defdes wrote:Marcelo seems to have changed his email address, but Todd Walrich saw this post and sent me an email: "The info I have probably fills in the blank. In the fall of 2001, an Eric Petersen from Wisconsin contacted me to either sell me the car or ask my help in selling it. It was a car he bought from Canada. Supposedly a race car from new. He did a full restore and put a pile of money in it. It had an L18 that I did the carbs on and he was going to have an L20B built. I never did hear what happened to it after about 2002. "
That's awesome! Thanks!
Would love to see more pics pre Eric. Here's some pics when Scotty Bell had it.
1988 SCCA Jack Pine Sprints National Races at Brainerd Int'l Raceway - Credit: ComicOzzie Autosport Photography
1991 SCCA Memorial Day Classic Regional Races at Brainerd Int'l Raceway - Credit: ComicOzzie Autosport Photography
Last edited by Josh K. on 04 Apr 2018 18:47, edited 1 time in total.
That is my old race car.
I purchased the car from Scotty Bell in Thunder Bay, Ontario in the middle of winter of 94/95. I Drove up from St Paul, MN to Thunder Bay during a snow storm. Coming home I nearly lost the whole rig on an icy patch in the tunnel in Duluth. I purchased the car with the intention of going vintage racing with a group that ran along with Land-o-Lakes Region of SCCA as a sub group or vintage class. They knew the car well, but didnt like the idea of a 'modern' race car running with them and essentially disallowed the car in the group. There wasn't much else vintage racing going on in the upper midwest then, so I decided to just keep running the car in GT3 as Scotty had. The car was hopelessly outclassed against modern tube frame cars, but I continued to run for fun from 1995-2001 when I relocated to Philadelphia. The car stayed with my friend John Mikes in MN while it was for sale and eventually sold to Marcello when I was living in Chicago.
Here's a brief off-the-cuff history of the car that Scotty had told me;
The car was built for the owner of a trucking business in either Kelowna or Regina (Scotty couldn't remember) sometime in the very early 1970's to run the 2.5 Challenge. It was supposedly built by his mechanics and fabricator in-house as fill-in work. The car was essentially modeled after the BRE cars, sans all the trick stuff that Peter did that isn't readily visible. Not sure if the Bob Waar book was published that early, but it is alot like that build. The car had a seam welded tub with strengthened cage pads and a nicely gusseted cage. It was built with alot of nice BRE parts (intake, oil cooler adapter, flares, original header, etc.) and early Datsun comp stuff.
The car had one more owner prior to Scotty, but he didnt remember who he bought it from!? (You are probably getting the picture that Scotty didn't dwell in the past.)
When I bought the car and spares it came with the SCCA logbook #18626 (actually two logbooks stapled together, I added another during my time) and a few CASC timing & scoring cards. He didnt think he had a CASC logbook, but couldnt remember (!? In a very Scotty way said "what would you want that old junk for?") It did have a CASC number stamped into the main hoop '4-162'. I know the car had unbroken documented race history that I saw from CASC 1979-1981 and SCCA, 1982-2001. (All these documents went with the car to Marcello.) I'm sure there was more before that. I heard it was raced from 1974-on.
It was great to bring that old car to the track, everyone knew it so well. I'd go to tech and the scrutineers would sign off on "Scottys car' without so much as looking at it-they'd seen it so many times! Often workers and spectators would approach and comment about how they had seen the car race years ago. It was nice to keep an old war horse on the track.
I am a bit disappointed to find out that the car had essentially been stripped for parts. While not an original pro-built Trans-Am car, this was a very nice, original, accurate example of a B-Sedan that could have been saved and would have made a great vintage race car.
I have much more that I could share and I would be happy to pass along any anecdotes or history that I can.
I may be mistaken, and I hope that I am, but I fear that Scotty Bell has passed-on some time ago. He was a true gentleman racer and I enjoyed my time as the steward of his 510.
I can fill in a few more details about this car. The original owner/builder was a fellow named Pat Brehm from Regina, Saskatchewan and was as Eric described a nice clean well built race car, "sanitary" as we used to say.
The second owner was Bob Rymarchuk who ran the car out of the Performance Unlimited shop in Winnipeg, that would be the 1979 - 1981 time period. I raced my 510 against this car during the 79 and 80 season. Bob runs a print shop in Winfield BC (UBR Services).
I too was disappointed too see what happened to the car but am glad to see it was at least saved from the crusher and will live on in another guise.
