My friend T.Mike, the man who maintains the largest database of fake bands in the known universe, was out driving the other day when he spotted this oddball on a trailer. Curious, concerned, perhaps even a bit frightened or aroused, he reached out to me to help identify what he was seeing. Unfortunately, I’m not really sure! It’s clearly some sort of racing machine, but I’m not sure what type or category or if it’s a one-off or a production design. But I bet one of you may know something!
It’s a closed-wheel race car, I can see that, and it appears to have some lights in the sides there, so perhaps it’s for endurance-type racing that may go into evenings. It looks like it for track use, and that huge gaping maw up front sure looks able to suck in a lot of air. There seems to be two side-by-side seats in the cabin, which is free of any glass, and is pretty small – almost like a literal side-by-side off-roader cab.
It may be mid-engined, as there does seem to be some sort of intake on the leading edge of the swell of the rear fender area there, and there’s a nice big wing on the back.
Doing a reverse image search just brings up the predictable Batmobiles and a number of much larger black racing cars, but nothing that looks quite like this. Is this some sort of formula car for an amateur racing class, like Formula Vee or something? I mean, I know it’s not Formula Vee, but maybe in that general category?
Did this start life as some sort of production car? I don’t think so, at least not anything intended for general road use, That cabin and seating do have an off-road sort of origin look to me, but I’m very uncertain. I can see what looks like beefy suspension arms in those front intakes, sorta.
I’m really curious now, and I’m sure one of you out there can identify this for me. Help me banish these clouds of ignorance! What is this little Batmobile-looking thing?
See If You Can Identify What This Extremely Wrecked Car Once Was
Someone Help Me Identify This Chunk Of A Van Submerged In The LA River Before I Go Nuts
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For T.Mike: In the 70’s there was a Cleveland band called Johnny and the Dicks that never played, only put out album covers. Their alter ego was X-Blank-X. Every time they played the blank was filled in differently.
It looks like Waren moslers wet dream?!
Looks like a cousin of the McMurtry fan car that ran at Goodwood……..amazing thing.
What make is the tow rig? I was thinking maybe it had something to do with the McCandless collection, but a Ford or GM truck pulling it would probably rule that out.
This looks like something the Parker Bros have built
OT… there’s another Jason Torchinsky in this world? His name is in this article a lot, snippet below, laughed every time his name popped up in this article.
When there’s official paperwork that has to get to Citizens for Responsible Solar, it goes through a firm created by a lawyer named Jason Torchinsky. The same firm has been the registered agent for at least two dozen conservative organizations based in Virginia. One of them was a voter-focused group headed by Leonard Leo, who helped remake the federal judiciary through the Federalist Society. NPR and Floodlight haven’t verified whether any of the conservative groups that use Torchinsky’s firm as a registered agent have ties to Citizens for Responsible Solar.
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1154867064/solar-power-misinformation-activists-rural-america
That fucker is my evil doppelganger. Trust no imitations!
I’d love to ask him two questions:
1. What is your opinion of people getting purged from voter rolls for having the same name as a convicted felon?
and 2. To prove you’re the real Jason Torchinsky, please name the three varieties of Chevrolet Citation taillights, and the common misconception about two of them.
Trick question, there are 4 varieties of Citation taillight!
1. Base model with combined stop/turn/tail outer and blank red center compartment.
2. Optional (bundled with chrome window trim and pinstripes in an “exterior decor package”) amber rear turn signals in the center compartment and stop/tail in the outer ones.
3. Export, with amber turn signal in the *outer* compartment and red stop/tail center section.
These also seem to have had larger backup lights (those were always in the innermost compartments) or at least larger clear lenses that took up the entire innermost rectangles rather than being encircled (ensquared?) by a red reflector.
The common misconception is that #2 was the 1980 model year version and #1 was cost-cut into all 1981-up models. The take rate may have declined as it became more and more a fleet car, but the amber rear signals were optional from the start and remained so up to at least 1984.
Oh, and if you were talking about left and right versions I guess there were at least six.
I save time by not trusting ANY of you.
Best case I’m in for a six hour dissertation on the myriad variations of 1961 Corvair tail lights.
Worst case I’m in for a six hour dissertation on why requiring cars to have tail lights is government overreach.
Wait, you’re NOT my lawyer?!
Looks like a Radical to me hoss.
I was thinking YRA Bandoleros division. The quality is not as nice ss the Radical cars shown.
Revolution 427 by the looks. Co-founder of Radical went off and founded their own company.
https://www.revolutionracecars.com/cars
Yep, it’s a Revolution 500 unliveried.
Thank you!
