Chaparral

[Mike from Vegas]

What are all of your opinions on Jim Hall's Chapparal Can Am cars. Personally, I love them. I find his aproach to races to be brilliant.

[Bruce B]

One of the true visionaries in motor racing. Moveable wings, banned, snowmobile engines to suck the air from beneath the car, banned. His cars are the reason I began to follow motor racing. He sought the solution to not being allowed to use those snow mobile engines, and voila, ground effects. Automatic trans in a race car, yep. Anything, everything, he tried it. Most worked. Brilliant, legendary, and definitely the golden age of road racing.

[Chris Ardern]

It is truly amazing the influence Jim Hall had on our sport. To think of the changes he brought about in motor racing. My favorite Chaparral story was about the time they didn't show for the first Can-Am race an St Jovite amidst the rumors. Then they missed the first day of practice at Bridgehampton 2 weeks later. Late in the afternoon two 2E's show up in the distance on open trailers. Can you imagine that. Everyone going "what the?" That was it. Racing from that point would never be the same. There's a picture of Bruce McLaren checking out the wing with a look on his face that is absolutely priceless. What Jim Hall started that day has kept the rule makers busy since.
Chris
Historic Race Car Replicas

[Mark Worthington]

Agreed, wonderful cars and a visionary motorsports legend in Jim Hall. I get the impression from reading about the endurance races in the 60s that the well-funded Ford teams were scared to death of the Chaparrals.

[FRPGUY]

Chris, I was there that day at Bridgehampton pit crewing for Sam Posey, and I was also saying; "What the ?". It was truly an amazing day. I only got a few pictures.
I met Jill Hall a few years later working on Graham McRae's F5000 car. Jim was doing his magic to Brian Redman's Lola back then. I liked all the Chaparrals!

[Dick Bear]

I second and third everything already said!

What Bruce McLaren accomplished in winning Jim Hall accomplished in originality and vision.

I wish we could bring back (or re-establish) an all out, now bars held, race what you brought series today. It's never been like it since.

Dick Bear

[Mike from Vegas]

I was thinking that it is a shame that all of the modern racing bodies have such restrictive rules that new cars like the Chaparrals can no longer be made and run. Motorsport used to contribute technology to the art (i.e. spoilers). Imagine what racing would be like with cars like the 2J (the one with the snow mobile engine underneath for ground effects) running around.

[JohnC]

Do you suppose we could convince the "other" Mr. Hall to do a 2F replica, sans wing?

Wouldn't that be a nice addition to the other race car replicas......

[Fran Hall RCR]

RCR's guys helped make some of the parts on the first of the current 2E continuation cars...I have talked with Jim about replicas and he is not very keen at this point of his career.....continuation cars are a different matter all together...and a different price too!!!!!!

[Mike from Vegas]

Did someone say 2E!? I read an article in Road and Track about the history and mechanical aspects of the 2C's and 2E's. A Chapparal fan was born. I like the wing, especialy the movable detail. Its also too bad that there are no 2J replicas (I wonder how it would perform around LeMans...). It's a crying shame that Jim Hall wouldn't grant Fran permission for replicas, especialy hearing of the quality of the RCR product.

[Chris Ardern]

Bill,
You're the one that told me that story. Good stuff, thanks Buddy.
Dick,
You hit it on the head, the relationship Jim Hall and Bruce McLaren had was really the magic of the early Can Am.

As far as those days being over...They're not. That same theatre for raw innovation is still alive and well in this replica business. I was walking through the little corner of the Carlisle Fairgrounds where on about 3 acres, the Kit Car Industry was represented. I thought to myself, thank the Lord they haven't stopped this. In spite of all the rules and regulations and restrictions and whatever, we can still do this. We can still hand build a car that will sound just as awesome and give us the same thrill that Jim Hall and Bruce McLaren had. That is awesome.
Chris
Historic Race Car Replicas

[Howard Jones]

My favorite 3 cars of all time are the M8F, GT40 mk1, Lotus 49. With the Hall/Rutherford pennzoil Indy-car from 1981? a close 4th and the lotus 79 right there also. I would think however that if rules in these 3 categories were in place today then all three resulting cars would be undriveable.

