him out of it.
Neat find.
Rich
Nice project and interesting place!
I am wondering what this one is!
Maybe a Curtiscraft?
The one behind it looks like a Pinto modified
In fact the whole junk yard looks like it is full of old race cars because many of them have roll bars.
I added a couple pictures of it in the MTFCI thread... easier to do it there, since this forum doesn't allow img tags.
It's a sprint car that I would guess to be from the 70s???
One corner of the yard was all race cars. The owner of the yard is a well known local dirt track driver, and one of the best in the area. A lot of those were his old cars.
Some of them used ELTO two cylinder two cycle outboard motors
My plan is to use a Ford V8-60.
My brother has a V4 engine that was built for a midget in the 60s using the front half of a 425hp Chevy 409, but I know he'd never sell it to me.
It might be cool just to mock it up in there though.
A lot of midget racers used 60 hp Ford V-8s. There was a midget sized Offy engine. In Denver in '63 and '64 I saw midget racers powered by four cylinder Mercury outboard engines mounted on their sides. Boy, those Mercs really screamed.
It probably had a V860 for power originally. Neat midget race car, not a Model T though. Model T frame does not make it a Model T.
I would try to find out if it has local history and try to restore it to original authentic as raced condition. It should be eligible for vintage racing events if you do a decent job of documenting what it was originally.
If those vehicles could talk -
Can you imagine the stories they could tell?
It might be worth just sitting in that corner of the yard on a night with a full moon and see what happens.