Lou Stonnell at Kaipikari Hill Climb in North Taranaki. Note the very tidy body and the four stub exhausts.
The (Stutz) Bearcat and the Lynx Two very different animals
Words and photos Max Rutherford
The Stonnell family farmed in Lepperton, Taranaki, and during World War II an historic car with a very impressive racing history was pressed into service as a farm vehicle.
W
hen Lou Stonnell took over the farm later he harboured an interest in motor racing and it was from this interest another racing car was born. The American auto maker Stutz company slogan of 1911 “The car that made good in a day” was well justified. The first Stutz car, a prototype of a passenger car to be called the Bearcat, ran in the first 500 mile race at Indianapolis in 1911 and finished in 11th place. Perhaps not remarkable from a strictly racing viewpoint, but an outstanding achievement for a prototype passenger car which only weeks earlier had consisted of a set of drawings. This initial success encouraged the Stutz Motor Company to continue along the race road to fame until they had eclipsed all other manufacturers and became champions of the United States. From 1911 to 1914 Stutz chalked up an impressive list of victories on both road circuit and track and using the same Wisconsin engine as fitted in their normal production passenger car, only slightly modified for racing. It was a T head engine with a 4½" bore and 5½" stroke. Neither 22 Beaded Wheels
the revolutions or the output were anything terrific, the successful performance being due to light weight, excellent preparation ensuring reliability, and good drivers. The car had the reputation of handling well, contrary to what was expected at the time of a chassis having a rear axle mounted gearbox. Barney Oldfield drove a Stutz into 5th place in the 1914 Indianapolis 500 being the first American car to finish. For the 1915 season Wisconsin produced an entirely new special racing engine bearing no resemblance to their production engines. The crankshaft was divided in the centre, and was carried on three large diameter ball bearings. It had a single overhead camshaft and 16 overhead valves inclined in the non-detachable head. This was the way the European racing engines had been heading, as were the famous American Duesenberg racing engines. The trend had actually been started by Peugeot and had been further developed by American companies. This Wisconsin engine became the most successful racing engine made in America at that time and gave Stutz both the road and the track championships for
1915. A cone clutch connected the engine via a drive shaft to the gearbox which was still mounted on the rear axle. The gearbox, along with the front and rear axles were standard passenger car units. Three cars were built and raced, and a strange series of coincidences has made it possible to trace the history of one of them, number 5, to New Zealand. Stutz entered three cars for the 1915 Indianapolis 500 and they finished third (driven by Gil Anderson in number 5) fourth and seventh. Gil Anderson was only nine minutes behind the winning Mercedes of Ralph de Palma after 500 miles averaging 87.6 mph. Stutz withdrew from factory sponsored racing on the crest of the wave at the end of the 1915 season, and the cars were sold to private owners. The number 5 car Gil Anderson drove was sold to Cliff Durant, manager of the Chevrolet assembly plant in Oakland California. Durant entered the car in the 1919 Indianapolis 500 as a Durant Special and it was driven into 2nd place by Eddie Hearne. This was the last appearance of these cars in big time racing as a change of
