A superb and rare photo of three Scarab
F1 cars during before a Formula
One Grand Prix.
Scarab was an all-American open-wheel race car and sports car constructor from
the USA
featuring cars designed and built by Tom Barnes and Dick Troutman for Reventlow
Automobiles Inc, owned by Lance Reventlow. The chevrolet engines were built by
Traco Engineering (Jim Travers and Frank Coons). Nicknamed "The Rich
Kids", builders of the famous consecutive winning Indianapolis 500 race cars driven by famed driver
Bill Vukovich. And the highly publized winning Ford T-birds at Daytona in the
late fifties. Troutman and Barnes was most successful building sports cars for
amateur road racing in the USA
in the 1950s. Chuck Daigh drove the Scarab sports car to victory in the 1958
Riverside International Grand Prix, beating a field of international factory
teams including famous race car driver Phil Hill and the Ferrari Team. Carroll
Shelby drove the Scarab sports car to victory at the Continental Divide raceway
in Castle Rock Colorado setting a new course record. Scarab made an ill-fated
entry into Formula One during the 1960 season with front-engined cars, which by
then, were nearly obsolete. The engines in these front engine cars were 4
cylinder units similar in layout to the Offenhauser, but entirely of Scarab's
own design. They featured Desmodromic valve gear similar in design to that
found on the Mercedes engine of the period and were built and maintained by
Chuck Daigh. The engines were the achilles heel of the team as the Desmo gear
could not cope with the large amount of movement in the engine block and would
reliably pull the valves closed too far resulting in failure. Scarab
participated in five Grands Prix, entering a total of nine cars. Reventlow was
joined by his engineer Chuck Daigh in piloting the blue and white liveried
cars. Both Scarabs were entered in the Grands Prix of Monaco, Holland, Belgium
(SEE
PHOTO!!!!), and France,
while only Daigh's car was entered in the American Grand Prix. It should be
noted that Daigh, while entered in the Dutch Grand Prix, did not race due to
payment issues. The following year Chuck Daigh went on to pilot one of the Scarabs
in International Formula racing in Europe
where he finished eighth, at Goodwood vying for the Lavant Cup, and finished
seventh in a bid for the International Trophy. A rear-engined single-seater car
was built, but never raced in a Formula One event, it ran once in Formula Libre
race at Sandown Park in Australia with a Buick V8 engine.
This is a very nice and very rare photo that reflects a wonderful era of
Formula One - F1 - and Scarab history in a wonderful way. This is your rare chance to own this
photo, therefore it is printed in a nice large format of ca. 8" x
12" (ca. 20 x 30 cm). It makes it perfectly suitable for framing.