Quote Originally Posted by RogerH View Post
It is actually a 1959 Taraschi FJ built by Berardo Taraschi in Teramo, Italy. He built about 60 race cars but many were bike engined sports cars that ran in the likes of the Mille Miglia in the late 1940s and early 1950s. There were around 20 of the FJ cars made and about 6 are currently active worldwide. Mine raced mainly in the US at the likes of Watkins Glen, Sebring etc and it didn't have any notable drivers except for Kirk White who was a US Ferrari distributor and Brock Yates who originated the Cannonball Run and was involved with "Car and Driver" from memory. Brock contacted me a couple of years ago and wanted to buy the car back - he said it was his favourite race car although it had made him deaf in the right ear with the megaphone exhaust.
I have another single seater with a lot more history (currently with Bob Homewood getting it's engine tweaked) so I may put together a thread on it sometime.
Link to the Taraschi site : http://www.squadrataraschi.it/
Thanks Roger, that is interesting. Those Italian cottage industry race car manufacturers certainly made some beautiful cars. Its interesting Brock Yates had the car. Do you know if he had it when it was still a period race car, or was it something he owned for historic racing? He has owned for many years the Duffy Livingston 'Eliminator' T-bucket bodied hot rod road racer that Livingston had quite some success with in the '50s against the Ferrari's and Maserati's etc. He actually wrote a book on this car, and has been a prominent motoring/motorsport journalist for many years.