Ralph Watson: Special Engineer By Trevor R. Sheffield. VERY SCARCE. OUT OF PRINT. Published by the author 2004. SIGNED BY RALPH SMITH.

The cover illustration is of The Lycoming Special driven by driver & owner: Ralph Smith. The Lycoming Special is one of the most important and recognized cars in NZ Motorsport History.

Around 1982 Ralph Smith purchased the car and set about rebuilding it from two trailer loads of parts with no instruction manual. Since the restoration Ralph has regularly competed at Classic and Historic Race meetings throughout New Zealand. He has taken the car to Race Meetings in Australia and the United States including Philip Island and Laguna Seca. Built by Ralph Watson in the early 1950's, the Lycoming Special features a 4 cylinder Lycoming aircraft motor with a specially modified Studebaker gearbox. The Lycoming Special was super competitive in its day and raced at most circuits and Hill Climbs Up and Down the Country during the 50's and 60's. A lot of the top drivers of the time had a go behind the wheel of the Lycoming with Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Jim Clark to name a few. Very good softback, silver covers have some marks and shelfwear. No owner inscriptions. Tiny stain to the edge of some pages. Miny marks to some pages. 168 pages with illustrations/photos. The book celebrates the work of a Kiwi engineer, who has created world class racing sports cars, a rotary valve engine and a rotary aero engine, in his home workshop, and also designed and built a cruising yacht. His Lycoming Special sports racing car, has competed in Australia and the U.S.A. The work Ralph put into the cars he owned and used in motor sport, placed them apart from others of their kind. As a result all have become highly valued and survive to this day, still being used in accordant competition by the current owners. The history of these cars is recorded in this book.

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