That explains why it looks a bit Radical-esque.
Although I guess a lot of that design ifs from function rather than aesthetics.
I am pretty sure this is a Radical race only car, they are not very expensive, and they run a variety of engines, usually veery veery light
See one here:
https://www.racingjunk.com/sports-racer/184422871/2021-radical-sr10-lhd.html?category_id=&search=radical&quickSearch=1&np_offset=1&from=search#7
Not very expensive?!? $160,000?!?
I guess compared to an F1 or Indycar, it’s a bargain.
A spec Miata OTOH is only $50,000.
Hell, you can get a road course NASCAR Truck rolling chassis for $25,000. If all you want is a track-day toy, another $25,000 will net you a decent crate engine and transmission. https://racingnews.co/2022/06/19/nascar-trucks-for-sale/
Do you have ANY idea what these cars cost vs. TCR vs. GTE?
No. You do not.
$160k OTD turnkey is ‘not very expensive’ for something like the Revolution, which turns lap times lower than an Aston Martin GTE, and approaching a Duqueine LMP3.
An Aston Martin Vantage GTE costs THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION DOLLARS. And that’s not even turnkey, forget spares.
An obsolete, used Duqueine D-08 will easily set you back half a million dollars, but at least you get spares. New? “The fastest way to become a millionaire is to start as a billionaire and go racing.” If you’ve got seven digits in your pocket, they might pick up when you call.
A brand new ‘cheap’ IMSA TCR entry car like the Hyundai Elantra N TCR starts at over $150,000 for the chassis, more than $30,000 for mandatory spares and support, requires proof of a significant team investment and salary (there’s another $100,000+,) and you haven’t even got a seat in it yet. As in the thing you sit in. It’s not included.
The Revolution 427 is about $150k OTD, turnkey, and nearly on par with the D-08. The Revolution 500SC is about $170k OTD, turnkey. That is extremely cheap, because racing absolutely isn’t.
Thank you for your reply, one other example comes to mind, when i visited Monticello, there was a fairly recent model Mustang there, and i was asking just out of curiosity what the heck would it cost to have one on track with that spec i honestly expected super bargain … then shock: the guy told me when is all said and done, 250K.
As for radicals, I have seen them even as low as 30k, depends mostly on the powertrain, they have among other things a v8 version of modified hayabusa engine, which is pretty cool.
I was not aware of the revolution, but it seems like a natural “evolution” of the radicals, and to me, the basic bones stayed relatively similar over time, just the clothing changed
Yeah, racing is beyond expensive. People will insist it isn’t, they’re wrong. Especially when they point to ‘Spec Miata’ as an example of how ‘cheap’ it is.
Any Spec Miata that’s national competitive and claims to be under 6 digits in costs is just straight up lying. Sure, you can be a backmarker on the cheap. Anything seriously competitive, you’re dropping new Miata sticker money on a current logbook with a fresh cage.
“But that’s nowhere near 6 digits!” No, it’s not. But then you get into prep and operation. New cage. Testing and tuning. Data loggers. Transponders. Transport. Tires. Support costs. That shit adds up very quickly. And remember, spec doesn’t mean ‘equal.’ It means ‘equal parts,’ so whoever spends the most on services like alignment setup, data analysis, test days, coaching, and so on wins.
As an example of that, if you want to run near the front of the pack, one of the keys to that is your tires. $1100 a set not including wheels; national level, 3+ sets a race. 10 races, that’s over $33,000 in tires alone. 4 sets of wheels (3 slicks, 1 rain) is over $6k. Car trailer, figure at least $2-3k for a used one in decent shape. And so on.
Even ‘cheap’ isn’t. If you have a Porsche 997.2 GTS and you want to hang with the GT3s, it’s about as ‘cheap’ as it gets. The GTS packs 410HP in 3000lbs vs. the 997 GT3s at 410HP or 430HP and 3000lbs. In other words, from the factory, they’re within margin of error nearly. (Which is why both are classed P8 nationally.)
So to make that GTS truly competitive, you don’t need expensive engine or transmission work, or ECU tuning. You need tires and suspension, which should be cheap, right?
Step one, 18″ wheels and track tires. Expect to easily spend over $3000 per wheel. Step two, spend significantly less than that installing GT3 suspension parts. Even if you add on the springs and shocks.
And those Radicals and Revolutions are insanely expensive to run. One of the reasons I really don’t like or want to do purebred race work. The hour meter in the ECU is gospel on those things. It’s not ‘change the oil more often.’
The Revolution 427 requires a total engine rebuild every 10,000km or less. The Radical SR1 requires total drivetrain rebuild every 40 HOURS.