The John Lacko Collection.

[khyndart in CA]

A John Lacko photo of a rare sports car at Riverside
An English built Piper powered by a Buick 215 V-8 prepared by Traco and taken out to 4500 cc. (A common race engine in the 1960s)
This car did not have much success even when driven here by Jerry Titus. # 5 ran out of fuel on the last lap.
(John Lacko photo.)

An artist rendition from the cover of July 1967 Sports Car Graphic magazine of the # 5 Piper Buick.



Some sites on the Piper sports cars.
https://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/4134/Piper-GTR.html

https://sites.google.com/site/thepip...er-car-history

http://www.piperracingcars.co.uk/1.html

From the Speedway Museum some Buick engine info.
" The 215 cubic-inch aluminum V8 was originally announced in 1960 as a lightweight economy engine for General Motors new line of compact cars; Buick Skylark, Olds Cutlass and Pontiac Tempest. The “215” first in the appeared in the 1961, with production ending in 1963 after ¾ million engines produced. There were two (2) versions available: Buick’s model and the Olds, which featured different heads, valve train and valve covers. Pontiac used the Olds version.

The reason that production ended so soon was a high rejection rate during the casting process, as GM used a pressure casting of the Reynolds 356 aluminum alloy around steel sleeves. A 2nd method was then tried by heat treating to T-6 condition, but the heat treating caused the steel sleeves to shift and rejection of the blocks continued.

GM cured the casting, but the advent of new thin wall iron casting soon rendered the aluminum motor too expensive and led to the cancellation of the “215” after the 1963 model year.

Rights to these engines were purchased by the British Rover Company and used in the 1967 Rover P5B that replaced the 3L straight six. Throughout the years, the Rover Co., which became part of British Leyland in 1968, continued improvement on the engine making it much stronger and reliable. The Rover V8 engine remained in production use for more than another 39 years. GM tried to buy it back later on, but Rover declined.
​
The 215 was also used in the Italian-American Gran Turismo Apollo in 1962-1963 as well as in the Asardo 3500 GM-S show car."


(Ken H..)