Friday, October 21, 2016

the winner of the 1968 Shell 4000 mile rally across Canada, a Barracuda




https://stevemckelvie.wordpress.com/2014/12/06/barracuda-wins-the-1968-shell-4000-rally/

They were in 2nd place in the 1967 rally, and further developed the car for the '68 rally, successfully. This was the 1st time an American car maker won a World Championship Rally.

Driver Scott Harvey Sr. was the engineer in charge of Chrysler's Plymouth Barracuda racing program, Ralph was a math student.

In partial payment for his Chrysler Rally Team work, the company gave the 22-year-old Beckman one of their cars, a less radical version of the Barracuda in which he and Harvey had won the trans-Canada event.

"Visually, the cars were identical, blue with a white stripe, but my car didn't have all the racing parts," recalls Beckman. "I built mine into a car for SCCA events, and I ran some national rallies in it. Then I put it away, and it rotted in a garage in Michigan for years."

http://www.heritech.org/mopax/MCHist.html
Rallying to Win: A Complete Guide to North American Rallying By Jean Calvin

In 1999, Beckman reunited with Scott Harvey Sr., and the pair finished second in class at Mexico's Carrera Panamerica in Harvey's Porsche 356.

About two years later, Beckman decided to resurrect the Barracuda. "I decided it would be fun to redo it and bring it back as a fully competitive car, one that is indicative of how good the Shell car really was," he explains. "Scott was running the Barracuda Trans Am program at the time, so it was basically a fully developed Trans Am car. For years I've been searching for all the bits and pieces and assembling them into a proper rally car."


The Barracuda has been built to the Group II Grand Touring homologation specifications that were in effect in the late 1960s, with safety updates that fall into line with the FIA Appendix K for Historic Rallying. Under the hood is a 340 CID Chrysler V8, mated to an aluminum case 4-speed transmission. Though many final drive ratios are allowed, Beckman will be using a 4.11:1 ring and pinion in the differential.

"One of the more limiting factors is the tires," said Beckman. "The rules limit tire choice to 70-series profile, and there aren't many companies that still build those, much less in a performance tire."

http://winktimber.com/vintagerally/cars/beckman1.htm


there were some other cool cars rally racing across Canada, Shelby GT 350 Cobra Mustang



And an AMC Rebel

http://www.kwa-kwa.pl/strona/zagranica-rajdy/itemlist/category/915-6-shell-4000-cross.html




https://www.flickr.com/photos/rwgraves/albums/72157651975530052

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