Old Yeller II, Max’s Masterpiece at speed
Image by fossiled
For Pat! This odd creature is frequently the star of 50s sports racing get togethers. Max Balchowsky made 9 variations over all, but Ol’ Yaller II was the most successful.
In 1954, a driver named Dick Morgensen built one of the first fiberglass sports cars, the Morgensen Special. It was a rugged, stripped-down machine: hammered from mismatched panels, wearing black steel wheels, bent fenders over scowling headlights. Morgensen originally installed a Plymouth inline-six but later threw it out for a Buick 215 "Nailhead" V8; Balchowsky bought the car, kept the engine, and gave it a screaming yellow paint job. The whitewall tires, a dowdy rejection of new racing tires, were sourced from a Chrysler wagon.It still looked like junk. But it had over 300 horsepower, a 0-to-60 time under four seconds—and it won races. Balchowsky gave it a fitting name: Old Yeller, the junkyard dog. After Disney objected, he changed the name to Ol’ Yaller.
He constructed Ol’ Yaller II, for 62…….and with it, ran with and frequently beat the best of Europe.
Balchowsky drove Old Yeller II from race to race up and down the California coast, lined up on the grid against factory teams and privateers in the newest European sports cars: Ferrari, Jaguar, the new Maserati Birdcage, the most advanced race car in the world at its debut. In 1959, his car debuted at Riverside Raceway. and in 1960 he won outright 6 of 15 total races.
A who’s who drove it: Carroll Shelby, Dan Gurney, Bob Bondurant, Bobby Drake, Billy Krause. At Road America, Shelby held 31 laps with nearly a minute lead. At Santa Barbara, Balchowsky beat his old friend Morgenson and his Ferrari Testa Rossa. Gurney set a record at Riverside with it; when Riverside closed, a reporter asked Krause, "What is the most potent race car you have been in?" Old Yeller II, he replied. A fitting epitaph for the Mongrel Junkyard Dog!
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