Puzzle #334 - Solved! Hurst Floor Shift Special

[Otto Puzzell]

Know what it is?

Please, respond below and let us know the make and model designation of the car posted here.

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[ByrX]

Now THAT is a legend.

Hurst Floor Shift Special, made by Smokey Yunick for 1964 Indy 500. Driver sat on a special outboard capsule...

[rchirnom]

oh man, you just beat me to it!

[SeaLion]

  So cool!

[Allan L]

Designer must have been frightened by a Blohm & Voss 141 in infancy

[Otto Puzzell]

Now THAT is a legend.

Hurst Floor Shift Special, made by Smokey Yunick for 1964 Indy 500. Driver sat on a special outboard capsule...

Absolutely correct. Nice work - and quick work, to!!

[Tifosi]

So cool!

But it was a wicked car to drive.  Duane Carter and Bobby Johns both drove the car in practice.  Carter turned a few laps at 152 mph, which would have gotten the car into the field, but most of his laps were in the 148 range, which was too slow.  Carter was replaced by Bobby Johns, who also got up to 148, and tried to qualify the car on Bump day.  On his first warmup lap at speed, he hit the wall in the 1st turn.  The car featured a lot of one-off parts and couldn't be repaired in time to make another attempt.

In light of what happenned at the Speedway in 1964 on the 2nd lap, and knowing the approximate position of the car in the field if it had qualified, I shudder to think about what might have happenned...  The car really looks cool, but there isn't a whole lot of protection for the driver in a side impact.

The car is in the Speedway Museum...


Dan

The car is in the Speedway Museum.

[Otto Puzzell]

So cool!

But it was a wicked car to drive.  Duane Carter and Bobby Johns both drove the car in practice.  Carter turned a few laps at 152 mph, which would have gotten the car into the field, but most of his laps were in the 148 range, which was too slow.  Carter was replaced by Bobby Johns, who also got up to 148, and tried to qualify the car on Bump day.  On his first warmup lap at speed, he hit the wall in the 1st turn.  The car featured a lot of one-off parts and couldn't be repaired in time to make another attempt.

In light of what happenned at the Speedway in 1964 on the 2nd lap, and knowing the approximate position of the car in the field if it had qualified, I shudder to think about what might have happenned...  The car really looks cool, but there isn't a whole lot of protection for the driver in a side impact.

The car is in the Speedway Museum...


Dan

The car is in the Speedway Museum.

Yeah, but where is the car located?

[Joao Gois]

What engine did it use?

[Otto Puzzell]

It used an Offenhauser engine - nearly universal in Indycar racing at the time.

The Offenhauser engine, familiarly known as the "Offy", was developed by Fred Offenhauser and his employer Harry Arminius Miller, after maintaining and repairing a 1913 Peugeot Grand Prix car of the type which had won the Indianapolis 500. Impressed by the double overhead cam, four valve per cylinder design, which was a great leap forward at the time, they designed an engine on similar principles. Originally sold as a marine engine, in 1930, a four-cylinder, 151 cubic inch (2.5 L) Miller engine installed in a race car set a new international land speed record of 144.895 mph (233.186 km/h). Miller developed this engine into a twin overhead cam, four cylinder, four valve per cylinder 220 cubic inch (3.6 L) racing engine. When Miller went bankrupt in 1933, Offenhauser and another Miller employee, Leo Goossen, bought the shop and the rights to the engine, which they further developed into the Offenhauser engine.

One of the keys to the Offenhauser's success was power. A 251.92 cubic inch (4,128.29 cm³) twin-cam four-cylinder racing Offy with a 15:1 compression ratio and a 4.28125 x 4.375-inch (111.1 mm) bore and stroke, could produce 420 horsepower (313 kW) at 6,600 rpm; 1.77 horsepower (1.32 kW) per cubic inch (81 kW/L). Other variants of the engine produced up to 3 horsepower (2.2 kW) per cubic inch (137 kW/L). The Oldsmobile quad-four engine bears an uncanny resemblance to the Offenhauser unit, once the plastic covers are removed and it's bolted up to a rear wheel drive transmission. Another reason for the engine's success was reliability; unit construction (no separate cylinder head) meant the engine was not vulnerable to head gasket or cylinder stud problems and allowed for higher cylinder pressures.

