Great Race Founder Recreates Buick History
21 May 1998
Great Race Founder Recreates Buick History INDIANAPOLIS, May 20 -- Sometimes the act of preserving
history involves recreating it from scratch. In Tom McRae's case, his desire
to have a 1930s era Indy race car led him to follow a similar path to the one
taken by the car's original builders more than 60 years ago. In the process
he has illuminated a little-known part of Buick Motor Division's involvement.
McRae is the founder and director of The History Channel Great Race, an
annual vintage car rally/race scheduled for its 16th running this year. His
Shafer Buick 8 Special is a replica of the cars fielded by General Motors
employee Phil "Red" Shafer during the 1930s. It is the centerpiece of a media
preview of the Great Race that passes though Indianapolis today. The race
itself starts in Tacoma, Wash., on May 31 and is scheduled to end June 13 in
Haverhill, Mass. The 4,000-mile route will be traversed by about 80 pre-1951
vehicles competing for $250,000 in prizes.
"I love old Buick racers from this era; I love their lines," said McRae,
who spent more than five years researching the Buick-engined Shafer 8 before
starting construction in Jan comes to cars," added the 59-year-old. "I love
the raw horsepower and torque of the straight eight."
McRae's car, which was constructed by Heartland Restoration of Paris,
Illinois, is based on schematic drawings of the car found in the Secrets of
Speed Society magazine. In addition, McRae visited a Buick-powered racer
formerly a part of the Harrah's collection.
The recreation of the Shafer 8 was complicated by two factors dating back
to the origins of the car. First, since Buick Motor Division did not sponsor
race teams during this time, Buick-powered cars like Red Shafer's were custom
built affairs, made with little documentation of their design. For instance,
the Herman Rigling company of Indianapolis fabricated the chassis for both the
Shafer 8 and the Studebaker factory team. The main difference was an
additional 2-1/2 inches of frame length to accommodate the longer Buick
engines.
A second related factor is the nature of this kind of racers. Shafer did
not start each year with a new car. Typically, he would take parts and pieces
from the previous year's effort to create the current year's entrant. Such
practices do not lend themselves to the kind of verifiable detail on which
classical historic automobile restoration is built. As an example, one of the
original Shafer Specials was raced into the 1950s, including a run (by Shafer
himself) at the Pikes Peak hill climb. At that point the 1930s-vintage
chassis was running a Buick "nailhead" V-8.
"It's a relatively simple car," McRae said, adding (as noted above) that
race cars of this vintage are quite rare to find in restorable condition, so
his job was to build one much the way Red Shafer did. Heartland Restoration
created a frame and chassis using the same construction techniques used in the
1930s. A Buick straight eight(-cylinder engine) from that era was located and
then built up for this application, which included:
-- Adding four Stromberg carburetors (which flow about 650cfm,
approximating the rare -- and temperamental -- Winfield carburetors |
found on the original).
-- Enlarging the ports in the head for better fuel flow.
-- Adding a 3/4 race camshaft.
-- Installing 0.60-over aluminum pistons.
-- Fashioning hand-built intake and exhaust manifolds.
As was done in the original Shafer 8, a stock Buick transmission and
rearend is used (with taller gears). Suspension components include heavy-duty
shocks from a Buick Roadmaster of that era.
One of the more difficult jobs was recreating the grille. Shafer Indy
race cars (he built and raced cars at Indianapolis for more than a decade)
used at least two different grilles, but McRae wanted the grille shell from a
1933 Pontiac to complete the authenticity of the vehicle. It took him more
than a year to find it.
McRae's Shafer Buick 8 Special will be joined by about a half-dozen other
vintage Buicks in The History Channel Great Race.
For more information, please contact Michael Coates of Buick
Communciations at 408-399-9081 or mcoates@aol.com.
