No doubt the victory song of the Lance Reventlow Fan Club was sung enthusiastically from the stands: ‘The Prancing Horse forgets to prance, When they see Bruce, or Chuck, or Lance. To Maserati, it’s not so funny, When they are passed by Lance and Money. So weep in England and weep in Italy, When Lance and the Scarab beat you completely.’
To mark the 60th anniversary of that dramatic win, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance organised a Scarab reunion in August 2018, but for me racing cars look wrong sitting silently on a pristine golf course.
Riverside is now a housing development and, sadly, few of the team survive, but I’m sure they’d agree that these V8 beauties should be seen and heard running hard.
The cockpit is snug and functional
Thankfully, German owner Olivier Ellerbrock feels the same and, after racing his car at the Goodwood Revival, he generously agreed to a dream test run to celebrate Daigh’s historic win.
In contrast to the seductive body, the cockpit is as functional as a dry-lakes record car with aircraft-type buckets, four-spoke Indy roadster-style wheel and a crackle-black dash panel.
The black-faced instruments are Stewart Warner, the rev counter alone to the left of the column with the talltale set at 7000rpm.
To the right is a cluster of smaller gauges and switches, all identified by Von Dutch’s hand-painted, serif-style capitals for ‘mag’, ‘start’, ‘fan’ and ‘lites’ (sic).
Von Dutch’s script remains on the dash (left), while the Borg-Warner T10 ’box has a meaty yet slick action
To accommodate its owner’s tall build, specialist Dean Lanzante has fitted a smaller wheel and moved the pedals, but with the original seat it’s still a snug fit between the chassis tubing and gearbox cover.
Start-up is a two-handed operation, with your right operating the valve for the fuel while the other flicks the starter.
The smallblock Chevrolet V8 has an explosive awakening, which one race official in 1958 likened to an artillery barrage at Gettysburg.
Just sitting in the cockpit with the stereo rumble from the open exhausts under the sills, it’s easy to conjure the team’s racing dramas, particularly its first flag-to-flag win at Santa Barbara in June ’58, when it gobbled up Ferraris for lunch.
‘You relish clearing the apex to launch this blue beauty again, its forceful charge accompanied by that ear-splitting exhaust’
As you push down the accelerator, that raucous burble becomes sharper and louder with menacing volume. After successfully feeding in the abrupt racing clutch, the Scarab feels Cobra-like to drive.
The steering is heavy at first, with limited lock, but once you’re moving it transforms to become both precise and beautifully weighted.
The gearbox, a Borg-Warner T10, is worked by a short lever on the left side of the tunnel, topped by an aluminium ball. The action is meaty but surprisingly slick for the power it takes.
The ratios are well stacked, but with such mighty torque you barely need to change when up to speed, and owner Ellerbrock says you can pretty much drive Goodwood in top.
From every angle, the Scarab is one of the best-looking ’50s sports-racers
The clutch and brake pedals are tightly spaced and both have a weighty action, but such pressure gives reassurance.
The V8’s power is remarkable, with relentless punch right through the rev range.
I’ve never been one to wear earplugs, even with a period ‘pudding basin’ helmet, and the exhaust roar with the hammer down has dragster noise levels.
At Goodwood, marshals rated it the noisiest car as the unsilenced Chevy reverberated around the track.
The hallmarks of the eccentric, passionate Lance Reventlow are seen everywhere on this car
The staggering launch is totally addictive, the surge pinning you against the seat-back in every gear.
In 1958, Road & Track timed a Scarab with Reventlow driving and even today the figures are impressive: 0-60mph in 4.2 secs, 0-100mph in 9 secs and a 120mph quarter-mile.
Today, with more than 500bhp on tap, it would be even quicker.
Daigh reported that the Scarab would pull 170mph down the back straight at Riverside, and Don Orosco was once clocked at 172mph on Goodwood’s Lavant Straight before the valves started to float and he backed off.
Around the deserted test track, with close, wooded perimeters and a rolling middle section, the view ahead, partly distorted by the moulded ’screen, could be Road America, where 18-year-old Jerry Hansen had the mother of all shunts at 125mph in 1962.
With such seductive power it would be easy to get carried away, but the car feels on your side.
The unsilenced Chevrolet V8 is extremely noisy
There’s little roll through the corners and the chassis balance inspires an attacking pace, despite the proximity of the trees.
Powering over the brows you can feel the car go light, but through the tighter turns the poise is impressive.
After a touch of understeer into the bends, you relish clearing the apex to launch this blue beauty again, its forceful charge accompanied by that strident, ear-splitting exhaust.
Straight from the first tests at Goodwood, both Ellerbrock and brother-in-law Christian Gläsel were impressed by the Scarab’s performance.
‘The staggering launch is totally addictive, the surge pinning you against the seat-back in every gear’
“The engine has so much more power than a D-type and the acceleration is stunning,” says Ellerbrock.
“The drum brakes are phenomenal, both strong and precise. Even with all the bodywork off the detail is breathtaking, particularly the rear suspension and inboard brakes.”
Former Scarab owner Orosco lauds the roadster’s remarkable handling: “It’s so well balanced and drifts beautifully. You steer it on the throttle, and I never spun in my years of racing Scarabs.
“The brakes are better than a Maserati ‘Birdcage’, but the rears have to heat up before you really try. The first time I drove it they spooked me.”