M8F....no limmit on displacement of method of boost. Enough said... But I am sure Jim could get 2500 hp from a 427 on 2.5 bar. AND we haven't even begun to talk about fuel. The rocket crap they used to use in F1 just a few years ago was worth 200HP over regular race gas. If you breathed it you died.

GT40... again no engine displacement limmit and nearly no areo limits. 275mph down the Mulsane....300???? Turbine engine @ 3000hp?

F1.....Jeese can you imagine 3000hp, 20000lbs of down-force...there's no limmit really. They had 3000lb springs on EACH corner 20 years ago because the cars had so much down-force then.

And to carry on the thought... Indy..300MPH laps? Hell the record is 237ish and that was with about 1000HP and at the very beginning of the development of ground effects. Today....nobody could drive the cars.

Run what you brung? How about a set of rules drawn up to spec a M8F..... Now we are talking. For that matter how about F1 cars specked to a Lotus 49? Then we would find out who can drive.

[Mike from Vegas]

I suppose that a series with less rules would be similar to your projected scenario, Howard, but the dangers presented would probably "inspire" new advancements in tires, ground effects, and general safety. I think that it was good that there were no displacement limits (at least in Can Am), because it allowed for diffferent aproaches to a race. For example, a car with a smaller engine is probably lighter, therefore it can corner and brake better (assuming the suspersion is properly tuned). A car with a larger engine can go faster on the straights and come out of corners faster, but its weight disadvantage limits its braking and cornering.

[ChrisL]

Originally Posted by Imaginary '40

... "inspire" new advancements in tires, ground effects, and general safety. ...

The only problem with this idea as I see it is that the designers would be at odds with human endurance. F1 cars of today already create enough G force under braking to cause blurred vision in the drivers. With no rules, the trick would be to design a car that takes the car right up to the limits of human endurance but not over. They would be treading a very fine line and inadvertently tripping over that line could be as simple as getting the weather forecast wrong.



FYI The Chaparral 2D is available on Play Station's Grand Turismo

[Dick Bear]

That's a very good point Chrisl,

I was thinking about this yesterday and pretended that there weren't any rules. What would it look like out there? Extreme use of ground effects and aero quickly came to mind. Remember it did result in an up surge in fatal accidents prior to being ruled off imits in F1. During Can-Am's hayday the science of Ground Effects had only begun to be understood.

I'd have to agree with Chrisl that the designs created by the engineers might (no doubt would) conflict with the survival of the drivers and that's not good for anyone or racing as a sport and profession.

To Imaginary '40's point about big , small and light or heavy, I just received a DVD from a friend featuring the Can-Am team of Oscar Koveleski's efforts. In his interesting narrative he mentioned how due to the size of those huge engines the gyro-effect created by the moving parts inside the power plants physically effected the handling as the driver cometed with the engine for control of the cars. The "gyro" (engine parts) wanted to hold its course like gyros are suppose to do, while the driver wanted to turn. Consequently, there was as much competition within the car as there was on the track. Today's engineering advancements in engine design and materials used allows for the same, and far greater, power achieved in power packages 1/3 the size.

If there were a way to eliminate the the rules from racing without sudstantially increasing the dangers to drivers it would be a perfect world. I can't see that as realistic when the whole purpose of racing is speed over distance and as soon as you increase the speed with better, more powerful engines, suspensions and the harnessing of the wind above and beneath the car, when something happens the increased speed attained wrecks mens' bodies 'cause the ground and other structures stop them too quickly.

So.... after my afternoon of imagining what it would be like without rules I came to the conclusion that due to the capabilities already realized ... we probably will never see anything like the unlimited Can-Am rule book again. That, in itself, makes that part of racing history extrodinary and something to charish!!!

