50 YEARS AGO AT SEBRING, CALIFORNIA PRIVATEERS USED 550-0070 TO TAKE ON BARON HUSCHKE VON HANSTEINrS FAC- TORY PORSCHES-AND NEARLY BEATTHEM SrORYBYWALEDGAR PHOTOSBYJlAllSrrZANDCOURTESYOF THE EDOARrn~BRCHM L )hn Edgar had an idea. His and film John von Newnann race me. It Edwsi&a was niow a r&ng program. egendary MG "88" Special was an impressive performance. Only Chassis number 552-00M arrived in ~OftetlCaniedhotshoeJaick Pete Lovely3 hornsbuilt "PorscheWagen" $mfor Jack McAfee to debut the Edgar- dcAfee to American road- came closs to it in class. Edgar wibessxl entered Spyder at Sanfa Barbara's 1955 racing victorias and, by 1955, the 550's speed winon MmialDay at Labor Day sportscar races. Unfamiliar Edgar saw no reason why Santa Barbara and at Torrey Pins tn July. 4th the SwakMBWlfty, Mfee managed JN1CAtest wldnY get Weagain in the la?- He studied his footage again and agaln. rw better than fourth. But the car felt right, & and gm-dest Under 15KI-c~mmhins. Won over by ttre 550's superior handling, e~enin the Elfip d a man as camparaWty That car w&s Porsche's new 550 Spyder. he hesitated no further and ordered one large as McAfee, so the driver-engineer In April of 1%5, Edgar had gone. to thrwgh John rn Neurmnn's Cornpew began ta ready #0070 for a Torrey Pines Mintw Fdd outsi& Bakersfield to watch Mason Vm Street in Hd . John sk-hr endurn in October. On September 30, movie idol James Dean was killed in his own 550, bringing national notice to Porsche's new-to- America 550 Spyder. Thus, all eyes were on McAfee as he drove #0070 to Torrey's starting grid, complete with a David and Goliath touch of irony: he wore his Ferrari- logo helmet left from piloting Edgar's Maranello cars. The question was whether the switch from beefy Italian red to svelte German silver would pay off for owner Edgar and driver McAfee, For his part, McAfee thought so. In June at Le Mans in 1955, 550s had finished 1-2-3 in class in the French 24-hour epic, convincing McAfee he could do well in Torrey's sig- nificantly shorter quarter-day race. Above-550-0070's first race under Edgar, own 550, but leaving three other 550s in McAfee made no secret of the fact he at Santa Barbara,inSeptember, 1955. the dust. Glendale's winner was that shy liked the agile Porsche better than Edgar's innovator from Seattle, young Pete Lovely, muscle-bound Ferraris, and did all he Below--McAfee at the start of the Torrey who'd stepped up from his PorscheWagen could to trade on the Spyder's merits. On Pines race in October, 1955--getting up to the hottest of home-mades, a pushrod the plus side, McAfee had shaped his on the curb to get by his opponents... Porsche-powered Cooper streamliner style in dirt-track racing. He loved to throw later known as "The Pooper" despite Pete a car into corners, slide it, then hook up for Opposite, above-Pete Lovely in his Lovely's aversion to the tag. the next straight, odd behavior to nearly PorscheCooper Streamliner, also known Around this time, the Porsche scene all of his non-dirt-bred sporty car rivals. as the "Pooper" to Lovely's dismay. in Los Angeles gained a sizeable new The 550's torsion-bar suspension and lad- facility, with von Neumann opening sales der frame was, in essence, perfect for the Opposite, far right---McAfee in his Ferrari- and service bays for Porsches and Ws driving technique favored by McAfee. logo helmet, ready to race 550-0070. on Highland Avenue in Hollywood. More On the minus side and unlike well-sup- new 550s were arriving from Stuttgart. ported customer Ferraris he'd driven for than softer, rubber. And he'd stringently Sports-car chat in America now seemed Edgar, the Porsche came bare bones - pace himself for the long haul. to revolve mostly around what the works with no spares, no tools, and no tech man- At Torrey Pines, McAfee would drive Porsche 550 Spyders, under team boss uals for its puzzling four-cam air-cooled 550-0070 the full six hours solo, without Baron Huschke von Hanstein, would do engine. McAfee relied only on his hot-rod the driver change so many preferred. The at Sebring in March of 1956. ingenuity to finesse the 550 Spyder. Key result: McAfee won his F Modified class Before then, however, another West to his method was to keep the 550's stan- and came fourth overall behind a C-Type Coast enduro loomed -again at Torrey dard, softer shocks instead of replacing Jaguar, a Mercedes 300SL, and a factory- Pines, scheduled for two weeks into the them with stiffer race