The first Scarab is probably the Troutman Barnes Special, raced by Chuck Daigh and Ken Miles, and presently in the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles.A photo with the original and some of the Scarabs would be interesting to see. Thanks..
| The Hollywood Racer, Lance Reventlow |
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| Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:40 |
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Grant remained friends with Lance after the divorce from Lance's mother, Barbara Hutton, the heiress to the Woolworth fortune, the WalMart of its day. Reventlow's father was a count, his other stepfather was a prince and Lance inherited the count title. At the age of 12, Lance’s mother married Prince Igor Troubetzkoy who won the famous Targa Florio car race that year, thus leading to Lance's interest in motor sports. Reventlow, who turned out to be a handsome fellow, married the famous and beautiful movie star, Jill St. John, and later he married an ex-Walt Disney Mouseketeer, Cheryl Holdridge. He remained interested in pursuing motor sports, eventually deciding to build his own race car. Lance’s race car is called the Scarab, it was fast and won many of the races it entered. The exception was Formula One, where they had a very bad outcome, likely due to the front-engine car, when most of the other teams were changing to the mid-engine layout. But ignoring the Formula One difficulties, the Scarab sports cars were very successful and dominated United States racing in the late 1950's and early 1960's and were the best of the best sports race cars. Not only were they great race cars beating Ferraris, Maseratis and Listers but they were beautiful too. Lance Reventlow was the leader, and funder, of the team that built and raced these cars. One of the important keys to his success was the team that he assembled. Bruce Kessler, who raced with Lance in the United States and Europe, was the first member of this special team.
Warren Olson was a key to Lance's plan, Olson had worked on Reventlow’s previous race cars and he was an expert mechanic and more. RAI was started in Olson's shop in Southern California. Together they recruited Dick Troutman, Tom Barnes, Phil Remington, Emil Deidt, Jim Travers, Frank Coon, Ken Miles and driver Chuck Daigh. RAI chose their engine - the Chevrolet small block V8, starting at 283 cid, they went to 301 cid and soon were at 327 cid and later 339 cid. With fuel injection they produced around 360 hp. They used aluminum Borg Warner T-10 transmissions. The beautiful Scarab body was designed by Chuck Pelly and built by Emil Deidt who had experience making Indy cars. The paint scheme was a pearl blue with white stripes and was pinstriped by Von Dutch himself. The Mk. I had a very successful race career and the Mk. II was soon to follow. The Mk. II looked similar to the Mk. I but the two Mk. IIs were right hand drive so that the driver was on the inside of most turns on a race track in the clockwise direction as most race tracks were designed. These cars started racing in 1958 and they had a great season, even beating Phil Hill in the best car Ferrari could deliver. After the 1958 season the Mk. IIs were sold by RAI and Lance kept the Mk I and converted it to street use as his personal car. These Mk. II cars continued to have success racing in the hands of private owners with drivers: Augie Pabst, Carroll Shelby, Jim Jeffords and Harry Heuer. Carroll Shelby won at least one race driving a Scarab. Scarabs were competitive until 1963 when mid-engine cars became too tough to beat.
Lance was a friend of fellow racer, and Hollywood actor, James Dean. On September 30, 1955, Lance was one of the last people to see James Dean alive when they met on their way to a race in Salinas, California. James Dean was killed later that day near Paso Robles in his Porsche 550 Spyder. When Lance dropped out of racing in the early 1960's, his facility, and many of his people, were taken over by Shelby who put them to work making the Shelby Cobra and Shelby Mustang. This team went on to achieve considerable success in racing with Shelby. Unlike other companies Reventlow Automobile Inc. did not make street cars to sell in order to pay for the racing. Lance was rich so he, and his mother, paid for the cost of racing. The result of this is that there are only a handful of real Scarab cars in the world, and include the following eight: Scarab Mark I and II built in 1958 using a Chevy V8 engine and an aluminum body - three were made. Scarab Formula 1 built in 1959-1960 using an Offenhauser, Goosen and Chevy V8 engines, all with aluminum bodies – three were made. Scarab Intercontinental built in 1961 with a Buick V8 and aluminum body – only one was made. Scarab Mid-Engine Sports Racer built in 1962 using a Buick, Olds and Chevy V8 and aluminum body – just one was made. AJ Foyt had considerable success driving this car. Unfortunately, this story does not have a Hollywood happy ending. In 1972 Lance Reventlow died in a small plane crash in the Colorado Mountains near Aspen where he had a home. Even though he was an experienced pilot he was not flying the plane that terrible day. Lance Reventlow was 36 years old when he died. By Michael Gulett Worth Checking - Motoring news - Road Tests
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