Cheers,

Dick Bear

[Mark Worthington]

Here's the brilliant idea I concocted a few months ago along the lines in which this discussion is progressing. Given the huge amount of money sponsors are throwing at race teams, particularly F1, I would like to see a team build a no-holds-barred car designed from a clean sheet of paper to achieve one goal: attain the lap record at a given track. This would likely require different cars for different tracks. No competitors running at the same time means the sponsor gets his name, and nobody else's, out in front of the public, and on the track record statistics. No restrictions on weight, horsepower, powertrain layout, active aerodynamics, tires, or anything. I think there'd be a lot of F1 technology without the open cockpit or open wheels. And while there might not be wheel-to-wheel competition (not that there's much of that in F1 today anyway) there would indeed be competition for track lap records, and the emphasis would be placed where it really belongs - among the designers and fabricators and amongst the really skinny drivers.

[Chris Ardern]

From my point of view I thing racing peaked in the early 80's. Above Howard was talking about 3000lb springs and unbearable g loads. That was it. Car construction was still pretty open until then. Race car development was basically an evolving balancing act between downforce and horsepower. I remember reading an article in Road and Track years ago about the 917-30 and Porsches definition of a race car. It went something like this. "A race car is a downforce device, and the drag associated with this downforce is simply overcome by a horsepower device of irrepressable force." Downforce really started in 1956 when Michael May put a wing over his Porsche 550. It was outlawed before it raced. All efforts were put into slippery shapes until a spoiler on a Ferrari, a wing again, now on a Chaparral with enough horsepower to make it work. Wings start evolving, in 1 year cars went 30 mph faster when wings were allowed at Indy. Then ground effects. Now we're at the end of the 70's. What do they do now. Turbochargers to overcome the downforce that has become enbearable. 1982 or there about skirts are outlawed. That was it. That was the peak of race car performance. Since then all racing has been is a rules contest. Racing has become a battle of wits between rule makers and rule interpreters. Now I know that's not completely true but as far as the big picture, it is. All someone would have to do is take Nelson Piquet's BMW Brabham with full skirts, put some tire off an ALMS car on it and the driver would be the limit of the lap time. That car would go faster than the driver could bear.
I Love Racing,
Chris
Historic Race Car Replicas

[Chris Ardern]

From my point of view I thing racing peaked in the early 80's. Above Howard was talking about 3000lb springs and unbearable g loads. That was it. Car construction was still pretty open until then. Race car development was basically an evolving balancing act between downforce and horsepower. I remember reading an article in Road and Track years ago about the 917-30 and Porsches definition of a race car. It went something like this. "A race car is a downforce device, and the drag associated with this downforce is simply overcome by a horsepower device of irrepressable force." Downforce really started in 1956 when Michael May put a wing over his Porsche 550. It was outlawed before it raced. All efforts were put into slippery shapes until a spoiler on a Ferrari, a wing again, now on a Chaparral with enough horsepower to make it work. Wings start evolving, in 1 year cars went 30 mph faster when wings were allowed at Indy. Then ground effects. Now we're at the end of the 70's. What do they do now. Turbochargers to overcome the downforce that has become enbearable. 1982 or there about skirts are outlawed. That was it. That was the peak of race car performance. Since then all racing has been is a rules contest. Racing has become a battle of wits between rule makers and rule interpreters. Now I know that's not completely true but as far as the big picture, it is. All someone would have to do is take Nelson Piquet's BMW Brabham with full skirts, put some tire off an ALMS car on it and the driver would be the limit of the lap time. That car would go faster than the driver could bear.
I Love Racing,
Chris
Historic Race Car Replicas

[Chris Ardern]

I'm sitting here Saturday morning, licking my wounds with a feeling of acomplishment. Tuesday when we open, Active Power Inc. will begin production on our 2D FIA Coupe. This project started in 1999 when there was a press release showing a 2D Replica in Kit Car Magazine. Joe Korkin had actually created a replica of the Chaparral 2D from 3 D Modeling Software. After years of on again off again negotiating with Joe, I was finally able to pry the project from him lock stock and barrel. I've poured every extra waking moment I've had into this project and am pleased to say it's ready. (Almost) I appreciated Frans note above because I approached Jim Hall about a licencing agreemment too with the same response but he was gracious to me and just made it clear he didn't want it marketed as a "Chaparral"
We're building the first production kit right now and are planning to be at as many Sports Car and Vintage Races as we can in 2007. We'll look forward to hopefully seeing GT40's.com members at the Events.
Happy New Year
Chris
Historic Race Car Replicas