Images: Fantasy Junction
This one-off 1959 Hagemann-Sutton Special is both fast and beautiful, and tells an interesting story within the history of motorsport. It’s up for sale at Fantasy Junction.
In 1958 Wally Taylor was looking for something faster than the Austin-Healeys he’d been racing at the time. So, he went to Lance Reventlow’s Scarab workshop to commission a customer car. By that point Scarab was fully focused on Formula 1, however, so that particular plan fell through.
Taylor had a friend, Jack Hagemann, who’d developed a reputation in California as a body designer and builder. When the Scarab idea fell through, Taylor went to Hagemann and commissioned a Scarab-type car from him.
The car would have a space frame, de Dion rear suspension with Watts linkage, Halibrand quick change diff with Troutman and Barnes side covers, Jaguar XK150 brake rotors with Girling calipers up front and Devin inboard rear disks out back, also with Girling calipers. They had some Halibrand magnesium wheels made, and the pièce de résistance came in the form of a Chevy 283 cubic displacement V8 with Hillborn fuel injection and ‘vette four-speed transmission.
Unfortunately, Taylor took a financial hit during the building of the car that meant that Hagemann never got to complete the body. This does not mean that the car never received a period-correct body, however.
Another builder, Jack Sutton, had built a body for a Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Prix chassis that was configured to run as a sports racing car. This car was originally known as the Orgeron Special and raced for four years at the end of the ’50s and beginning of the ’60s. It was sold to Peter Giddings in 1978, who returned it to a Grand Prix setup and sold the body to, you guessed it, Wally Taylor.
Wally sold the body and chassis to Butch Gillbert, another Northern Californian racer, who owned it for two decades before kicking off a restoration process in 2005.
During the restoration the body was shortened, with the rear fin retained, air inlets were added to cool the inboard rear brakes and the chassis received reinforcement and fittings for the body. The restoration was carried out in a way that was consistent with how the car would have originally been built back in 1959.
The engine now has a 283 CID block that’s been bored and stroked out to a 333 CID displacement. Inside is a Bryant billet crankshaft, Eagle rods and domed JE pistons. The fuel pump, magneto and water pump are driven by a Lehman front cross drive and timing cover.
It may have taken a long time to get the restoration going, but the process went quickly once it was. The car raced in the 2005 Monterey Historics!
It’s proven to be a competitive classic racer and has been actively driven over the decade since its completion. It’s sold with a full history of its story and adventures, as well as spares.
It’s an interesting, exciting machine with a story that’s classic motorsport through and through. We’re thrilled to see it finished and racing!
For more information head to Fantasy Junction’s website here.
Images via Fantasy Junction
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