This obscure ’65 big-block bathtub is still making waves at Goodwood
You may not be familiar with Ed Hamill’s name, and that’s understandable, given that the man has only built three racing cars. Back in 1963, Hamill was still racing a Ford-powered Cooper Monaco T49 at Mid-Ohio, but Harold Pace’s book on the subject reveals that by the end of 1964, Hamill came up with his own open prototype: the SR2. Built around a tubular frame with bonded aluminum panels, this mid-engined machine was followed by a pair of SR3s, the latter of which used a rounded steel tube frame instead of square one. Hamill also switched from Oldsmobile V-8s to big-block Chevys fed by quad Webers. In period, those two SR3s started a total of sixteen races but finished only four.
Nowadays, the Hamill-Chevrolet SR3 wearing #63 is a regular sight at Goodwood, and driven by Darren Turner, it sure didn’t get slower all these years. Last year, I could barely catch it with my old XD-7 on Ilford’s HP5:
You might be interested to know that Ed Hamill actually built 4 racing cars: in the midst of building his first car, which he intended to designate Hamill SR1, he was approached by a friend, who asked him if he would be interested in building a rear-engined Indy car, for Dean Van Lines, for the upcoming Indianapolis 500. Ed said sure, but the race was just 3 months away. His friend got the go-ahead from someone at Dean, so, in February Ed commenced to design and build the car.
He took it to Indy for time trials, the car passed inspection, practiced for the race, was lined up to be the last car in qualifying, just before 6 pm, but was pulled out when Mr Dean got worried, and substituted a lesser traditional car in its place. The Hamnill car did not race, and, IIRC, the other car did not make the field.
Since this Indy car was the first Hamill racing car to be completed, he named it the Hamill Indy R1. Because Ed had built the Hamill Indy car on very little sleep, he was exhausted, and a “friend” volunteered to trailer the car back to Chicago. Ed said thank you, went home, and never saw the Hamill Indy R1 again. He tried to reclaim it, legally, but, without being able to find the car, to repossess it, he was forced to drop legal action. The car dropped out of sight, but was recently discovered, and it has a racing history.
I did not realize the comment was not going directly to the author, so perhaps you can remove Ed’s contact info.
You might be interested to know that Ed Hamill actually built 4 racing cars: in the midst of building his first car, which was to be called the Hamill SR1, he was approached by a friend, who asked him if he would be interested in building a rear-engined Indy car, for Dean Van Lines, for the upcoming Indianapolis 500. Ed said sure, but the race was just 3 months away. His friend got the go-ahead from someone at Dean, so, in February Ed commenced to design and build the car.
He took it to Indy for time trials, the car passed inspection, practiced for the race, was lined up to be the last car in qualifying, just before 6 pm, but was pulled out when Mr Dean got worried, and substituted a lesser traditional car in its place. The Hamill car did not race, and, IIRC, the other car did not make the field. At the time, Ed Hamill was the youngest Indy-car builder on record.
Since this Indy car was the first Hamill racing car to be completed, he named it the Hamill Indy R1. Because Ed had built the Hamill Indy car on very little sleep, he was exhausted, and a “friend” volunteered to trailer the car back to Chicago. Ed said thank you, went home, and never saw the Hamill Indy R1 again. He tried to reclaim it, legally, but, without being able to find the car, to repossess it, he was forced to drop legal action. The car dropped out of sight, but was recently discovered, and it has a racing history.
He returned to work on his Hamill SR2 original car, which, almost immediately upon completion, was sold to a friend, and promptly destroyed in a test drive accident. Ed then built his own personal Hamill SR3, and later built a second Hamill SR3 for his friend, which is the subject car, #63. Ed still owns his personal Hamill SR3.