430 Super Marauder
Posted: Wed 11. Jan 2012, 13:50
I've been working for some time on assembling a historical chronology of the development of the 430 Super Marauder which I found to be quite interesting the deeper I got into it. I'll start with Bill Stroppe who was the man who put the magic in it. The following article is a good lead-in and details his rise to racing prominence. It is reproduced with permission of Hemmings Muscle Machines.
Feature Article from Hemmings Muscle Machines
October, 2008 - Daniel Strohl
For a guy who made a name for himself racing and building fast sedans and off-road vehicles, it may seem a little strange that the most crucial moment of his life happened in a boat. On that day in July 1947, Bill Stroppe manned a vessel that looked like a contoured plywood mattress with a couple stubby wings up front and a circular cockpit. Built in California from Navy-surplus plywood, Stroppe had made himself a race boat. Not just any race boat, though: The Miss Art Hall was powered by a Clay Smith-built Ford flathead six-cylinder engine, and this race, the Detroit International Boat Race, renamed the Henry Ford Memorial Regatta after the then-recently deceased industrial pioneer, was one Stroppe had never run before.
Ford's engineers--who didn't care much for the newish, but problematic, flathead six-cylinder--watched from the banks of the Detroit River as Stroppe plowed through the 225-cu.in. class, qualifying well ahead of his fellow competitors and running just as fast as the unlimited-class hydroplanes. They all wanted to know just how he had coaxed that six-cylinder to both produce power and to rev past 4,500 rpm, the point where the engineers had identified, but not eliminated, a troublesome imbalance. Stroppe had to deflect all the engineering praise to Smith, his racing partner and pal, but the men at Ford now knew about this young man from California and his enthusiasm for competition.
"Henry Ford (that would be Henry Ford II, Henry Ford's grandson) actually offered him a job with Ford in Detroit after that race," Willie Stroppe, Bill's son, said. "He declined, but came up with the idea of a West Coast racing operation for Ford."
Willie Stroppe said his father always had a competitive streak, and thus he always enjoyed racing. "He liked the intensity of it," Willie said.
Born January 15, 1919, in Long Beach, California, Bill Stroppe began wrenching on the family dairy farm's delivery truck before he was 10, started dismantling cars in a local wrecking yard soon after and, by the time he was 14, he was running his own service station. Faced with a choice of high schools, either the prestigious Long Beach Wilson or the well-established Long Beach Polytechnic, Stroppe chose the latter because it had an auto shop class.
Through his auto shop teacher, Floyd Nelson, Bill became involved in midget racing, which led to dry-lakes racing, which led to his friendship with Clay Smith, an enthusiasm for boat racing, and a job servicing cars for Art Hall's Lincoln-Mercury dealership, all of which, in turn, led to that day in July 1947 and then another day three years later when Ford--specifically the Lincoln-Mercury division--agreed to Stroppe and Smith's suggestion of a West Coast racing operation.
Though Ford wouldn't start campaigning and selling cars under the Total Performance theme for another seven years, Stroppe already embodied the philosophy of racing in all conceivable forms. On his own, he raced in the SCCA (and won a championship in 1952 in a Mercury flathead-powered Kurtis 500S) and crewed for cars at Indy. He participated in the Mobilgas Economy Runs in the early 1950s, and convinced Ford to provide a full team of Lincolns for the 1952 to 1954 Carreras Panamericana. His effort paid off when Lincolns took the top three spots in the 1952 and 1953 editions of that race.
After the accidental death of Clay Smith in 1954, Stroppe continued to run Lincoln-Mercury's West Coast racing efforts on his own, and at about the same time, he switched his focus from racing Lincolns to racing Mercurys, and from preparing cars for road racing (Mexican authorities canceled La Carrera Panamericana before the 1955 race) to preparing cars for stock car racing.
Stroppe weathered the 1957 to 1963 ban on factory racing involvement with a number of preoccupations, including the development of police packages for Mercurys, a brief stint with Autolite's racing program and an even briefer stint with Chevrolet. But when Mercury pulled out of stock car racing for good in 1964, Ford paired him with the Holman-Moody duo, a partnership that led to Stroppe's involvement with the GT-40 at Le Mans and with Ford's efforts at Pikes Peak. But it was while standing on Pikes Peak in 1969, as Willie Stroppe recalls, that Ford notified Stroppe that the company was once again pulling out of racing. Still committed to racing, he quickly transitioned to off-road racing in Ford's Bronco, then goaded Parnelli Jones into driving for him. The duo became nearly unstoppable in off-road racing until an accident in 1974 pushed Parnelli out of the field.
Stroppe continued to build race cars, off-road trucks and the occasional special project for Ford, but reorganized his business in the mid-1970s to include Willie in the day-to-day operations. "The cast of people who worked for my dad was unbelieveable," Willie recalled. "Racing was always in his blood, but working with those in the upper echelons of Ford really made him strive harder." Bill Stroppe died from complications from a fall in 1995. Willie still runs his business, Bill Stroppe and Son, in Paramount, California.
