Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you get something
else thrown at you. Sitting abandoned
and rotting, I’ve seen muscle cars, classic cars, trucks, foreign cars, and
more, but even after all that, now I see a racecar. Sitting in the location known as “The Gabel
Collection”, I have for you a 1963 Formula Vee Formcar Racecar.
I’ll start off my saying that despite its dirty and grungy appearance,
the owner told me this car does run. However,
we couldn’t verify that because the ignition had been previously taken
out. It still looks like it’s in decent
shape. Unlike others in the collection,
this car was mostly covered with tarp.
Most of the parts on this car came from the Volkswagen beetle including
the 1200cc engine, four speed gear box, and modified suspension parts. I was shocked to learn that this car makes
only 40 horsepower. That’s it! However, it does weight only 1040
pounds. With that engine and a driver,
it’s still enough to get the car up to around 120 miles per hour.
The construction of this car is very simple like you would
expect in a racecar. It has a tubular
metal frame, fiberglass body, and doesn’t have anything it doesn’t need.
For the Formula Vee races, traction control and any type of
limited slip differential was not allowed.
As for tires, the only rubber allowed were special tires made for the
races by Dunlop. No other tire could be used for the official races.
Before left to sit in its current state, the owner said he
used to race this car. It would have
been cool to hear this thing fire up so I can image what it would have sounded
like buzzing down the track, but seeing it will have to suffice. Even though now, we see it rotting in style.
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