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The photo on the left is a 1913 Mercer Race Car. Beyond it is a race-ready MG-TC and a Lister-Costin. On the right is the 1913 Mercer Raceabout featured in the Brass class. It is shown here again for the contrast between the race and street version cars.

And here are the Listers. The closer two are Costin bodied Lister cars. One is a '59 Jaguar powered and the other is '58 Corvette but I don't know which is which. Beyond them is a '58 pure Lister Jaguar. The last car in the row is a '63 Huffaker Gennie, Ford powered, I heard. These cars, and the MG-TC are all owner by the same museum and actively compete in vintage sports races.

 
The rest of this page is devoted to the 1903 Packard Gray Wolf that I missed getting in the page last year. This race car held the land speed record for a few weeks in 1903, if I remember right, at 77 m.p.h. so it does hold an important place in early automotive history. The word is it took five miles to get it up to that speed on its 36 inch wheels.

I can't remember whether there was only one built or maybe two. Unfortunately, none have survived. This car is an exact replica. The builder had a friend who had worked at Packard and managed to salvage the original engineering drawings for the car before the company went away. They then set about to reproduce one from raw metal, wood and those drawings, including making patterns and having the engine parts cast at a foundry.

 

 
 
The cockpit as seen from behind the seats and looking down into the footwell. Notice the exquisite details.

 

This is the engine from the exhaust (left) side. The copper tubing, which runs the full length of the car on both sides, is the radiator for the engine cooling water. Note the machining details in the gears and pulleys in the engine front closeup.

 
This closeup of the engine head casting shows the lengths the builder went to in reproducing even the finest details. The Packard script cast into the valve cover is just awesome. I believe the device on the firewall with the knobs and tubes has something to do with engine oiling but I can't remember the specifics.

Here are two shots of the intake side. There may not be quite as many interesting widgets here but the brass parts were just to beautiful to not show up close. Look carefully in the lower part of the left photo and there is another small cover for something in the crankcase also with the Packard name cast in script.