Historic NZ Cars: The Lycoming Special

Welcome to another new series called "Historic NZ Cars". In this series, we aim to cover many famous kiwi built race and road cars that have a great following in NZ and elsewhere. We start off this new series with one of the most famous NZ built race cars, the Lycoming Special.

The Lycoming Special was constructed between 1950 and 1954 and was built by Ralph Watson, an engineer that originated from Auckland. This car was built the traditional kiwi way- out of old spare parts lying around. The chassis was designed and built by Ralph and was made of steel tubular sections. The brakes were originally drum all around and were scavenged off an Austin A40, which was probably less than ideal for a racing car! They were later changed for Dunlop disc brakes which were far more efficient and safe than the old drums. Front suspension was scavenged off a Zephyr but was modified for better handling and rear suspension was from a Morris Oxford.

The engine was from a Lycoming aircraft and was rated at 225 BHP. This meant that the Lycoming Special could actually go quite well as it was incredibly light. The engine was matched to a heavily modified Studebaker 41 gearbox and featured a new 2.8:1 overdrive that could be utilised in top gear. The only problem this engine gave was excessive heat as it was a rather large engine designed to go in aircrafts. This problem was easily solved with the fuel mixture being run a little rich to run cooler. The gearbox also used to slip but this was also remedied later on.

The Lycoming special was raced in numerous races across New Zealand and was raced by many famous faces such as Bruce Mclaren and Denny Hulme. This car is still raced sometimes and is always a joy to see out on track.

If you would like a particular NZ built historic race car featured, leave a comment below or comment on the Home Built NZ Facebook page.