<< Prev Page 3 of 3 There was one more Grand Prix on the schedule; the American Grand Prix at Riverside. This was almost literally in Scarab team's backyard and Daigh convinced Reventlow to let him enter the car. Before the race he extensively lightened the car and reworked the engine to make it more reliable. To his credit the changes certainly had an effect and he qualified 16th out of 23 starters. In the race he suffered from vapour lock problems but nevertheless finished 10th. He was the best placed of the few front-engined cars still in the field.
A drop of the displacement limit to 1.5 litre for 1961 meant that the Scarab Formula 1 car was now also officially obsolete. Daigh used his car with a three litre engine in some Intercontinental races until he wrote it off in a big shunt at Silverstone. Reventlow retained his own car and fitted with a V8 engine it starred in a short movie by Bruce Kessler called the 'The Sound of Speed'. A third, spare chassis was also built but never completed.
For many years the failure of the Scarab Formula 1 car was primarily blamed on the archaic chassis layout and Reventlow's obsession with using American components. Much later Daigh found that there was another contributing factor. While rebuilding the engine out of his old car, he found that the drawings called for a valve lash of 0.002 in and that the engines had actually been built with a 0.012 in lash. When he set the engine up correctly, he immediately got up to 265 bhp. That additional 45 bhp could have made the Scarabs a lot more competitive on the faster circuits like Spa and Reims.
After the humiliating foray in Formula 1, Reventlow all but lost interest in motor racing. His men only built two more cars; a single seater and a sports car, both mid-engined. Many years later and with a slightly larger engine, American historic racer Don Orosco did score some successes with the ex-Reventlow Formula 1 car in Europe. The dream of an American Grand Prix car lived on and the likes of Dan Gurney and Roger Penske eventually managed to be competitive with 'American' cars in F1, but only briefly. More recent attempts have been far less successful. << Prev Page 3 of 3
Ultimatecarpage.com
> Cars by brand
> United States
> Scarab
Racing cars
> Formula 1
There was one more Grand Prix on the schedule; the American Grand Prix at Riverside. This was almost literally in Scarab team's backyard and Daigh convinced Reventlow to let him enter the car. Before the race he extensively lightened the car and reworked the engine to make it more reliable. To his credit the changes certainly had an effect and he qualified 16th out of 23 starters. In the race he suffered from vapour lock problems but nevertheless finished 10th. He was the best placed of the few front-engined cars still in the field.