Jim Hall's Chaparral race cars
 

A friend and I drove out to Midland yesterday to finally get to see all of Hall's Chaparrals. Each of these are some of my all time favorite cars and it was a lot of fun seeing them. Generally the Chaparrals are recognized as the first cars to truly engineer and apply aero management to racing cars. You're free to do anything but actually touch them so I spent lots of time trying to lay under them and poke my nose through small openings :p:

http://www.petroleummuseum.org/Chaparral/Exhibits.html

Here's a few pics. I took over a hundred.

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Love the Chaparrals. Thanks for sharing. The suckers car, though ugly as hell is one of my favorites. Could you imagine showing up at a race with something like that when it had never been heard of?

That's why I love all the Chaparrals. You have to know the history of the other makes of the period to truly appreciate what Chaparral was doing and how each Chaparral was truly ground breaking. The fact that all of it came from half a dozen guys out in Midland, Texas is awesome in itself.

The 2J was just nuts. My favorite 2J comment was from Denny Hulme "I didn't laugh because I knew anything that came from that shop had to be a serious contender. When I saw that thing squat down, I knew we were in deep shit". :bigthumb:

I loved the era of those cars. I was present at Bathurst when Denny Hulme sadly passed away driving a BMW touring car in the Bathurst 1000. The best way for a car guy to go to his reward.

I saw them at the vintage race from Laguna Seca, truly awesome.

One of the SRX7 racer's father had some involvement with Hall's operation, exactly what I don't know.

Reading The Unfair Advantage and thinking about the available technology then is really quite humbling. Now a number of us have street cars that we've done more advanced engineering on than some of the guys in those days did on their racecars (though obviously not the Hall-mobiles).

Cool stuff.

Honestly, Colin Chapman and Jim Hall were major reasons why I went into Engineering. I followed everything they did, each innovation they pioneered, and each victory they achieved through cleverness instead of sheer dollars. Very cool guys. Very cool cars.

I'm very jealous. I so wanted to be at Monterey for that :( When the receptionist at the museum recognized I was a fan she gave me a program from that event.

Does anyone know of a book about these guys? Would like to learn more about them.

There are quite a few. I have several:

Chaparral Can-Am & Prototype Race Cars by Dave Friedman

Chaparral: Complete History of Jim Hall's Chaparral Race Cars 1961-1970 by Richard Falconer and Doug Nye

Chaparral Can-Am Racing Cars from Texas by Ludvigsen Library Series (this is merely a photo history)

I think you can get all of those at amazon.com. If not there try Motorbooks International. If you want to learn about Chaparral the first two are must haves.

thanks for sharing.

being just a slight bit younger than Jim Hall i witnessed in real time how they turned sportscar engineering on it's head.

it is very interesting that ground effects were just the tip of the engineering iceberg.

recently the cars were at Road America and i had the opportunity to spend more than an hour looking at all the innovations... i could have spent a whole day.

maybe it was the impact of one of the greatest engineering schools in the world, Cal Tech, or maybe it was the back door of chevrolet engineering and some frustrated GM engineers, maybe having Rattlesnake Raceway on your own property...

it was fun to see the engineering dynamics at full throttle. i consider Jim Hall et al in the same ballpark as Smokey Yunick

howard coleman

Thanks for sharing the photos. I especially like the center one in the first batch you posted, the one that's naked and bares all the details.

We moved back to Watkins Glen in the mid 70's, so i missed many of these cars, but have seen a couple at vintage events and on display. Awesome.

I DID get to see the 6-wheeler Tyrell F1 car run though. That was a great era... before computers and when we knew everything about everything and could test it in virtual environments and windtunnels... cars came from the creative minds of guys like Chapman, hall, and Yunick.

I totally wish I had been born earlier so I could have seen stuff like that, and seen people like Senna and Prost race

That's the 2A; the first real Chaparral. She had a composite chassis (fiberglass) way back in 1963. That same tub was later used for the 2D and then again for the 2F.

2e
 

I saw a post that Hall was building a continuation series of the 2E. I also see that Lola is building the continuation of the T70 coupe(my all time favorite). For the measly sum of only $250k less engine and finishing, you can own one too! If you want to see a real spectacle, this summer in July at Road America we will be racing in the 40th Anniversary of the Can Am. There will be about 80 original Can Am cars on the track. Should be a sight for those that loved that era.

http://www.chaparralcars.com/

http://www.lolaheritage.co.uk/index.htm

The Lola T70 couple is indeed beautiful, and with Chevy power it is one of the better bargains to operate. I see them from time to time at the vintage races I compete in.

Sweet, the Brian Redman is always one of my annual favorites.