options, well-suited prepped Austin-Healey 100s. Next was new year. McAfee hatched an efficiency to McAfee's winning rules of slide. For the the airport circuit at Glendale, California plot: he would again drive Edgar's 550 same reason he went with harder, rather and a third-in-class behind von Neumann's solo, but this time non-stop. For Torrey's estimated 410 miles, McAfee fitted an tus, provided they would not accept any tical to what a regular Volkswagen Bug auxiliary fuel tank in #0070. With care, cash prize money. Edgar promptly added had. So I put a Volkswagen fixture in there luck, and enough gas at the end, he might the major international Florida classic to because it had the reserve tube in it that just win Saturday's six-hour race outright. his race calendar for McAfee's next stood up in the tank. Otherwise -with the The race began with a Le Mans-style endurance drive in #0070. regular Porsche setup -when you were start, with the racers dashing across the First, however, was February's Palm out of gas, you were just out of gas!" track and leaping into their cars. McAfee Springs race. McAfee would run two Giggling, McAfee marvels over such accelerated and steered to the side, get- races in two totally different machines. unrefined technology back then: "In a reg- ting #00701sleft wheels up on the curb to Besides the 550 Porsche, he would pilot ular WV Bug in those days, that's what you pass the others before the first turn. While Edgar's 3.5-liter 857 S Ferrari, expressly had sticking out of the dash. You turned most of the larger cars dropped out early air-freighted in from Italy to put away this little handle down, let it fill up with gas, on, McAfee's race was never interrupted. Tony Parravano's 4.9-liter Ferrari 410 and that was your reserve. So I drilled a Among the seven who went the distance Speciale and the rest of the big-bore hole in the Spyder's dash and stuck that without a driver change, "Big Jack" was field. While McAfee felt small might be baby in, and that's how we went to Sebring." the only one not to pit. His strategy worked. better, big appeared to be best. The Off track as well as on, Jack McAfee's 550-0070 finished first in Class F and press fell all over itself extolling Edgar's stamina at the wheel was legendary. He took a decisive second overall, three and tail-finned "Mystery Ferrari." #0070 was made the California-Florida road trip in just a half laps behind the winning factory- barely mentioned before the race. two days, along with his mechanics Joe supported Jaguar D-Type with more than Palm Springs' Under 1500-cc Modified Landaker and Rolf Wutherich. Still not twice the Porsche's engine displacement. race on Sunday, February 26th featured healed after riding shotgun with James The one other 550 to finish did so in third among its 33 starters seven 550s - with Dean in Dean's fatal crash, Wutherich was overall, with Jean Pierre Kunstle at the Ferrari ace Phil Hill driving a Porsche one of only a few in America who really helm to bring it in a full lap behind Jack Spyder for the first time. The 550s of Jean knew Porsche's four-cam motor well. McAfee. Ken Miles, newly signed to drive Pierre Kunstle and Ken Miles diced for the Joe Landaker, also new on the Edgar John von Neumann's Spyder, had flipped win, finishing barely five seconds apart - team, had come to it through Joe's pal, his Porsche in morning practice, destroy- with Kunstle as the victor. Two minutes Carroll Shelby, after Landaker - like Jack ing both the team's car and plans for a back was McAfee in #0070, Sebring on McAfee before him -quit Parravano, the Mileslvon Neumann co-drive. his mind and obviously not willing to push idiosyncratic owner whose habit was to Miles, in that team's spare 550, was hard enough to challenge the leading intrude upon his own mechanics' expert- ready for Sunday's Under 1500-cc main, 550s. Phil Hill's Spyder debut ended with ise. A wiry, road-loving ex-trucker turned beating Lovely's Pooper and McAfee's a bent shift fork. In the Over 1500-cc Main, race-car mechanic, Landaker could work #0070 to the flag. McAfee's third qualified Jack McAfee leaned on Edgar's 857 S as around the clock for days on end. Still, the him to join the Torrey Pines main, but hard as he could to finish runner-up, fail- team lacked a member. Edgar elected not to enter the car, saving ing to catch winner Carroll Shelby's Jack McAfee, then among the most tal- it for the coming races at Palm Springs.