Information on Cad-Darrin raced by Laura Maxine Elmer

[Mel Francis]

I'm new to the forum, but this is an old story that I've wanted to tell the group for some time now.

In 1987, Steve Karlock of Thousand Oaks, CA brought me a Kaiser Darrin for restoration, that had been outfitted with a Cadillac engine. As you can see in the first photo, the engine mounts were rather tall and cradled the engine higher than normal, since the steering box, which normally sat beside the 6 cyl, now rested underneath the left hand cylinder bank and prevented it from going further. The engine sat so tall, that someone cut a hole in the hood for carb clearance and mounted a J.C. Whitney hood scoop to cover the intake.

Steve told me at the time, that the car had been previously raced in the mid-fifties by Laura Maxine Elmer, who later married Briggs Cunningham. Evidence that it had been raced was found in a worn layer of brushed-on red enamel over the entire floor area, to take the place of the red carpet that had been removed, to comply with SCCA rules. The car was also equipped with a pair of side-exhausts, with no mufflers, that came off the headers. Actually, there was just one header on the left, fabricated around the steering shaft and the right side used a stock iron manifold, which bolted up to the r/h exhaust pipe. The modifications to the car were all very rough, looking they had been done in haste, so as we restored the car, we re-engineered some of the details, to make it more presentable as a restored item.

The car was equipped with a Lasalle 3-speed manual with an aluminum adapter to the V8. It had a giant 4-row copper radiator fitted into the front compartment, but the mounts were collapsing with age and fatigue, so we replaced them with stronger units. This wasn't going to be a very useful car if it was put back as Darrin's Sunset Blvd. team had built it, so I was given the go-ahead to install the engine correctly. This meant lowering the steering box bracket and fabricating new mounts that held the engine at the correct angle for the carb floats to work correctly. We made up a K-frame to replace the modified and twisted original crossmember.  The steering shaft was also modified with a couple of u-joints to allow proper clearance and new headers were fabricated for each side, with a larger main, center tube, and two smaller tubes feeding onto it on either side, very period correct, if not as 'originally' modified. The side exhausts were rebuilt with short mufflers, to help improve street drivability. Steve had a complete dual-quad manifold from a '55 Eldorado, so we added that item, also. As you can see in the photo, it completes the installation very well. The electrical system was divided, in order to start and run the engine on 12 volts, with a voltage stepdown coil to run the original lights and instruments on 6 volts. A couple of weeks after that photo was taken, I drove the car up onto Steve's trailer and he took it off to another shop for upholstery. It ran very smoothly, just idling up the ramps.

It had been one of the group of cars shipped out to Darrin's shop. Kaiser was closing, so in order to make good on their styling and development deal with Darrin, they paid him in cars to settle the debt. The car was a regular production item, fully finished and bore a regular production plate, with a serial number, as seen in the photo. The story we heard from Darrin's family back then, was that Butch, his younger brother, handled the shop operations and it was his decision, when it came to some of the original modifications, given the short amount of time available for the V8 installations. Since we had the time, we were determined to do it a bit more patiently. the hole in the hood was closed and these days, the car looks exactly like any other Darrin, except for the side exhausts.

I haven't seen Steve or the car for the last 28 years, since I moved to the Midwest. But I have spoken to him recently about the museum he's opening in Hannibal, MO. The car will be on display there as part of a permanent exhibit and I'll take some better photos when I visit this summer. I have some other photos from this period, but they were all on old photo media and scanned for this thread.

[DTort96646]

Hello Mel Francis, would you have any idea what the vehicle number was. I have a old program from the 1955 Palm Springs SCCA race that lists Maxine Elmer( Laura Cunningham) as the driver with Howard Darrin as the owner. There is also a video of the same race where Ralph Sinatra rolls over in his 6 cyl supercharged Darrin. Finally great to see more information about any Cad powered Darrin.

[Mel Francis]

Back when we restored the car, I never made any note of the chassis number. I suppose I could contact Steve and ask him.
But when I visit the car this summer in Hannibal, I will definitely take a closeup photo of the number plates on the firewall.
Yes, I've seen the race program and the video of the March 1955 Palm Springs race. None of that was available (online), back in 1988.

Here are a couple more photos of the frame, the first was of our lowered steering and engine mounts.
Compare that to the shot of the original frame and you'll see the height difference.

The second shot shows the engine re-installed in the frame. Sorry about the motion-blur. One detail I have wondered about is the additional round tubing
stiffeners from the side rails to the high crossmember above the rear axle. Was this a standard frame modification on all Darrins, or just on the modified
V8 chassis?

[Terry T]

This may be #368, one of 3 or 4 regular production units that Dutch had  modified.

