The Ex-Jim Clark, Rex Mays '300' at Riverside, Ex-Cale Yarborough, Gordon Johncock, Tom Sneva, George Follmer, John Cannon...and even Chris Amon
1967 Vollstedt-Ford 67 USAC 'Indianapolis' Racing Single-Seater

255ci Ford Racing DOHC V8
Mechanical Fuel Injection
500bhp at 8,000rpm
4-Speed Hewland Manual Transmission
4-Wheel Independent Suspension
4-Wheel Disc Brakes

* Incredibly successful American built race car
* Raced by a roster of legendary drivers
* Shown at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours and won its class at the 2020 Amelia Island Concours
* A historic piece of motorsports history for show or track

Here, Bonhams is delighted to offer this outstandingly original - and at least equally historic - Indy car built by one of America's most-faithful USAC constructors.

As expressed in our heading, this Vollstedt-Ford chassis serial '67B' is, not least, the actual car driven by legendary double-Formula 1 World Champion - and 1965 Indianapolis 500-Miles winner - Jim Clark in the 1967 Rex Mays '300' road race at Riverside, California. Regarded at the time (and for many enthusiasts ever since) as one of the greatest racing drivers of all time, international motor racing's humble and gentlemanly Scottish superstar qualified this very car second fastest on the front row of the Riverside starting grid. There, he lined up alongside pole position qualifier Dan Gurney in his Eagle-Ford.

The contemporary Autosport magazine described how: "The moment the pace car pulled off Clark and Gurney streaked away, with the Eagle just in front but with Clark not giving him a moment's peace. After ten laps the rest of the field were strung out behind but still the two Grand Prix boys were hard at it....

"It was Gurney who was in front and under pressure. Eventually he made the slightest mistake and went into a corner too fast, going just wide enough to allow the ever-persistent Clark to sneak through. However, Jimmy's joy was short-lived, for no sooner was the Vollstedt in front than its engine went rough, and he came in to retire with a broken valve."

Very few had expected the Vollstedt to prove as competitive as it had been by its genius driver, and ever-modest Jim Clark later described it as having been "...It's a good motor car - in fact a very good motor car".

The Indy winner and double-World Champion Driver would lose his life the following April in a minor Formula 2 race at Hockenheim, West Germany. That 1967 Rex Mays '300' at Riverside Raceway, and therefore this Vollstedt-Ford '67B' he drove, proved to be Jimmy Clark's last USAC open-wheeler appearance of his glittering career.

But there is more relating to both this car and to Clark. At Riverside this Vollstedt carried a 'surface plate' aerodynamic 'wing' upon its Ford engine's up-raked exhaust system above its tail. Rolla Vollstedt had been amongst the first Indy regulars to recognize the potential of such aerodynamic aids to enhance tire adhesion at exceptionally high speeds. In 1966 he had seen a true airfoil wing adopted on Jerry Eisert's 'Bat Car' entered at Indy by J. Frank Harrison. For this 1967 USAC entry - chassis '67B' now offered here - his plate device sought a similar effect, and it proved sufficiently effective to leave an impression upon its guest driver.

Four months later, Jim Clark was contesting the 1968 Tasman Championship race at Teretonga, New Zealand. His car was a Works-entered Lotus-Cosworth 49T. During practice there he recalled the Vollstedt's 'wing' surface at Riverside and suggested to his mechanics they might try a similar device. Chief mechanic Leo Wybrott and brothers Dale and Roger Porteus had aviation knowledge. They found a discarded helicopter blade in a local scrapyard, sawed off a length and mounted it experimentally on short struts above their Lotus' tail. Leo would recall how Jimmy felt it unwise to race the device after practicing with it, because team chief Colin Chapman was back home in England. If anything went wrong "there would be hell to pay".

But young Ferrari engineer Gianni Marelli photographed the device. Ferrari would arrive for that year's Belgian Grand Prix at high-speed Spa with a strutted wing on their F1 car, as - independently - did the Brabham team. Through 1968 into '69 such strutted wings grew rapidly in size, height, effect and danger until they were banned during the year's Monaco GP meeting. In retrospect, thanks to Jim Clark, that 'winged era' was in part Vollstedt '67B's legacy.