Scotty raced until he was in his mid 70's and as he sold the car in 94/95 would have to be around 95 if still around. Hopefully he is as he was a very
nice guy. I am sure I have a couple of pictures of this car when Bob was running it but as I am in the midst of a long term house reno I may not find
them for quite some time, but if/when I come across them I will post them here.
I can add some history to this - parts of the story so far are correct - not bad for 35 yrs. later! The car I had (which was the #22 car shown in the photo when Scotty Bell raced it) was built by Patty Brem in Regina Sask. in the early 70's. The history according to Patty was that he bought the car from a little old lady when it had hardly been driven. He then prepped the car, seam welded the shell, spent about $10,000 US on it at that time (God knows what that would be in today's dollars) bought lots of Nissan competition and BRE pieces for it. Patty was a builder and importer (brought in several Brabhams and other sports racers later). We raced against him at Gimli Motorsport Park and Edmonton International for quite a few years. I had a street 510 that I raced in a street stock class and really wanted Patty's car. Dave Whiting in Edmonton beat me to it and he purchased the car from Patty and ran it for about 3 seasons. Was very competitive at that time. Dave decided he wanted to go FF racing and that's when I purchased it. Car was originally orange (factory colour) and I ran it like that for a few seasons. Had an L16 at that time, Ultra Close Roadster 5 speed, 4.6 LSD diff and essentially BRE suspension. Stock brakes with just the rear drums changed to 240Z aluminum. While I had the car it was painted in the white livery seen in Scotty's photo - we had several cars we ran out of the Performance Unlimited shop - various 240Z's, Corvette (an ex ice racer out of St. Paul - another story!), a Gremlin with a very potent small block set up (also another story) and we painted them all the same theme. While I had the car I switched it over to the Datsun Competition suspension set up which I brought in from Japan - not adjustable but didn't need to be - really worked. This was one of the best handling cars I've ever owned. Due to business events - I decided to sell the car and Scotty Bell purchased it from me with the provision that when he decided to sell it - I would have first chance at it. I was surprised when in 1990 or so I rec'd a call from a fellow in St. Paul who had just purchased the car from Scotty. I still have his name and number somewhere - he was planning to go vintage racing with it. That was the last I heard of this car. I'm shocked to see the photo of it all ripped apart and the comment that it was in rough shape. Unless it had been stored improperly - that car should never have suffered from any corrosion - it was immaculate - one of the cleanest builds I've ever seen.
Amazing all the history about this car falling out of the woodwork!
Because when you spend a silly amount of money on a silly, trivial thing that will help you not one jot, you are demonstrating that you have a soul and a heart and that you are the sort of person who has no time for Which? magazine. – Jeremy Clarkson
Thanks for all the info guys. that's great stuff! I'm going to make a book that documents the history and build.
Couple notes. I can't see any seam welding in the car. At least in the engine bay.
The car (if this is really the same car) has seen a lot of body damage. I mean a LOT. Had to replace the front core support, front right fender well, both rockers, the rear driver side was hit. Underneath looks like it was drug over a few curbs. Quarters had so much heat put in them when the flares were put on that they were unusable unless you wanted to put new flares back on with 20 pounds of bondo.
This is one of the worst chassis's I've seen. Had I known how bad it was I would've started with a different shell. Only reason I'm continuing the restoration is that I enjoy doing the work and I wanna save it from the crusher.
Check out my build thread and you'll see all the damage
I’ve just spent an inordinate amount of time going through your build thread, you’ve done some great work Josh.
The photo below killed me however – genius. And adjustable flat body panel adjuster/puller. When you have only two hands, it’s ingenuity like this that makes it work.
Super stoked to see the information/history surface on the car – very cool guys for pitching in. The car is being saved and resurrected like no one would have thought possible from 4 years ago.
Byron
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Love people and use things,
because the opposite never works.
Your build is one of the few I go on ratsun to check out. Between the exhaust, the intercooler, and plumbing for turbo oil lines its all fantastic. Now that I have read the whole story behind the car it makes it that much more interesting.
Thanks Guys. I'm pretty happy. I guess that's what 5 years and thousands of hours does
Here's some pics of the firewall and brake/clutch line routing. Front lines will go through driver strut tower and then route under the front end to passenger side.
Last edited by Josh K. on 04 Apr 2018 18:51, edited 1 time in total.