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Lance Reventlow’s Scarabs were pretty much unbeatable
in American sports car racing in 1958 - and for that matter,
after they were sold to Jim Jeffords and Augie Pabst for the
1959 season. Having beaten Ferrari and Maserati sports cars
in West Coast racing, Reventlow saw no reason why he couldn’t
beat them in Europe in Formula One racing. We won’t go
into that ill-conceived effort except to say that it had a
profound effect on Reventlow Automobiles Incorporated. The
original front-engined Scarab F1 car was something less than
competitive, even with Chuck Daigh at the wheel instead of
Reventlow. Lance spent about 1.5 million 1960 US Dollars to
build two F1 cars, several desmodromic valve engines that
never performed to specifications, and a rear-engined F1 that
never was raced. Reventlow may have been disillusioned by
his lack of Grand Prix success; he certainly began to lose
interest in racing as a “hobby” by 1962. His mother,
Barbara Hutton, was tired of the continuing expense and the
Internal Revenue Service served notice that RAI had to make
a profit in 1963 or else. Reventlow began closing down the
RAI shop early in 1962, but apparently decided to take one
last shot at racing.
RAI had built
a mid-engined car designed to Formula Intercontinental specifications.
It had a 3-litre Offenhauser engine to meet the rules and
was raced several times in England during 1961 with a total
lack of success - nobody ever built a good sports car around
the Offy engine. RAI still had the car, though, and was able
to convert it to an SCCA-legal sports car by widening the
chassis to make room for two seats and a mildly hopped-up
version of the new Buick aluminium-block V-8 engine. Repco
would make a World Championship engine out of the Buick in
just a few years, but in 1962 it only had potential.
Lance
managed a second place in a less-than-stellar SCCA Regional
field at Santa Barbara on Labor Day of 1962, and then showed
up at another SCCA Regional in Reno with the Oldsmobile version
of the aluminium-block V-8 in the engine bay three weeks later.
The Olds may have been stouter; the Colotti gearbox failed
in practice.
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Still, Reventlow
took the mid-engine Scarab to the Nassau Speed Weeks at the
end of the year. It was another disaster. Lance ran in 6th
place until it started to rain whereupon he dropped back through
the field before stopping in the pits to recruit Augie Pabst,
who was quite fast in between stops to dry out wet electrics.
Lance took the last Scarab home and never drove it again.
When the IRS
forced Reventlow to sell what was left of RAI, Texas oilman
John Mecom bought the remnants, including the mid-engined
Scarab. He put another Texan, A.J. Foyt, in the cockpit. After
running behind the King Cobras at the 1963 Riverside and Laguna
Seca races, Foyt convinced Mecom to replace the Olds with
a Chevy engine. Everything - chassis, driver, and engine -
was now in place and the mid-engined Scarab’s true potential
was exhibited when Foyt beat the Cobra team at Nassau and
then beat everyone in the 1964 Daytona Continental. The last
Scarab didn’t fare well after February of 1964; at least
not until Walt Hansgen was put into its cockpit at Bridgehampton,
where he was virtually unbeatable in any kind of car. Hansgen
built up a lap lead on Pedro Rodriguez’ NART Ferrari
275P, but a 4-minute pit stop put Hansgen almost a minute
behind. Within 10 laps the Scarab, now designated the Zerex
Special, caught and passed the Ferrari to give the mid-engined
Scarab its last major win. Mecom finally
sold the Scarab to Augie Pabst, but the 1962-vintage car was
no match for the Lola T70s and Chaparral 2s it faced in 1965.
Augie brought the Scarab home in 5th place in the season-ending
Stardust Grand Prix Can-Am race and then both he and the last
Scarab retired from professional racing.
Midlantic
Models produced every significant version of the front-engined
Scarab and is well on the way to doing the same for the mid-engined
car. Like all race cars, the Scarab changed from race to race,
with a wide variety of scoops, air dams, spoilers, and even
rear deck configurations to cover the three different engines
it carried. From what I’ve seen so far, Midlantic has
accurately modelled all the different bits and pieces on each
version of the Scarab they’ve made.
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MID030 Scarab Santa Barbara 1962
- Reventlow |
The prettiest one of
all, of course, was the original version seen at Santa Barbara
in 1962, before a variety of drivers and crew chiefs began
adding things in a never-ending attempt to make it go faster.
Midlantic’s
kit (MID030) consists of a very smooth and nicely detailed
resin body shell, 18 white-metal castings that include the
baseplate, 3 chrome-plated castings, 10 photo-etched parts,
4 rubber tyres, a crisp vac-formed windscreen and the usual
screws and axles. The exploded-view instructions are sufficient
for this simple kit, but they do leave out an important piece
of information we’ll discuss in a minute. All
mould lines on the body run along the lower edges where they’re
easy to remove and there’s just some minor flash in the
wheel arches and cockpit opening. The white-metal castings
were equally good, so parts preparation literally took only
a few minutes.
Midlantic doesn’t mention the two large holes on top
of the rear fenders; brake cooling scoops were added there
after Mecom bought the car (remember, he had A.J. driving).
Kits for later versions have those scoops but this one doesn’t,
so those holes should be filled with your favourite putty
and sanded smooth before the body is washed. I also found
- later - that while the baseplate fitted the body shell just
fine, it made the rear track too wide to get the tyres inside
the body. A couple of minutes with a file fixed that, but
this one does need some “dry fitting”.
The first
coat of primer revealed a few tiny “pinholes” on
the lower edges and a small “glob” of surplus resin
on one side. These presented no problems and may or may not
be present on other castings. After a bit of filling and sanding,
the second primer coat was smooth and ready for the colour
coats. The instructions specify a colour with which I’m
not familiar, but as far as I can determine all Reventlow’s
cars were painted GM “Maui Blue Metallic”, a medium
metallic blue. American modellers can get the correct colour
from Model Car World; #5622 Medium Blue Metallic.
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The instructions specify
light grey for the interior, which looks to be correct. Ford
Dove Grey was pretty commonly used for chassis back then (oil
and other stray fluids showed up well) and is available from
MCW, too.
The decals
are very well printed and match Santa Barbara photos in Preston
Lerner’s “Scarab” (THE reference for these
cars) precisely - obviously Midlantic has a copy. They’re
“tough” and require some Solvaset (SS) to get them
to snuggle down, but by the same token they’re easy to
move into position. They do snuggle down like a coat of paint
with a bit of work. I disagree with one point - silver decals
are provided for the “body latches” but I can’t
see any evidence of them in photos so I left those off.
I had no problems
folding up the photo-etched side panels or assembling the
simple interior, but your task will be easier if you have
the side panels in place before adding the instrument panel
- don’t ask how I know that. The vac-formed windscreen
fitted well. I did have an unpleasant surprise during final
assembly - the inside of the front fenders is curved too much
at the top, forcing the top of the wheels to bow out in an
exaggerated “toe-in” condition. If you’ve read
this before building your kit it will be easy to grind some
material out of the wheel wells, but at this point my only
option was to slice some rubber off the top inside of the
tires - I never build my models to roll anyway.
There are
lots of photos of this car in “Scarab” and Midlantic’s
model matches all of them very well both inside and out. The
clean, simple lines of this very first iteration of the mid-engined
Scarab are virtually perfect and dimensions check out to 1/43
scale well. With Midlantic’s excellent front-engined
Scarabs, Jade’s Formula One car, and now these fine mid-engined
Scarabs from Midlantic, I have the entire Scarab history in
my display case.
All of these
models, by the way, are available from GPM! Why not ask them
for a list or look up Scarab on www.grandprixmodels.com.
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