Feature Article from Hemmings Muscle Machines
October, 2008 - Daniel Strohl
For a guy who made a name for himself racing and building fast sedans and off-road vehicles, it may seem a little strange that the most crucial moment of his life happened in a boat. On that day in July 1947, Bill Stroppe manned a vessel that looked like a contoured plywood mattress with a couple stubby wings up front and a circular cockpit. Built in California from Navy-surplus plywood, Stroppe had made himself a race boat. Not just any race boat, though: The Miss Art Hall was powered by a Clay Smith-built Ford flathead six-cylinder engine, and this race, the Detroit International Boat Race, renamed the Henry Ford Memorial Regatta after the then-recently deceased industrial pioneer, was one Stroppe had never run before.
Ford's engineers--who didn't care much for the newish, but problematic, flathead six-cylinder--watched from the banks of the Detroit River as Stroppe plowed through the 225-cu.in. class, qualifying well ahead of his fellow competitors and running just as fast as the unlimited-class hydroplanes. They all wanted to know just how he had coaxed that six-cylinder to both produce power and to rev past 4,500 rpm, the point where the engineers had identified, but not eliminated, a troublesome imbalance. Stroppe had to deflect all the engineering praise to Smith, his racing partner and pal, but the men at Ford now knew about this young man from California and his enthusiasm for competition.
"Henry Ford (that would be Henry Ford II, Henry Ford's grandson) actually offered him a job with Ford in Detroit after that race," Willie Stroppe, Bill's son, said. "He declined, but came up with the idea of a West Coast racing operation for Ford."
Willie Stroppe said his father always had a competitive streak, and thus he always enjoyed racing. "He liked the intensity of it," Willie said.
Born January 15, 1919, in Long Beach, California, Bill Stroppe began wrenching on the family dairy farm's delivery truck before he was 10, started dismantling cars in a local wrecking yard soon after and, by the time he was 14, he was running his own service station. Faced with a choice of high schools, either the prestigious Long Beach Wilson or the well-established Long Beach Polytechnic, Stroppe chose the latter because it had an auto shop class.
Through his auto shop teacher, Floyd Nelson, Bill became involved in midget racing, which led to dry-lakes racing, which led to his friendship with Clay Smith, an enthusiasm for boat racing, and a job servicing cars for Art Hall's Lincoln-Mercury dealership, all of which, in turn, led to that day in July 1947 and then another day three years later when Ford--specifically the Lincoln-Mercury division--agreed to Stroppe and Smith's suggestion of a West Coast racing operation.
Though Ford wouldn't start campaigning and selling cars under the Total Performance theme for another seven years, Stroppe already embodied the philosophy of racing in all conceivable forms. On his own, he raced in the SCCA (and won a championship in 1952 in a Mercury flathead-powered Kurtis 500S) and crewed for cars at Indy. He participated in the Mobilgas Economy Runs in the early 1950s, and convinced Ford to provide a full team of Lincolns for the 1952 to 1954 Carreras Panamericana. His effort paid off when Lincolns took the top three spots in the 1952 and 1953 editions of that race.
After the accidental death of Clay Smith in 1954, Stroppe continued to run Lincoln-Mercury's West Coast racing efforts on his own, and at about the same time, he switched his focus from racing Lincolns to racing Mercurys, and from preparing cars for road racing (Mexican authorities canceled La Carrera Panamericana before the 1955 race) to preparing cars for stock car racing.
Stroppe weathered the 1957 to 1963 ban on factory racing involvement with a number of preoccupations, including the development of police packages for Mercurys, a brief stint with Autolite's racing program and an even briefer stint with Chevrolet. But when Mercury pulled out of stock car racing for good in 1964, Ford paired him with the Holman-Moody duo, a partnership that led to Stroppe's involvement with the GT-40 at Le Mans and with Ford's efforts at Pikes Peak. But it was while standing on Pikes Peak in 1969, as Willie Stroppe recalls, that Ford notified Stroppe that the company was once again pulling out of racing. Still committed to racing, he quickly transitioned to off-road racing in Ford's Bronco, then goaded Parnelli Jones into driving for him. The duo became nearly unstoppable in off-road racing until an accident in 1974 pushed Parnelli out of the field.
Stroppe continued to build race cars, off-road trucks and the occasional special project for Ford, but reorganized his business in the mid-1970s to include Willie in the day-to-day operations. "The cast of people who worked for my dad was unbelieveable," Willie recalled. "Racing was always in his blood, but working with those in the upper echelons of Ford really made him strive harder." Bill Stroppe died from complications from a fall in 1995. Willie still runs his business, Bill Stroppe and Son, in Paramount, California.