Andy Granatelli Dead At 90 – Maverick, CEO of STP, Mr 500, American Racing Royalty

[admin]

Andy Granatelli, one of the greatest names in American motorsports history has died at the age of 90 year old. He was the owner of two winning Indy 500 entries, the first was driven by Mario Andretti in 1969 and the second was driven by Gordon Johncock in 1973. Perhaps more importantly, he was the [...]

More...

[studemax]

Dang! He was one of the good ones!

[Beagle]

Paxton!

http://vs57.y-block.info/history.htm

During 1957 Anthony, Vincent and Joseph Granatelli moved down from Chicago to Los Angeles, after selling their successful speed shop Grancor Automotive Specialists. The Granatelli brothers had extensive experience with McCulloch superchargers after modifying several for racing and installing hundreds at Grancor, and they joined up with John Thompson, the chief engineer at Paxton, to try and resolve some of the problems that the VS57 suffered from. Their collaboration, and confidence in the results, resulted in them purchasing Paxton Products from the McCulloch Motor Company in 1958 and resulted in them developing the DO-VS59. ...


RIP Andy, bygone era when every kid had an STP sticker on their chrome bicycle fender. Godspeed.

[JRoberts]

Andy Granatelli is special to Studebaker folks as the one who was so important to the development of high performance Studebakers including Bonneville attempts. In the picture below Andy is behind the wheel of this Avanti at the World of Speed in what I believe to be 1963 or 64.



RIP Andy

[Barry Donovan]

awesome history.

I had just read about the packard panther, very short lived claim to fame of 131mph in 1954.. with a straight 8.


I did not think anything lingered from that generation to be useful today.

I found a offenhauser lid for tight clearances above a carb, in supercharged ford mercuries... it came from that time of the supercharger.

I have it on my rochester today, as a normal air cleaner will not fit under my subarus hood.

RIP. Engineering never dies.

anyway, the lid in this photo, labeled "phase1 vs57". Must be early 50s, late 40s. That lid was eventually picked up by offenhauser and made for 49-53 supercharged fords. I found a pile on ebay never used. Ended up a perfect fit 60 years later..on a subaru with a 43mm rochester one barrel.