100 Years of Awesome Indy Cars

The Indianapolis 500 is more than an automobile race. It is an institution, a cultural touchstone so steeped in history that it's rightly been dubbed the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
Hyperbole? Perhaps. But the Indy 500 is the one race that everyone has heard of, if not actually watched. The Speedway doesn't disclose attendance figures, but the grandstands can hold 257,000 people. Millions more watch the event on TV.
Some of the greatest names in motor sports have taken the checkered flag since the race's first running 100 years ago. Graham Hill. Jim Clark. A.J. Foyt. Mario Andretti. The list goes on.
No less impressive than the men who have won the Brickyard 500 are the cars they drove to victory. Here's a look at 15 of the most significant, innovative or just plain awesomest cars to lap the Brickyard.

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1911 Marmon Wasp

The car that won the first Indy 500, Ray Harroun's six-cylinder Marmon Wasp sported a host of interesting details. First off, it offered a cowled cockpit and a streamlined tail, something most racers of the era did without. Second, it featured a dashing black-and-yellow (insert inane pop-culture reference here) paint scheme. And third, it boasted a dazzling driver-awareness innovation: a rear-view mirror.
Duly equipped, Harroun was one of the first drivers to race without a riding mechanic watching for cars from behind. When he won the 1911 500, he was 29 years old. It took him six hours, 42 minutes, 8 seconds — average speed 74.6 mph — or about as long as it takes us to get out of bed on a Sunday. My, how times have changed.

1924 Duesenberg Special

The 1924 Duesenberg that Joe Boyer and L.L. Corum drove to victory in 1924 was the first supercharged car to win at the Speedway, launching a forced-induction rampage that would last for decades. Supercharged engines dominated for years until ceding ground to turbocharged mills, which ran until rule changes outlawed them in the mid-1990s.
Supercharger aside, the Boyer-Corum car was special for another reason: It marked the first time in Indy history that a win was simultaneously awarded to two drivers. Boyer started the race in another car, handing it over to his relief driver (two-man teams were common in the era), who later crashed. Boyer then took over for Corum, blasting to the front of the field and winning the race.

1932 Miller FWD Special

Harry Miller was arguably America's most talented race-car builder — his cars were gorgeous, blindingly fast and remarkably ahead of their time. They so thoroughly dominated the Speedway in the 1920s and 1930s that Ettore Bugatti bought two examples and had them shipped to France for close inspection. (Miller design traits would later turn up on Bugatti Grand Prix cars, natch.)
The FWD Special — the letters stood for Four Wheel Drive, representing both the car's driveline and the Four Wheel Drive Auto Company that sponsored it — was the first all-wheel-drive car to race at the Speedway. It was also the first to compete in a top-level motor-sports event. Although all-wheel drive wouldn't become a dominant force in international competition until Audi's quattro rally cars of the 1980s, this was the beginning. Miller's car ran at the Speedway from 1932 until 1937. Its best finish was fourth, in 1936.

1937 Gilmore Special

Wilbur Shaw's 1937 Gilmore Special was the first Indianapolis car to sport a fully streamlined body. The race it won was no less impressive.
Shaw had a three-mile lead in the '37 500 when his engine began pissing oil with 35 laps to go. He was just over a minute ahead of the second-place driver, Ralph Hepburn, and so cut his speed in an effort to finish. Hepburn poured on the coal and caught him. The two men battled neck-and-neck over the final lap, Hepburn inching ahead. Shaw nailed the throttle at the last moment, passing Hepburn and winning the race by a mere two seconds. His Maserati died just after crossing the finish line, its oil tank nearly dry.

1939 Maserati 8CTF

Shaw was back in the winner's circle in 1939 and '40, taking the checkered flag in a Maserati both times. The sleek racer was essentially an imported version of Maserati's famed straight-8 8CTF Grand Prix model, which debuted at the 1938 Tripoli Grand Prix. Shaw's wins were the first back-to-back victories in the Speedway's history.

1947 Deidt–Offenhauser

Mauri Rose won the Indianapolis 500 in 1947 and 1948 at the wheel of an Offenhauser-engined Deidt. While Rose's Deidt looks like a traditional Indy roadster — engine up front, rear-biased proportions, and a wide body — it had a secret: front-wheel drive.
Harry Miller built several front-wheel-drive racing cars in the decades prior, and all were successful. But this was different. Unlike Miller's cars, which competed at both Indianapolis and other, smaller tracks, the Deidt was built solely for the Speedway. It was light and fast, and its transmission was engineered by Leo Goosen, Miller's chief technical and drafting genius.
The car was so good that it won again, in 1951, with Bill Holland at the wheel.
 

1956 Kurtis-Novi

In 1940, Leo Goosen designed one of the most remarkable engines to ever put power to Brickyard pavement. The supercharged, 3.0-liter, 16-valve Novi V-8 he penned was essentially two of his hugely successful Miller-Offenhauser fours joined at the hip. It breathed through three Winfield carburetors and an intercooled centrifugal supercharger driven by a shaft at the rear of the engine. After a few years' development, this remarkable engine produced in the neighborhood of 500 horsepower — around 150 more than the typical Offy of the period. It was nothing less than revolutionary.
Here's the best part, though: The Novi made all kinds of hellish noise. Thanks to its unique breathing needs, oversized valves, and screaming-banshee supercharger wail, it was louder than almost every other car at the Speedway. Novi-engined cars were heavy, dangerously fast, difficult to control, and thirsty — but they sounded amazing. Crowds went nuts.
Paul Russo was one of three men leading the 1956 500 when his Novi-engined roadster caught fire after blowing a tire and crashing. That race was the engine's swan song, and it never ran in competition again.