During this historic car's three-year, thirty-race, frontline life it was also driven by two further Indianapolis '500' race winners; Gordon Johncock (victor in 1973 and 1982) and Tom Sneva (1983), among 18 drivers in all. They were - with their major achievements - as follows:

Cale Yarborough (Triple NASCAR Champion, 4-time Daytona '500' Winner, 83 total NASCAR wins)

Carl Williams (Six-time Indy '500' Competitor)

Jim Clark (Twice Formula 1 World Champion, 1965 Indy '500' winner, 2nd 1963 and 1966 Indy '500's)

George Follmer (IndyCar, F1, TransAm, Can-Am, IROC driver, CanAm Champion, TransAm Champion)

Arnie Knepper (USAC driver and five-time Indy 500 competitor)

John Cannon (F5000 Champion, F1 and Indycar driver)

Art Pollard (Seven-time Indy 500 driver, USAC driver)

Larry Dickson (Triple USAC Sprint Car Series Champion, 13-time Indy 500 driver)

Wally Dallenbach (Five-time Indycar winner)

Jim Malloy (Super modified, CAMRA, Indycar driver)

Chris Amon (Formula 1 and Sports car star, McLaren, Ford and Ferrari works driver—winner of Le Mans and Daytona 24-Hour races)

Gordon Johncock (Twice Indy '500' winner)

Jerry Grant (12 Indy '500's, twice Le Mans 24-Hours competitor, co-driving with Dan Gurney)

Tom Sneva (Indy '500' winner, Super modified and CAMRA driver)

Ronnie Bucknum (Formula 1 and IndyCar competitor)

Tony Adamowicz (sports and TransAm champion)

Denny Zimmerman (IndyCar driver)

Ken Hamilton (Super modified and Sprint Car champion)

What's more the car qualified for three consecutive Indy 500-Mile races (1967-68-69), and achieved 13 top-ten finishes, three of them in the top five places. And no fewer than four Formula 1 drivers hunkered down into its form-fitting cockpit, including - above all - the late, great Jim Clark...

Canadian-born Rolla Vollstedt - later of Portland, Oregon - was, like so many within the hot-rodder community, an ingenious and thoughtful engineer. He is recalled as having been "passionate, articulate, outspoken and persuasive". He became a high-profile director of the United States Auto Club, and its 1960s-80s car entrant representative.

He had begun building his own race cars in 1955, and aspired to Indy car construction in the early 1960s. He witnessed the advent of rear-engined Formula 1-style cars at Indy when Jack Brabham and Cooper Cars tackled the 1961 '500' - followed by Jim Clark's debutant near win in 1963 with the Lotus-Ford 29. In the Fall of 1963, Rolla Vollstedt brought the first rear-engined Offenhauser-powered car to Indy.

For the 1966 '500' and USAC season, Vollstedt began construction of his first two Lotus-like aluminum monocoque cars. A wooden buck former was finished first by Rolla, John Feuz, and famed fabricator Harold Sperb in Portland, before being used to form the exterior aluminum panels by California Metal Shaping. Two new Vollstedts then followed for 1967, of which '67B' is the second.

The same wooden buck was used by California Metal Shaping to roll and form the prototype '67 car's outer aluminum monocoque skins. The hull created was some 2 inches wider than '66 form to improve engine access. In Portland, Harold Sperb and John Feuz began building the chassis' complex inner structure, Rolla Vollstedt recording progress in a daily diary.

He then had '67B's monocoque's skin fabricated by Harold Sperb, himself a local Portland sheet metal specialist. Apart from differing front suspension pickups the two chassis appeared identical. Vollstedt changed his design from Lotus-like inboard front suspension on the '66 cars to Brabham-style outboard on the '67 model.

The engines used were naturally-aspirated fuel-injected 255 cubic-inch (4.2-liter) Ford Racing 4-cam V8s, developing a claimed 500bhp-plus at 8,000rpm. Transmission was via a choice of four-speed Hewland LG500 or two-speed Halibrand gearboxes.

