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The REAL first Raco Indy car.

Posted: March 2nd, 2014, 9:08 pm
by Mike Casey
There is a Yellow Penzoil indy car that was featured in RC car mags. Even though the magazines state that it was the Raco Indy car Prototype, you will notice that the car barely resembles anything that Raco has ever produced. The car was built for Raco, however it never went into production. Years later it was sold at the Long Beach Auto swap meet to a automotive enthusiast.

Many years ago I was very lucky to track down and meet Clark From PBS. He was the one that developed the PBS GTP car, however he was very tightly involved with Raco and helped produce and design many of their parts. The first time I met Clark he showed me the very few items he had left. One of which was this Red indy car. While looking at it, i asked him why it looked a little "different"? He told me, "thats because its the prototype." HUH? prototype? Like the the prototype for RACO? And he said "YES".

Look over the pictures and you will notice some subtle differences over the production model. Missing body vents, sway bars, etc. The screws used were aluminum to reduce weight and all the panels on this one were hand formed.

This car was not simply built and put on a shelf. They raced this car for many years and it won almost every race it was run in. It was driven by Rick Porter which was a world class RC driver at the time. Top level competitor for GTP and Indy.

Today this car sits in a very safe place... however I thought I should bring it to the front of the spotlight as its one car that many don't even realize that exists, but it holds a very important part of quarter scale history.

Re: The REAL first Raco Indy car.

Posted: March 3rd, 2014, 8:17 am
by Al Gibson (QSL)
Very nice

Re: The REAL first Raco Indy car.

Posted: March 4th, 2014, 11:15 pm
by eightman
this chassis look very "scale" and accurate.