1961 Chaparral 1

There’s something romantic about cars that signify the end of an era, the last and greatest of their kind, yet doomed by the coming revolution

by Thor Thorson

The year was 1961. Jim Hall was an ambitious young man from Midland, TX, who had done well in oil and was determined to do even better in pro racing. He had already waded deeply into the waters of going very fast in very powerful cars, racing a 5.7-liter Maserati and a supercharged Lister-Chevrolet. Hall was not bashful about using massive horsepower to get to the front. He had watched Lance Reventlow’s beautiful and powerful front-engined Scarabs, built by brilliant Southern California craftsmen Dick Troutman and Tom Barnes, dominate racing. Hall saw it was not enough to have talent and drive the wheels off a car, but the successful racer must have technology to give him an “unfair advantage.” So in a November 1960 meeting at Riverside Raceway, he discussed the idea for a new sports racing car with Troutman and Barnes. A short time later, Hall agreed to underwrite the project and his new partners were commissioned to design a prototype. Just as the P-51...