Went to the Petroleum Museum in Midland Texas on Saturday for the grand opening of the Chaparral Wing. Jim Hall drove one of the cars from the shop to the Museum, Vic Elford, Phil Hill and Brain Redman were in attendance.

from shop

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xxxxx

dirt trash

Phil Hill

inside

The pics of the Chaparral made my spine tingle. I recall seeing them run at GreenValley in north FT. Worth when I was a kid.

Mark,

There is a NorTx person who needs some generic 914 parts in the WTB part of the classifieds. He is in Plano.. can you help him out ?


B

sucker car

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ch2

sucker rear

pipes

lemans

vic and brian

at old shop

at shop

those are awesome! I like how the last car has a plate on it.
What's up with the sucker?
Was Phil Hill crusty? Everytime I see an interview with him he seems like the crustiest guy ever.

The car with the plate was driven to the musum. (Plate was for show) 1965 plate yeap Phils crusty to say the least.

Thanks for the great pix! I have a slot car of the 66 high winged car... Yes I am 37 years old

OMG!! Did a Ferrari owner purposefully park their new Red in the DIRT?!?!

Me too

While on the subject of Jim Hall and Texas, what's up with Rattlesnake Raceway these days? Anyone been out there? http://www.silhouet.com/motorsport/tracks/...s/rattlesn.html

Andy

At the risk of showing my age, this is from Candlestick park. By the way, Phil Hill was there too in a new version of the Cobra. Shelby had built the 427 and the car was entered by S&C Ford from the East Bay. He had a cat and mouse battle with Don Wester (from Monterey) who was driving a 904. Naturally the Cobra was a monster on the long straights but the Porsche would catch up and run close on the infield. Wester won when the Ford broke.

Sigh................ Watching them all run thru the Esses at Riverside........

And the 2J Sucker - wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

All we ever had was a McLaren M8E.

I am a BIG Chaparral fan. I need to get to the museum soon. Those days in Can-Am were the best. Big name drivers, big purses and TRUELY ground breaking car designs. I have most of the cars in model except for 2J. Thanks for the pics, they are already my wallpaper.
Old Dad in INDY

seems like alot of us had/have chaparral slot cars. me too.

I have always been a Chaparral fan, too. I saw the Chaparral collection at the Amelia Island Concours (near Jacksonville, FL) last year, where Jim Hall was the honored guest. The cars were shown inside a ballroom and I thought they were beautiful. There was a Chaparral Mk I in the group. They also had five Grand Sport Corvettes on display. Fantastic!

One thing that surprised me was how small the Chaparrals were compared to todays LeMans prototypes. Even the 2J sucker looked compact, and it always looks big and bulky in photos.

Of course, my camera flash decided to die that day! SOB! No photos.

I guess I'll have to drive to Texas now.

Mike

Yeah and he left the windows open. This was on Friday, on Sat it was on display with some other local cars.

Wow, great pictures! Some of those wings would make the ricer crowd jealous! And whats up with the Jesus fish on the back of the Enzo? I guess at 200+ mph having a close relationship with Jesus might be a bonus.

P.S. I don't mean to offend anyone and their religous views.

Track is at the Old Shop. We did a lap in a van on Friday. It’s in need of repair and needs to be wider. There has always been a liability issue with anyone using it so it’s never leased out. PCA tried to get it for DE’s in the 80’s we were told no. They made a video of the cars running (it plays in the museum and some of it was filmed at the track.)

The person that owns it also runs a drag racing team and have the sides of the transporters plastered with the same stickers. Name of the team is “God is Awesome” racing.

xxxx

This car not going to museum as its not a chapperal

guy is probebly a part time minisiter...great use of church funds

thanks for the pictures and info...I have a fund raising flyer for the museum before they built it, I think you could buy a brick for $20 or something like that........

what transmissions or transaxles did the Chaparral cars use?

are most of the engines big block Chevys?

They deveopled some automatics for the trans, most of the engines were big blocks. They had had an advantage in making a changes and then running it on the track that was 100 yards from the shop.

They used small block Chevy's from the Mk1 up to the 2E then big blocks from the 2F to the 2J, also retrofitted into the 2D. I think they used a manual Colotti in the first Chaparral 2's then went two speed (!) automatics from there. The automatics always seemed to let them down.

Mike

Great Pictures, must have been fun being there.

Jim Hall is such an impressive man, his interview at last years Goodwood event (England) just blew me away. He and his team were so far ahead with technical inovations it was just stunning.

Looks what happens when racing rules are no rules.

I wonder how many kids from Texas have gone into Mechanical Engineering because of Hall?

How come no one has mentioned THX 1138???

Too Bad they smashed that Nice car, Will big brother evr get that bad?? Also notice the reference to THX 1138 in other movies, American Graffiti it's on Harrison Fords Chevy license plate, and the sound system for movies called THX? makes you think how an odd movie still filters in to our lives.

Erik