Driving Reventlow’s Scarab was a dream come true for Classic & Sports Car’s Mick Walsh
Finally getting to drive one of my all-time dream cars lives up to every high expectation.
The combination of the sexiest looks of any ’50s sports-racer, connections with so many hero engineers and its magnificent driving character now mesmerises me even more.
Images: Luc Lacey
Thanks to Olivier Ellerbrock, Dean Lanzante and historian Preston Lerner, author of the definitive Scarab history
Scarab Roadster: did you know?
The Scarab’s team included top engineers Chuck Daigh, Ken Miles (early chassis work), Phil Remington, Dick Troutman, Tom Barnes, Emil Diedt and Sonny Balcaen
• Lance Reventlow’s mother, Barbara Hutton, was one of the wealthiest women in the world thanks to her Woolworth fortune, while his aristocratic father was the Danish Count Kurt von Haugwitz Reventlow.
Born in London, Lance soon relocated to America for prep school in Phoenix after his mother secured custody following an acrimonious divorce.
Reports state that on his 21st birthday his inheritance was $25million, which provided major funding for the Scarab team.
As well as his racing pursuits – which started in 1955, aged just 19, with a Mercedes 300SL ‘Gullwing’ – Reventlow’s playboy lifestyle included polo, skiing, a spectacular Modernist home in the Hollywood Hills and a succession of gorgeous celebrity girlfriends, among them Natalie Wood, Jill St John and Cheryl Holdridge.
After the closure of RAI, he had the first Scarab (chassis 001) converted for street use.
Reventlow died in 1972, at 36, in a Cessna 206 flown by a student pilot, after crash-landing in a box canyon en route to buying property in Aspen.
The white scallops and striping were all done by hand, and differed from car to car
• The Scarab’s spectacular colour scheme is credited to the offbeat hot-rod artisan Kenneth Robert Howard, better known as Von Dutch, who also detailed James Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder and Steve McQueen’s Jaguar XKSS.
When the body styling was finally resolved, Von Dutch was enlisted to mix up the signature blue metallic paint, which he set off with bold white scallops and distinctive pinstriping.
Working after hours, he would arrive with beers and paint through the night.
When the crew arrived the next morning, the shop would be a mess but when they peeled back the masking, the body finish looked stunning.
Each Scarab was individually painted and the details, particularly the striping, varied from car to car.
Reventlow’s team badge was designed to raise a smile
• Reventlow had a unique sense of humour, which the distinctive team badge highlights.
Designed by Von Dutch, the logo centres around an Egyptian dung beetle known as the Scarab, encircled by two sinister-looking snakes.
Theories for the choice vary from the beetle’s symbolism for immortality to, more likely, an in-joke mocking the stallions, big cats and tridents of European marques.
The team was also known as ‘Ecurie Flat Cat’.
‘It’s so well balanced and drifts beautifully’
• The sensational styling of the Scarab roadster is credited to Chuck Pelly, an 18-year-old automotive design student at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.
Pelly had taken summer jobs at Kurtis-Kraft, and was suggested by the specialist.
Just one sketch was drawn before plywood formers were made for Emil Deidt to hammer out the body panels.
Influences ranged from the Aston Martin DBR1 to Bonneville streamliners, claimed Pelly.
After Kessler crashed the first Scarab at Riverside, Reventlow – who had never liked the original shape – got the chance to revise the styling with a leaner nose, head fairing, and more muscular tail.
Pelly went on to become a respected industrial designer, with credits including the Porsche 910, Cattiva catamaran, Disney monorail, Samsonite furniture and various BMWs with his company DesignworksUSA.
Reventlow was able to alter the design of the nose following Kessler’s crash
• The longest owner of a Scarab roadster was Milwaukee racing legend Augie Pabst.
After joining the Meister Brauser team in 1959, he raced the Scarab successfully through to its final victory at Continental Divide Raceways in 1963.
Pabst always loved driving the Scarab and eventually bought chassis 002 in 1977, competing regularly in historic events for the next 40 years before selling it to John Mozart.
Factfile
Scarab Mk1
- Sold/number built 1958/3 (plus a road car built by Dick Troutman for Reventlow’s half brother in 1985, and the Orosco team’s reconstruction built around original spares)
- Construction chrome-moly tubular chassis, aluminium body with removable front and rear
- Engine tuned 5.5-litre wet-sump Chevrolet V8, with Racer Brown cam, Scintilla Vertex magneto and Hilborn fuel injection
- Max power 577bhp (on aviation alcohol)
- Max torque 370lb ft @ 4500rpm
- Transmission four-speed Borg-Warner T10 manual with aluminium bellhousing, driving rear wheels via a Halibrand quick-change LSD with 3.78:1, 3.30:1 and 3.19:1 ratios
- Suspension: front independent, by double wishbones coil springs and Monroe shock absorbers rear de Dion tube, twin parallel trailing arms each side, Watt linkage
- Steering Morris Minor rack and pinion
- Brakes 11in finned drums, inboard at rear, with bronze-aluminium friction surface
- Wheels & tyres Halibrand cast magnesium rims, with 6x16in (f), 7x16in (r) tyres
- Wheelbase 7ft 8in (2337mm)
- 0-60mph 4.2 secs
- Top speed 172mph
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Mick Walsh
Mick Walsh is Classic & Sports Car’s International Editor