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Classic Sportscar

Paul’s New Vee

I mentioned in the recap of this year’s Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival that my friend Paul was looking for a vintage formula vee. He climbed in and out of as many different models of vee in attendance as possible, and got sage advice from the outstandingly friendly Vintage Vees contingent of the VSCDA. “What you really want is a Lynx B”, some would say. Others tried to sway him towards a Zinc. Even some of the Formcar guys tried to beckon him in; “Nothing can touch them in the wet”, they’d say.
So what does Paul do? He does the right thing and ignores them all when he finds a remarkable McNamara Sebring for sale a mere 20 blocks from his Minnesota house. I can’t say I blame him, the McNamara looks very good—more like a Formula Ford than a vee with that mysterious air opening at the nose. And the car came complete with a custom build trailer and second set of body work. There’s just no way to walk away from that.

Beyond the car itself are the bounty of stories that came from the wife and son of the previous owner. Several period photos of the car in action and several tales of the involvement of the former owner in the seminal years of Minnesota’s club racing scene.
Needless to say, I’ll be writing more about Paul’s new ride more in the coming months as we fit him to the car and get race-ready for spring. There’s not a huge amount to do; the car is in quite good shape just needs some modification to bring it back into Monoposto compliance. Stay tuned for the progress.

I’ll leave you now with a photo of Paul’s McNamara Sebring as she was raced in her earlier years (we think she’s number 12)

7 replies on “Paul’s New Vee”

Hello Paul,
My name is charles Merrill, and I worked for McNamara Racing in 1968, 69, 70 and built many of the fromula Vees as well as the F3 cars. I have a Mk1 that belonged to Andre Pilette (Belgium Grand Prix Driver)which I am trying to restore. I see from your photos that you have what looks to be nice body work. Do you have moulds? I will send pictures of my old girl, which I actually buily it in January 1968.

My dad, Art Bly, was the mechanic for this car when it was racing. Do you have any more pictures of the car? My brother is thinking of getting a tattoo of the car.

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