[Mel Francis]

Hi Terry, what do you think about the angle braces above the rear axle? A standard stiffening modification to the production Willys frame for all Darrins?
Yes, it might be #368, I'll have to ask. It definitely started life as a regular production car.

[Terry T]

That rear stiffening was production, but it changed somewhat throughout the production cycle.

I met an old timer here in Detroit area who worked the line in Jackson.  He said that in the beginning, the plant provided the line with boxes of scrap metal to "box in" the rear frame members.  So, early units were very rough from that standpoint.

[Mel Francis]

Well, as part of the production effort, that part of the frame modification was nicely done. The tubes fit well and had good welds to the main rails. We just cleaned and repainted, since it was a California car with only surface rust.

The first shot below shows the final installation of the Cadillac engine and the beginning of the steering shaft modification, with the two u-joints. This allowed the header to be a very straight-forward design, not having to wrap around the steering shaft.

The lower photo shows the large radiator fitted into the nose. It was mounted solidly on the two vertical supports showing in the previous frame and engine photo. At one point, the radiator had been mounted to the fiberglass side walls and had broken loose in a front-end accident. You can see in the photo, that the new inner wall extensions were only laminated in place and had not yet been painted yet. Working with the front clip removed made the engine work so much easier, an advantage that Darrin's crew never had.

[Mel Francis]

As the body was removed from the frame, we mounted it on two rolling fixtures, to help with the individual prep and repairs, without having to work down inside the footwells.

The photos below, show the two body sections well past all their repairs, with the catalyzed primer baking in the sun.
The front clip was further reduced to just the skin section, with the cowl and inner panels being first re-attached to the chassis, as in the forward view above. This allowed the
doors to be refitted to the rear clip while on the upper and lower tracks, with full access to everything.
You'll notice in the photos, that the hood repair to fill in the area where the scoop had been, had not begun yet.

[Terry T]

Yep, it is #368--Karlock confirmed in the Darrin Registry.

Great to have pics of it--thanks much.

[Mel Francis]

Excellent Terry! I'm glad the details match up.

Here are a few views of the body repairs. When Steve first brought it to me, the body had been prep-ground with a large diameter grinder, to remove
all the gelcoat cracks and sun-damaged areas. Some areas were quite thin, with all the material removed, so we laminated another couple of layers of fiberglass mat
over the entire surface. The front end had some serious cracks from a front-end collision that had never been correctly repaired, so those areas were bevel-edged and laminated with enough glass to get the surfaces even, prior to the full fiberglass layers, then the body was bondo surfaced and primed.

[DTort96646]

This is all very interesting. My Darrin is #357 and sold here in Massachusetts new in August 1954. If indeed #368 went to Howard Darrin as payment, Kaiser had his Darrin liquidation plan already in motion. So much for the fairy tale of 100 leftover unsold Kaiser Darrins damaged by snow from setting in storage at Kaiser's warehouse. Now where is the Darrin that Ralph Sinatra drove?

[Mel Francis]

The story I heard back during the restoration, was that  a couple of transporters, with what, six cars each? made it to California. The cars did have to be dug out of the snow, but they weren't damaged. That would give you a total of about 12-15 cars, most of which were sold as new by Darrin from his shop, but there were only a few that were modified with V8s, or the supercharger that was on Sinatra's car. I haven't seen the registry, but the last few cars on the list might be the ones to search among, for his. You know what color it was, from the photos and it probably retained its original engine, perhaps without the supercharger.

[Mel Francis]

I just wanted to add these final shots of the car. I hope this information has been useful and as I said, I'll be visiting the car this summer in Hannibal and get some updated digital photos as it appears these days...

The first, is the car with the front clip painted, but not yet installed, as final hookups were being finished. Being able to work deep in the engine bay, without the concern of scratching the paint on the front fenders was really a help. We even undercoated the front clip before the installation.

The second was the car fully reassembled, with just the final seam bond down at the rear of the front clip, held by a single clamp. Since this was a lacquer paint job, there's not much gloss, as we were waiting to buff the paint to its final gloss after the touch-up at the rear seam.

[Terry T]

According to the Darrin family, Dutch re-powered only 1 post-production Darrin with a Caddy V8.

[Mel Francis]

Then, hopefully, we can agree that the one car has finally surfaced, after years of obscurity in a private collection! As we worked on it, we could tell that some of the engineering problems Darrin's team encountered, were a real setback to the plan of simply 'dropping' V8s in these cars.

But I would encourage any KFD members to do the same, if they really want to own a Cad-Darrin. You would have had Darrin's full approval! He wanted as many to exist as possible. That's why this sign was in his storefront!