Nostalgia T-buckets

[Bill Cleveland]

I notice several who post here are building/or interested in old-school "banger" powered T's like they used to run at the dry lakes, etc. After meeting Bob Bettenhausen at our St Louis chapter's "Safety Day" last week, he commented on his late cousin, Tony Bettenhausen of Indy fame. Tony used to drive a Novi powered Kurtis-built roadster at Indy; I always loved to hear the scream of those Novi engines, but they never seemed to reach their full potential. I know there are some old Indy Offy's around, but I don't know about the Novi's. I think Andy Granatelli was the last to actually build them for racing. Then I was wondering, what would it be like to have one of those engines in a street T? Talk about some WOW factor . . . !

[Bill Cleveland]

I think the Novi V-8s were only 183 cu in, and in their final iteration, produced somewhere north of 800 hp!!!