Indy’s wackiest racer?

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If you thought the 22-seater Fageol limousine bus in the Alaskan outback was pretty wacky, read on. This one will probably blow you away!

Supercharged 1.5-litre Offenhauser engine

It’s a racer like no other, made by the same Fageol (bus) company, but this time by Frank Fageol’s son Louie. We learned that many of the firm’s buses used twin engines and this racer was built with the same wisdom. Forget its ultra-short wheelbase — it used a Miller front-wheel drive car as its base, but with a supercharged 1.5-litre Offenhauser engine, plus a second one at the back! Yes, it was a four-wheel drive car and it competed in the 1946 Indianapolis 500. Look at those mechanics! Would you dare to drive it at high speed?

Lou Fageol did. Together with designer Paul Weirick, he tested the thing before handing it over to driver Paul Russo for the 500-miles race. According to Russo, it was a very stable vehicle and he managed to take second place in practice, with an average speed of no less than 126.183mph — that’s over 200 km/h. This while practically sitting on the double gearbox with his right arm resting on the petrol tank and the filler neck in his own neck. A recipe for disaster? Well, things did go wrong in lap 16, when the Twin Coach Special’s skinny Firestones hit a patch of oil, spinning the Fageol, only to crash it into a wall. Luckily, Russo only broke a leg. We understand that the car returned two years later, but we have no idea if it’s a possible survivor?

Words Jeroen Booij. Pictures Freelibrary.org.

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