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Thread: (Paul) Newman/Freeman RSR to be auctioned at Mecum Houston April 10-12, 2014

  1. #1
    Senior Member BrentF's Avatar
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    (Paul) Newman/Freeman RSR to be auctioned at Mecum Houston April 10-12, 2014


  2. #2
    tub is a '74 S http://www.mecum.com/auctions/lot_de...=HA0414-179660

    Not sure how period correct those remote reservoir JRZ's are...
    300799

  3. #3
    For whatever it is worth...in 2004 I advertised a 1969 factory built 911 race car in Panorama. I got a call from some guy who claimed he just bought a 1969 911 race car. When I asked about his car he identified it as the Bullwinkele car.

  4. #4
    Senior Member BrentF's Avatar
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    More on this car to be auctioned April 12th in Houston:

    PHOTOS: http://www.mecum.com/auctions/lot_de...gn=HA0414-S100

    HIGHLIGHTS:

    - Driven by Paul Newman and Bill Freeman in the 12 hours of Sebring on March 19, 1977
    - In 1978 ownership changed to Tom Ashby who raced the car as the Bullwinkele Porsche
    - Took 1st for a podium win at the Camel GT Challenge Mid-Ohio in 1978
    - Raced in 1975-1987 in GTU, GTO and O
    - Restored from 2006-2009 by award winning race car restoration specialists Jeff Works in Verona, Wisconsin
    - 3 liter race prepared engine with 360 HP
    - 4-speed transmission with selected ratios
    - Competition ported and polished heads
    - Twin 50mm PMO carburetors
    - Carrillo Rods and 12:1 pistons
    - JRZ struts with raised spindles and JRZ shocks with coilover springs
    - Competition front and rear brakes calipers
    - Twin brakes master cylinder pedal assembly
    - Front mounted oil tank for dry sump system
    - 24 gallon fuel cell with dry brakes
    - On-board fire extinguisher system
    - Pictures and documentation of Paul Newman preparing for Sebring and racing results

    DESCRIPTION:

    In the long Hollywood romance with automobiles, many actors have embraced cars. People including James Dean; comedians Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Elvis Presley; Nicolas Cage; James Garner; Errol Flynn; and Clark Gable have shared the passion. But only a few have managed to be utterly serious about both acting and automobiles and among those, two stand out more than any others: Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.

    Newman and McQueen cars (and motorcycles) are among the most sought-after collector vehicles in the world, and those with verifiable provenance tend to stay with those lucky enough to acquire them. Unlike McQueen, whose tastes often ran to motorcycles and high-end European cars, Paul Newman was at the same time more eclectic, and more serious. His lighthearted side had been on display since the ‘60s, with creations like his “Cool Hand’s Hot Rod” V-8 powered VW Beetle. That was followed up by, among other things, the “Newman’s Own Recipe” V-8 Volvo wagons. But on the more serious side, Paul Newman was as much a race car driver as he was an actor and humanitarian.

    Paul Newman’s racing career didn’t start until relatively late in life – after a brief dalliance with a Saab 96 in the ‘60s, his film career took precedence and he spent much of the next decade as an actor and civil rights activist. It wasn’t until he was over 40 that he attended the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving to prepare for the movie “Winning,” which sparked an interest in competition that didn’t flower for several more years. But after starting in a Lotus in SCCA in 1972, Newman quickly swam into the deep end, getting heavily involved in IMSA and Trans-Am, and eventually the hugely successful Newman/Haas Indy Car team, for the rest of his life. “After [1972],” he told ESPN, “I never did a film between April and September or October. [Racing] was all I did."

    He started to get really serious by 1974, running a Ford Escort RS 2000 in GTU in 1974 and 1975. In late 1976 or early 1977, Newman contacted Bill Freeman, an SCCA National champion in Santa Barbara, California, to talk about Can-Am racing. While they worked together into the 1980s fielding cars in Can-Am and Indy Cars, their first joint efforts were Porsches.

    Their first car, the Newman/Freeman Carrera RSR, was supposed to appear at the 1977 24 Hours of Daytona with Newman, Freeman and the immortal Elliot Forbes-Robinson driving. Not coincidentally, Forbes-Robinson was then heavily involved with the Bob Sharp Datsun race team, another major force later in Newman’s career. But as for that first car, it never made the starting line, so Newman and Freeman retooled with a Beverly Porsche/Audi-sponsored 1974 Porsche 911 S, built for SCCA and IMSA.

    Bill Freeman had been driving chassis no. 911 410 1035 since 1975, mostly at Laguna Seca and Riverside. Newman and Freeman entered the no. 2 car (listed first in the program) in the 12 Hours of Sebring in March of 1977, qualifying 30th in the GTU class. Driving in shifts, they brought the 911 home in 11th behind the Porsche 914/6 of John Hulen. It would not be the last time Newman raced against future IMSA-driver Hulen, and not the last time that 52-year-old Newman would be the oldest driver on the track.

    Bill Freeman took over the 911 after that and drove it solo for the rest of 1977, then sold it to driver Tom Ashby, who brought it to the East Coast in 1978. Now in Ashby’s blue and gray livery, his best result was a 14th overall and 1st in GTU class at the Camel GT Challenge at Mid-Ohio in 1978. Ashby soon hooked up with Bill Bean and as their Bullwinkele Racing entry, the no. 42 911 became a familiar sight, earning a February 1979 story photographed in the pits at Daytona in the Daytona Beach Morning Journal.

    The car was raced continually for an amazing 22 years, including a stint with turbocharging and entry in GTU, GTO and O class. Bean was joined in 1982 by Gary Wonzer, who eventually took over the car and would drive it as no. 48 until its retirement from active racing after, fittingly, the 1987 12 Hours of Sebring. At least three dozen major race outings are documented, and many of those have been preserved in photographs, including unpublished photos of Paul Newman preparing the car for Sebring as well as a record of many, if not all, of the car’s race results. These races in the heyday of sports car racing were generally well documented, and many more images of the car are waiting to be discovered in newspaper archives and private collections.

    In 2006, Porsche race car restorer Jeff Sime and the crew at Jeff Works in Wisconsin began a three-year restoration, which would see more than 1,000 hours expended in restoring and preparing the car for vintage racing. The heart is a dry sump three-liter Porsche engine with big 50mm PMO carburetors, Carillo connecting rods, race pistons and competition ported polished heads yielding 12.0:1 compression and an outstanding 360 hp. A race-built Porsche Turbo four-speed was required to handle the power, and it’s held to the track with full JRZ Suspension Engineering components, including front struts with raised spindles and coilovers. Competition brakes are pressurized by a full race twin master cylinder and pedal assembly with balance bar, and a 24-gallon fuel cell with dry brake valve is complemented by onboard fire suppression and a roll cage. With a 2,050-pound curb weight, this is a power-to-weight ratio approximately 2.6 times better than the long-since vanished stock 911 S from which this car was born. In other words, it’s going to be fast.

    Currently finished in orange no. 2 Newman/Freeman livery, there isn’t a vintage race in the country that wouldn’t welcome the car, from The Mitty to the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. As a car, it should be highly competitive, dependable and most of all fun; but as Paul Newman himself once pointed out, it’s the camaraderie of the race scene that made it all worthwhile.

  5. #5
    Not a lot of originality left in this thing.

  6. #6
    Pretty sure I was all over this car in 2006. Could not find a number of any kind. Although, there are other ways to identify old race cars.

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