1957 Epperly-Offenhauser

This is Sam Hanks's 1957 Epperly-Offenhauser. Its story sounds like something out of Hollywood: In the late 1950s, Indy mechanic George Salih had the crazy idea of mounting an Indy roadster's engine sideways. The engine he chose, an Offenhauser four, was tilted 72 degrees to the right, allowing the car's body to be a wind-cheating 21 inches tall. Nobody wanted to finance the project, so Salih went home to California and built it himself on a shoestring budget.
The car wasn't as fast as the motor-above-all Novis, but its low frontal area and compact packaging allowed it to corner like a bat out of hell. Salih asked Hanks to drive it. Hanks agreed and won the race.
Salih's engine configuration sparked the trend toward the so-called "lay-down" roadsters that filled Indy grids for years.

1961 Cooper-Climax T54

Jack Brabham — yes, as in Formula 1 Jack Brabham — drove this Climax-engined Cooper around the Brickyard in 1961. It wasn't the first rear-engined car to run at Indy, but it was the first to cross the finish line. Brabham finished ninth after starting 13th.
Although rear-engined cars had appeared in international racing before, Brabham was the first to make the idea work at the Speedway. The faithful didn't trust the concept and avoided it. The T54, essentially a modified European formula car, turned the tide.

1965 Lotus 38

This is it: the big one, the car that changed everything. It is the Lotus 38, the first rear-engined car to win the Indianapolis 500.
The 38, designed by engineering genius Colin Chapman, was essentially a Lotus Formula 1 car modified, enlarged and offset — the suspension biased for the Brickyard's left-hand turns. The fuel-injected Ford V-8 produced around 500 horsepower, and the car was damn-near unstoppable.
Driver Jim Clark — yes, as in Formula 1 Jim Clark — qualified on the front row, led all but 10 laps, and won the race. When he finished, just four other cars were on the same lap: Everyone else in the race was two laps behind.
In 1964, most of Indianapolis thought rear-engined cars were foolish. In 1966, the Speedway was full of Lotus clones. Three cheers for the awesomeness of superior engineering.

1967 STP–Pratt & Whitney Turbine

This is one of the most badass race cars to ever turn a wheel. The ingredient list alone is mind-blowing: Pratt & Whitney gas turbine designed for a helicopter. Ferguson four-wheel-drive. Blazing red paint. And racing legend Parnelli Jones at the wheel.
As you might expect, the car was hellaciously fast and perfectly suited to Indy's high speeds. Jones utterly dominated the race until a transmission bearing failed, knocking him out of competition. Two years later, a change to the rules made turbine cars hopelessly uncompetitive. Boo.
 

1972 Eagle-Offenhauser

Dan Gurney — yes, as in Formula 1 Dan Gurney (seeing a pattern here?) — brought this Offenhauser-engined beast to the Speedway in 1972. It featured a distinctive bit of kit found on road-racing cars of the era: a bolt-on rear wing. It was the first time a wing had run at Indy, and the added grip allowed driver Bobby Unser to qualify on the pole at a remarkable 195 mph, 18 mph faster than the 1971 pole-sitter.
Unser led for 30 laps until his ignition rotor failed, bringing him to a stop on lap 31.

1980 Chaparral-Cosworth 2K

In 1980, Jim Hall — yes, as in Formula 1 and Can-Am Jim Hall — hired two-time Indy 500 winner Johnny Rutherford to drive his Cosworth-engined 2K in the 500. The car, designed by Englishman John Barnard, featured a revolutionary ground-effects body that used low-pressure under-car airflow to generate grip. It was the first application of ground effects at the Speedway, but it wouldn't be the last. The 2K competed in 1979 and dropped out early because of transmission trouble. In 1980, it dominated. Rutherford won from the pole.
Oh, right: Barnard was a Formula 1 designer, having previously worked at McLaren and Lola. Go figure.
 

1994 Penske–Mercedes-Benz PC-23

The Penske PC-23 was one of the most successful open-wheel race cars ever built. This Marlboro-liveried beast rampaged through the 1994 IndyCar season, taking 10 poles and winning 14 of 16 races.
In the 1994 500, a pair of PC-23s driven by Emerson Fittipaldi and Al Unser Jr. effectively steamrolled the race. Fittpaldi crashed, but Unser won with a speed of 160.872 mph. He had qualified at a whopping 228.011 mph.
  Why was the PC-23 so dominant? Simple: a clever engine. The pushrod-equipped (!) 3.4-liter turbocharged Mercedes-Ilmor V-8 was developed in secret specifically for the 500. It took advantage of a loophole in the rules that allowed an extra 650 cc and 4.9 psi of boost for engines with a so-called "stock-block" pushrod configuration. Exact power figures aren't known, but the car was rumored to have produced more than 1,000 hp, or around 150 more than everyone else. The engine's success has been blamed for the CAR–IRL split that followed (long story), but years later, one thing remains: Black-ops engineering-loopholing kicks ass.

1996 Reynard-Ford

This is the biggest dog of them all, the fastest car to ever qualify at the Brickyard. Arie Luyendyk pounded out a 236.985-mph qualifying lap — after having peeled off a 238.045-mph run in practice — a feat that has yet to be equaled. In all likelihood, it never will.
Rule changes in the years since have eliminated much of the 500's bleeding-edge technology in the name of safety. Some feel this is a good thing, that the Speedway at more than 240 mph tempts fate. Perhaps. Regardless, 236.985 mph is heroic.

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