Ah, Cal, you left out the little detail about your selling me the car...
I have secretly coveted a GTD GT40 that Cal had built by the good people at Unique (yes, the Alabama-based Cobra kit manufacturer). He went all-out on it in terms of authenticity; it is done up in the faithful Essex Wire colors of white with a broad single red stripe, bordered by thin black stripes, with the aforementioned black triangles over the fenders to reduce glare from the white paint. Under the rear deck is a healthy 289 with a quartet of 48 IDAs and lovely ceramic coated "bundle of snakes" exhausts. Thankfully Cal even anticipated the car's moving to Texas by specifying air conditioning. It is undoubtedly not as quick or fast as many of the beautiful GT40 kits on the road (Hersh...), but for this history buff it frankly just gets my pulse going thinking about cruising the Texas Hill Country in such a great car. Cal offered me a deal I couldn't pass up, has been kind enough to keep the car for almost a year while I got a house built, etc., and barring the Next Ice Age I will be heading to Wisconsin this coming week to bring her home. I'm jazzed, in case you couldn't tell.
Kobra Karl, I assume you're asking about the blue Beck Lister in my photo gallery? It's one of about twenty kits (so far) built by Chuck Beck of Hesperia, California, the man probably most well-known for the 1300 or so Porsche 550 Spyder kits he's built over the last two decades. Chuck recently sold the 550 portion of his company to Club Cobra member Glenn Garrett so he could concentrate on building Listers (you can see both cars at
www.beckcars.com). The Lister was a 50's sports racer built by Brian Lister in Cambridge, England. His cars went through several body iterations and powerplants (Bristol, Maserati, Jaguar, small-block Chevrolet, among others) while dominating the English road racing scene in the mid-50's. Lister hired an unknown driver named Archie Scott-Brown, who was born physically disabled (essentially missing one arm, both legs extremely short, etc.) but more than made up for it with his otherworldly car control and fierce determination. Together Lister and Scott-Brown gave all comers fits until Archie was killed in an accident late in the decade. Brian Lister never recovered from his friend's death and ceased building cars not long afterwards, but not before people like Briggs Cunningham, Carroll Shelby, Masten Gregory, and Jim Hall had discovered the value of his simple formula of a lightweight tube chassis, well-sorted suspension and powerful engine. Cunningham's team dominated the SCCA with Lister Jaguars for a couple of years, and Hall and Shelby convinced Lister to sell them rollers set up to accept the then-new small-block Chevy. Lister-Corvettes, as they were called, should have pounded the opposition but unfortunately came along just as Lance Reventlow was unleashing his more sophisticated, world-beating Scarabs on the American racing scene. That, plus the advent of mid-engined cars that would turn the sports-racing world on its ear, meant the V-8 powered Listers never enjoyed the same success as the Jag-powered variants. Doesn't matter; anyone who's seen a Lister-Chevy powersliding through a corner while bellowing out its sidepipes is likely an instant fan. I have been for a long time, and jumped at the chance to buy a partially-finished Beck Lister when it came up for sale on this website a couple of years ago. Chuck Beck builds them in the spirit of the originals, but with the tub bonded to the frame to create a stiffer semi-monocoque and late-model Corvette suspension and brakes, front and rear. Curb weight is under 2,000 pounds; how far under depends on your choice of engine. In an effort to get mine as light as possible I went with an all-aluminum small block, taken out over 400 inches, and an aluminum-cased Muncie M-22 built from new parts by our hero, Cal Metal. The motor made 543 hp/508 ft.-lbs. on the dyno so it should run pretty well, with the major limiting factor being traction. The widest rear tire that will fit within the Beck's fender is a 265 series, which obviously is woefully inadequate. I may end up flaring the fenders, 289 comp car-style, in order to facilitate much wider rears (and also to ensure a steady supply of broken halfshafts).
The car had basically been sitting since I bought it until I got serious about finishing it back in November. It now needs probably two days' worth of work to be on the road. If only I could find two days...
Sorry for this lengthy post. If that wasn't the car you were inquiring about, let me know and I'll bore you some more.
Bob