Currently the car is intact and rolling. Some of the body work which was damaged during it's Post Indy life has been repaired.
The hood could use some work, and the lower side panels should be replaced as they are not quite correct looking. However, other than the lower side panels, the remaining sheet metal is Original!
The grille which is also a one of a kind found its way back to the car via the Hershey Swap Meet a few years ago, savings thousands in cost to reproduce a replacement. The nose will require flares over the torsion bar arms and A-Arms after the front suspension is put back to original. There are no drawings of the car or original front suspension. Arlen Kurtis has looked for drawings or parts to no avail. I do have every photo of the car from the Speedway Museum, so creating new drawings and building the new front suspension will not be a problem.
The tail was at one point shortened on the front end. This has been repaired to get it back to the original length. Otherwise the tail section is in remarkably good condition.
A new and correct fuel tank and oil tank are needed, as the originals disappeared long ago. There is a small fuel tank and oil tank which the previous owner had done in anticipation of taking the car Vintage racing. Functionally that would work, but is not correct.
As you can see from these photos, the body which, except for the four lower side panels is all original and in remarkably good condition. There is absolutely no reason to re-body the car. The seat needs some work on it to get it up the concourse condition which the rest of the body is not far from.
The dash is missing the original serial number tag, but Arlen Kurtis stamped a new one for me from the remaining stock of tags left from the "Frank Kurtis Company" S/N "KK500-H-1-58". This tag was hand stamped with the same metal stamps that Frank used in 1958. The KK500 identifies it as an Indy car. The "H" designates the year from when Kurtis started building Indy cars. The "1" identifies it as the first (in this case, the only one) built in the year specified by the "58".
The Left Front tire is probably the worst of all of the tires, with a couple of them being unused.
There is one set of tires, on the car, and one spare set of wheels, Eight total wheels go with the car. All are original Halibrand pin drive Roadster wheels. Photos show a variety of wheels used on the car, and some of the wheels in photos do not match exactly the wheels on and with the car. The Knock-Offs are used and mushroomed somewhat from use.
Left Rear Wheel and Tire.
Right Rear Wheel and Tire.
Tread of an un-used tire on the right rear. Note the mold parting line down the center of the tread.
The engine serial number tag is #209. Gordon Whites Offy book does not confirm what the correct original serial number was, and at this point is unknown.
The engine was built by Ken Hickey in the mid 1990's using many new parts which came from the close out sale when Meyer & Drake ceased production of the engines.
According to Whites book Meyer & Drake built a total of only eleven Lay Down engines (252 & 255's). All between 1957 and 1961. Serial number 209 was reported to be the last Lay Down sold, in March of 1961.
It is not know if the front engine mount was repaired, reinforced, or built that way originally, but you can see bronze welding at the junction of the two legs of the casting forward of the front of the block. There is no visible damage, so it may have been that way originally to support the weight better in the Lay-Down position.
Included but not shown in the photos:
2 spare front wheels.
2 spare rear wheels.
Starter
Gages, spare calipers and misc. other small parts.
The car is approximately 98% complete.
Click to continue exploring
the