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Two weeks ago I was talking with Chrysler engineer Burt
Bouwkamp at a reunion of Chrysler Institute (of Engineering) graduates from
1950-52. My 300F Special Gran Tourismo was displayed. Burt was the
chief engineer of the GT project. He had also been the primary liaison
to Carl Kiekhaefer's racing program from the factory.
It is certainly true that Kiekhaefer and Bill France
of NASCAR did not get along. At all. Kiekhaefer's personality was
such that he didn't get along with most people though, as is well
documented in the semi-biography "Iron Fist". Burt felt that the
relationship between NASCAR generally and CK was the primary reason CK left
NASCAR. Many other things contributed.
The 1957 Chryslers and Dodges had less room in their rear
wheel wells for wide tires and of course CK had been widening wheels and using
large footprint tires.
The '57 300s had particular aerdynamic problems in
their windshield 'eyebrow' and their headlamp pods and CK knew this would hurt
them at speed and complained vehemently to the president of
Chrysler.
Torsion bar suspension intruded on what CK would have
liked to have done with exhaust systems.
Chrysler wasn't in business to build race
cars.
But the nail in the coffin of CK's racing efforts came
from the Internal Revenue Service. I've spoken at length with Bill
Fenrich, CK's head dyno man and best welder who was at the dyno with a race '57
392 running when Kiekhaefer walked into the room and said "Shut it down Bill, we're not going racing." He had
just been told by his accountants that the IRS was adamant they were no longer
going to allow the million dollar expense of the auto racing program as an
advertising write-off against CK's Mercury Marine outboard motor
corporation profits.
Kiekhaefer had ordered three '57 300Cs up to that
point. In correspondence with the factory he names them "Road America
competition models". The first was pretty much a standard production car
ordered early for testing. The second two were hardtops built on
convertible frames that had factory boxed front and rear crossmembers.
They had the 390HP engine but with torqueflite transmissions. They were
both well optioned cars with power windows and power seats. Photos exist
at Mercury Marine and in my archives of one of these two cars during early
experimentation with huge up-curving headers that then dumped in the wheelwells
to side pipes under the rockers. A '56 dual quad intake is employed.
Carl had a thing for Holley carburetors and through a contact at Dodge had copy
inserted into factory literature that Holleys were optional for the '57 Chrysler
300. The Holley "teapot" carb required the narrow bolt pattern of the
'56 intake.
Carl Kiekhaefer wasn't going NASCAR oval racing in '57 but
there was, at the time, a short-lived NASCAR road racing schedule. CK
was also heavily interested in sports cars and the Road America track at Elkhart
Lake, WI, was under an hour's drive from the main Mercury plant in Fond du Lac
and about an hour from Mercury plant #6 in Oshkosh which had been "the race car
plant" during 1955 and 1956. There would have been Chryslers in the Road
America NASCAR race in June of '57 but Bill France cancelled the whole
series shortly before the race. A question for history is whether
he had found out Kiekhaefer was coming!
The only surviving Road America race car is currently
finishing restoration. It is special order Charcoal Gray, the color of one
of Mercury's newly introduced performance outboard motors for '57. I'm the
owner.
Wayne Graefen
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