From 1934 through 1960 the Offenhauser engine dominated American open wheel racing, winning the Indianapolis 500 24 times. By then, the company had already been sold, right after World War II, to Meyer-Drake, who continued to build the engines. From 1950 through 1960, Offenhauser-powered cars won the Indy 500 and achieved all three podium positions, winning the pole position in 10 of the 11 years. In 1959 Lime Rock Park held a famous Formula Libre race, where Rodger Ward shocked the expensive and exotic sports car contingent by beating them on the road course in an Offenhauser powered midget car, normally considered competitive for oval tracks only.

When Ford came on to the scene in 1963, the Offy lost its dominion over Indy car racing, although it remained competitive through the mid 1970s even with the advent of turbocharging. Before turbo boost limits, over 1,000 bhp (750 kW) could be attained using around 120 in Hg (58.9 psi) pressure. The final 2.65 litre 4 cyl Offy, restricted to 80 in Hg (39.3 psi) turbo pressure, gave 770 bhp (570 kW) at 9,000 rpm. However, the Ford Cosworth DFX soon proved to be unbeatable and the Offy's last victory came at Trenton in 1978, in the hands of Gordon Johncock's Wildcat. The last time an Offy-powered car raced was at Pocono in 1982 for the Domino's Pizza Pocono 500, in an Eagle chassis driven by Jim McElreath, although two Vollstedt chassis with Offenhauser engines failed to qualify for the 1983 Indianapolis 500.

[Joao Gois]

Quite awesome stuff you got there, Otto! Didn't know the Offy quad-4 outputted thet high! And the compression ratio is just staggering!

BTW, if it isn't asking for too much, could you answer me two questions? First, in which spec did the Hurst race? And second, Have I red correctly when they said the Olds Quad-4 was nothing but a bagged-up Offy??

Thanks in advance.

[Otto Puzzell]

Quite awesome stuff you got there, Otto! Didn't know the Offy quad-4 outputted thet high! And the compression ratio is just staggering!

BTW, if it isn't asking for too much, could you answer me two questions? First, in which spec did the Hurst race? And second, Have I red correctly when they said the Olds Quad-4 was nothing but a bagged-up Offy??

Thanks in advance.

I think the Quad-4 claim is hyperbole. Among the differences, one very basic difference was the Offy head was cast as a unit with the (iron) block; the Olds engine was iron block / aluminum head.

In this car, the normally aspirated Offy engine had a 4.735 bore and a 4.189 stroke, for a displacement of 251.9 cubic inches.

Here's a nice side view of the Floor Shift Special

[D-type]

Designer must have been frightened by a Blohm & Voss 141 in infancy

Believe it or not, that might well be true.  I have read somewhere that Smokey Yunick served in the USAF in Europe  during World War 2 and did see a strange Geman aircraft that later inspired the "sidecar"

[Allemano]

[D-type]

I think many will have heard of this car referred to by its usual nickname so for a point tell me:

What is its official name?
Who designed it?
What did he call it?
Who built it?
When?

[D-type]

No interest from the rookies    So it's up to the experts.

[Zerk]

The Hurst Floor Shift Special, built and designed by Smokey Yunick. He called it the Capsule Car. It debuted at Indianapolis in 1964.

[D-type]

Spot on - on all 4 counts.   
A point is on its way to you.

[Zerk]

Thank you!

[nicanary]

This is a re-post. I'll merge them when I get a chance.

Merged.

[D-type]

This is a re-post. I'll merge them when I get a chance.

Merged.

Sorry - I did do a search before posting but didn't find this post.

[nicanary]

This is a re-post. I'll merge them when I get a chance.

Merged.

Sorry - I did do a search before posting but didn't find this post.

I wouldn't worry. It happens to me all the time.