Chassis '67A' was ready for early-season 1967 Firestone tire testing with NASCAR driver Cale Yarborough. Minor misfortune dogged the Vollstedt team at the Indy '500'. During hasty rebuilding of '67A' the two '67 cars' race numbers (17 and 21) were swapped but were stamped on various areas of each car and associated parts. These stamps remain visible today. It was at this time that '67B' became the team's primary car.

After the 500, '67B' finished 10th at Trenton driven by Carl Williams who raced it again at Hanford. It was then in the last USAC race of the year - at Riverside - that Vollstedt ran both his cars; '67A' for Mark Donohue and '67B' for Clark. But when the former's normal entrant Roger Penske heard of his star's plan he vetoed it.

Rolla Vollstedt told track director Les Richter he was a driver short. Richter suggested that Jim Clark might, perhaps, be available. Jimmy was tracked down vacationing in the Bahamas with his protege Jackie Stewart. A fee of $5,000 was suggested to make the trip to California to drive '67B'. Vollstedt and Richter split the cost 50:50.

The rest is history. And this history in the metal is available right here, right now.

Throughout 1968-69, Vollstedt continued to run the two '67 cars. John Cannon gave the team their best finishes of the year with a second and a sixth in two races at St Jovite/Mt Tremblant, Canada. In the 1969 Indy '500', sprint car champion Larry Dickson then drove '67B' home ninth, Rolla Vollstedt's best finish in the great Indiana classic.

New driver Dick Simon eventually bought car '67A' while its constructor initially retained '67B' with its Clark history. Within this period, '67B' became a Hollywood star, featuring in the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward/Robert Wagner movie Winning. Turbocharged variants of the 4-cam Ford V8s and stock-block Chevrolet engines were tried in place of the obsolescent original normally-aspirated 4-cam Ford V8s, but eventually a new McLaren was acquired and Vollstedt's ageing '67 car relegated to team spare.

Late in 1972, Vollstedt sold it to fellow Oregonian and long-time sprint car owner Art Sugai for his driver Kenny Hamilton. They had Rolla and his team lengthen the wheelbase 6 inches but in practice at Phoenix, Hamilton crashed, damaging the left-side tub and suspensions. The car never raced again.

Sugai later acquired the ex-Simon sister car '67A'. It was sold to Australian collector Peter Briggs in July 1980 and displayed in his York Motor Museum as 'the Clark Vollstedt'. When offered by BONHAMS at the 2009 Quail Lodge Auction in Monterey, California, its correct identity was quickly established and correction made.

Meanwhile Sugai's chief mechanic, Tom Fox, had acquired '67B' and many related parts, including its original wooden panel-forming buck. The car passed to Fox's friend Ron Yurich, who planned to rebuild it as a super modified sprint car. But '67B' then lay half-forgotten for nearly 20 years in storage. Following Yurich's passing in 2006, his son John finally offered '67B' for sale. Kurt Vollstedt eventually mentioned the car's re-emergence to the current owner, who then found the car and parts stacked in a dilapidated wooden former machine shop in Silverdale, Washington, its tub exactly as immediately after Hamilton's Phoenix crash. Many parts were available. Even the body buck was there.

This piece of history was duly acquired by the current owner and back in the Pacific north-west painstaking restoration began.

Most notably, all original parts and even many minor 'battle scars' were located, retained or preserved (such as new old-stock cast-magnesium suspension uprights). Importantly, the owner succeeded (amazingly) in rediscovering the car's original Riverside 'wing', still bearing the legend Clark's personal autograph and its period decal.

Such a survivor as this Vollstedt is exceedingly rare automotive archaeology. It speaks to us. An as-original engine, and gearbox parts, had to be sourced - and they were duly obtained eventually from none other than four-time Indy '500' winner (1970-71-78-87) and former Jim Clark team-mate, Al Unser...

Post-restoration the car has only been presented publicly in the most exclusive prestige events. It was invited to attend the 2017 Goodwood Festival of Speed, and then to take its place at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours as one of the most significant Indy cars of the 1960s. It also became a class winner at the 2020 Amelia Island Concours.

We at Bonhams heartily recommend the closest possible consideration of this remarkable race car. Vollstedt-Ford '67B' offered here has rare appeal. It is truly historic, an archaeological piece. It breathes originality and - subject to adequate inspection - it is on the button - ready to run. One decisive bid - it really can be your's.