Harrison Special Construction

Harrison Special in construction. This car was delivered to J Frank Harrison as a stock Lotus 19 running a Climax engine.

In that stock trim it raced and won the Kent GP with Lloyd Ruby driving it. Shortly afterwards with Jerry Eisert as the designer and Crew Chief, they got wind of Gurneys efforts to shoehorn a Ford V8 into their Lotus 19, so Jerry set the car on the frame rack at Troutman and Barnes and proceeded to cut off everything behind the rear firewall. Needing a Ford V8 and a transaxle, and with Shelby owing them money from anothr transaction that he never paid for, they waited and watched from the front window of T&B for Shelby to go to lunch. When he did, they took a 2 wheeler a few doors down to Shelby's shop and grabbed the first Ford V8 with a transaxle they could find ( a VERY interesting story in itself as there is a very 'special' Ford race car that Really doesnt have its original engine and trans like folks think it does!), and brought it back to the shop.

Setting the lump on the frame rack, they proceed to build the whole rear half of the car and rear suspension, connecting everything back together as one. Chuck Pelly designed the aluminum bodywork, his 3 effort after graduating from design school (his first being the Scarab and his second the Chaparrel 1, both sister cars and both built alongside the Harrison Special).

George Folmer went on to race it in the Bahamas and then in 1964, Jimmy Clark of F1 fame took it to the pole for the 1964 Players 200 GP at Mosport ..... while playing alongside some very interesting cars that are special to us all! Jimmy choose to drop out before the race started because the car was such a wreck and couldnt be trusted to actually finish. George and Lloyd had done a bit of Bumper cars with it prior to when Jimmy drove it in anger, better not to run, than to run and make a poor showing.

Clark was contracted with both Ford and Lotus, and that was how this ride was chosen for him..... Alas, not to be raced, only qualified on pole, not every story leads to the Champion playing grab ass with the track queen on the podium.... getting the stories, and the cars correct... that should be what this is all about... but now its turned into a Profit motivated business where one finds it necessary to point out that they alone own the sandbox.