Its been long enough, time to revive this thread.
1953 Caliban Type SC (Whittingmore Custom)
Thanks to @Mr.Computah for letting me modify his car.
In 1948, ACA and Caliban would form a partnership whereby ACA helped Caliban produce cars in the US, and in return, Caliban would help the development of ACA’s own sports car and racing team. In 1949, ACA would help Caliban bring along one of their most famous models onto US shores, the Type SC.
The Type SC was a sleek fastback coupe with independent front and rear suspension and an advanced 3.2L OHC V8. This made the Type SC a favourite for privateer racing teams in both the US and in Europe, with many custom variations on the design. This is one of them.
Benjamin and Audie Whittingmore were ACA engineers by day, but by night were busy hot rodding cars to go fast. When the opportunity came to purchase a 1951 Caliban Type SC, the brothers jumped at the opportunity to modify it for racing round a circuit.
Being assigned to assist the Caliban production facility, the Ben and Audie were already well acquainted with the Type SC as such, they were able to modify it to push the most of the chassis.
Taking 3 years to finish, the result was the Caliban Type SC Whittingmore Custom.
Extensive modifications were done to the overall car. Ben and Audie had decided to ditch the fastback design for a more traditional roadster look, complete with a detachable hardtop. As such the chassis had to be heavily modified to increase structural integrity. The body panels were also swapped for hand beaten aluminium panels to reduce the weight of the car.
The next modification made to the car came in the form of a new engine, the ACA 303 Flathead V8. While some would see this as a downgrade from the 3.2L Stomcast V8, there were several reasons as to why they modified the car this way.
Due to the simpler design of the engine, the 303 Flathead V8 was much more reliable than more advanced Stormcast V8. Also since the 300 Series Flathead V8s had been around since 1942, spare parts and aftermarket components were easy to source making maintenance cheaper. And with the larger displacement, the 303 was easily capable of overcoming its deficiencies over the 3.2L Stormcast.
With all the modifications done to the Type SC, the custom car weighed only 9 kilograms more, but made 50 more hp.
The car would eventually be sold on to a privateer driver who planned on racing it in the 1955 Le Mans, but failed to attend due to illness. As such the car would never be driven round a track in anger…
