Race Cars and Motorsports

i have a single seater race car,it has no bodywork or engine but its a full rolling chassis with huge avon racing slicks,on weld wheels,zf box,brakes,discs etc etc...i have looked at the f5000 cars and it would seem the chassis numbers were on the bodywork and not the chassis...can anyone advise what to look for as 1968 would have been one of the first chassis built...thanks

The famous McRae F5000 cars were made by a gent who spelled his name "McRae", and he didn't start building cars until about four years later. They're quite distinctive, and their steering looks nothing like the photo you posted. The F5000 class started in 1968, and in its first year or two there were lots of one-off cars. Perhaps if you post more photos we'll be able to tell something from them. I expect your car is probably one of a kind.

In the title you typed "F500". I know of two different classes called F500, but coilover shock absorbers wouldn't have been used in either of them.

sorry i meant f5000...but was just what i found on the net...any help would be great...









Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2012 06:06AM by beario.

Interesting, but not a McRae.it looks like a one off build with a conglomeration of bespoke race car parts, decent looking chassis
but by 1965 the bulk of F 5000 cars were aluminum monocoques and no major mfr was using the ZF gearbox,Hewlands were plentiful, and are you sure those are Weld wheels,, they look like Halibrands to me. I don't know what you paid for it but the wheels and tha ZF are worth a pretty penny nowadays.
Dave Craddock

the master cylinders are directly behine the pedals...could you pm me and dave craddock as im looking to sell the zf-2 and chassis together or seperately and would like an idea of what you think they are worth and if you could suggest any websites that this would be better at selling...it was originally bought for a gt40 build kind of,6 yrs ago...and selling the gt40 shell and framed chassis... thanks bearnigel at yahoo dot com

Fascinating car. Motor mounts appear to be what a Chevy small block would use. Pretty standard F5000 engine for those days.
Very early as you said. I think Dave is right about it being a one off build. Do the rear hub carriers or front spindles have any markings? That might help narrow it down, as those are very unique pieces and there never were many suppliers of that sort of part for builders to use.

There are several websites that list all the race results for Formula 5000. OldRacingCars.com is particularly good. You'll find that there were three different F5000 series: one in UK, one in North America, and one for Australia & New Zealand. No "Mac Rae" is listed as having participated in ANY of those three series. Possibly this car was never completed. Or, possibly it was built for another use such as hillclimbs. (I expect that's most likely, especially if the car is located in the UK!)

I agree with Dave's that the car looks like an odd conglomeration of parts. I wonder what the rear uprights came off of. Have you inspected them for casting marks? They have ears for mounting brake calipers, even though your car has inboard mounted rotors, which by the way wasn't common in F5000. Notice how the wheels are knock-offs instead of mounted on lugs; that's pretty uncommon for F5000 or any other series where races were relatively short and mid-race tire changes simply didn't happen. The suspension geometry / layout is... peculiar. (e.g. very short trailing links at the rear. For trailing links, generally the longer the better. At the front, the coilover shock absorbers are laid way over and I expect that probably results in a "falling rate" suspension, which is a bad thing.) I'm curious about how the master cylinders were mounted, since the photos don't show that detail.

I have a hunch that the wheels are a lot newer than the rest of the parts photographed, except of course the tires. Check the wheels for casting marks, because fake Hallibrands aren't worth nearly what real ones are. The tires probably have a date code molded into them, and I expect it will reveal that they're only a couple years old.

Google will show you that there's at least one web forum specifically for GT40s, including "continuation" cars and GT40 inspired kit-cars. They'll give you a far better value estimate than I can, and you'll probably get offers right away if you post there.

Prices vary wildly with location. On the UK eBay site I've seen insanely high auction results for rusty piles of unidentifiable Formula Ford parts. This is no Formula Ford... perhaps you'll be able to retire early. Good luck with it!

the tyres are at least 10 yrs old as its not been moved for six yrs...wheels are weld wheel speedways from what i can see a seventies wheel,,will have a look in next for for tyre markings and rear hub carrier pics so please look back and as said please can anyone with a sensible idea on what they think its worth i have an idea on the zf ish but not the race car... my email is in a few back previous posts many thanks...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2012 02:29PM by beario.

If you can't find any racing history for the car to bring up it's value then I'd think it would make an ideal fun car for the street with some different tires and something like a Lotus 23 body draped over the rails. A small block Chevy or a Rover would make a great and exciting ride. With something like that I'd bet you could give Carl a good run in the autocross.

tyres look like 1985...there must be a race histroy of some sort,its just finding it?????i think the box is a zf-2 can anyone clarify what it is or from,i found one that looked the same on a gt40- site and it was a lot of money...

Thanks for the closeups,, the wheels are fabricated two piece probably not worth a lot, look good tho, front uprights are fabbed up pieces, like Curtis said the suspension is classic early race car style coil over double wishbone, but the chassis is more sophisticated structurally than early cars, more along the lines of a Van Dieman formula car. The gearbox and the rear suspension would be of interst to anyone building a mid engine V8 car, there is a provision for brake calipers on the uprights
and the inboard brakes while not a desirable racing item would be pure sex on a street car( exceptions to the sliding spline stub shafts) I would think that whole rear assy could bring $8 to 10 grand . A brand new Zed-F made for kit cars etc. runs about $12-14 K, they were also used in Panteras .Since the car was never finished and or homologated,IE; no logbook it would be tough to race in vintage although some clubs would make an exception . Heres a couple web sites that might help you out

Dave Craddock




[www.race-cars.com]
[www.gt40s.com]

cheers dave,if advertised on race cars.co what would you list it as to get any interest at all,and what price would you put,its hard to know as know one knows what it is,the suspension and box is 10k,whats the rest worth,i have a 2xle rigid body paperwork:)

Send the pics to bringatrailer.com - they have thousands of subscribers & run a "Whatzit" post every now & then. It's amazing how quickly things can get identified when you get enough eyes on them.