Max Balchowsky Old Yeller II Buick Special Race Car 1959

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JKgo

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Now you know I'm not into racing cars, but this one got my attention.

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I love cars that have some sort of story behind 'em and this one's no exception.

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Created by one Mr. Max Balchowsky, this funny looking (and funnily named) car raced in
1960's Ponoma races and won. Its later drivers include Dan Gurney, Bob Drake and even Carrol Shelby himself.

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Thanks to pressure from Disney, this car sometimes raced as "Old Yaller". Imagine that.

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Good ol' Max described this car's chassis as "my idea is a distributed load. There should be no maximum concentrated load at any point...we figure that it will take a 110 ton impact without any damage."

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The motor is Buick's venerable Nailhead 401, modified of course, to make 305 bhp.
Its body was created by Jimmy Burell and fascinatingly enough, it was basically a bunch of panels held onto the chassis by Dzus fasteners...

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When this car appeared in 2006 Monterey Historic Festival it was named..."Junkyard Dog".
My kind of car. :D
 
Interesting and quirky. Therefore, always gets my support. :D
 
As a classic racer fan... Voted! 👍
 
I ah....sort of edited the title, btw. Wasn't really sure what to call it, so, there ya go.
 
JKgo
I ah....sort of edited the title, btw. Wasn't really sure what to call it, so, there ya go.
Click to expand...

I think the name should be changed again to "Old Yeller 2 Buick Special Race Car 1959".

It's a great suggestion - this car was invariably the fastest car on track in the USA between 1959 and 1960 setting many lap records, beating Scarabs, works Ferraris and Maseratis and its influence on the sport was massive. It even made the front pages of newspapers in Italy when it beat the Ferrari works team. It's influence is covered in a 45 minute documentary by ESPN Speed - I'll add a link at the bottom.

The car was built by Max Balchowsky and his wife Ina who had an equal role. They were not your average married couple - he was an ex-watch repairer who could fix anything and she was a master mechanic and fabricator. They ran a garage called "Hollywood Motors" which specialised in engine transplants and the maintenance, tuning and improvement of sports cars. The "Old Yeller" series of cars incorporated everything Max and Ina had learned from their day job in the workshop and also from racing a series of previous cars - the "Buford", "Morgensen Special" and "Old Yeller 1".

As JKgo has mentioned the car featured aircraft industry Dzuz fasteners to enable panels to be removed for maintenance accessibility. The suspension components were modified to enable them to shear on impact thus protecting the chassis. The steel wheels were widened by welding in a hoop insert - a common hot rod practise. The car was road registered and gearing was tested and set up at the dragstrip before road race meetings then driven home. The car was so well known that it was allowed to jump the queue and go straight onto the drag strip.

All the Old Yeller cars were run on a tight budget and newspapers called it "Junkyard Dog" because Max used to proudly say that all the parts came from the scrap yard and were secondhand - this is not 100% accurate as the cars were so successful that Buick supplied engines free of charge to Hollywood Motors labelled "Industrial Use only".

The white wall tyres were used because they were a softer compound than currently available racing tyres - They were previously used on Chrysler station wagons.

Below short clip / test of Old Yeller 2




Below the Max Balchowsky story which explains the importance and influence of Old Yeller 2 on motor racing:




It should be easy to get this car in the game - the car is owned by Dr Ernie Nagamatsu who uses it in Historic race events. The car has already been digitally scanned to enable the body to be accurately remade in the event of an accident.
 
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@Sick Cylinder ............quality stuff, this. Thanks!! I just love the name - and the fact that it beat other more fancied stuff out there. Also it got Disney slightly bothered - that can't be bad, now is it. 👍👍

Took your advice and re-changed the title.
 
A great car suggestion. Just look at this list of drivers featured inside the cockpit - that's just drivers from the 1960 season. After his first race in the car Dan Gurney said it was the best handling race car he had ever driven.

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The basic setup of the car used to be done by Ina Balchowsky after she had walked the track, checked the number of left and right turns and the length of the main straight - this in an era when many cars were just driven without being setup specially to suit each track.

It was normally the fastest car on track for the first five laps, but even with a Studebaker Truck radiator the motor ran hot and would lose half a second a lap thereafter. There is a copy of a letter from Max to Buick about this problem on the following website:

http://oldyeller2.com/index.html
 
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