As long as I’ve known Geoff Hacker, I’ve been amazed at both his dedication to fiberglass cars from the 1950s and his ability to sniff them out, as if his nose is finely tuned to the odors of half-century-old resin and fiberglass dust. From his trip to Southern California earlier this month, Geoff filed this report of visiting George McGuire of Los Angeles and George’s two Byers SR100s:
And what cars they are! George acquired both about eight years ago from the Northeast USA and brought them back to California – just miles from where they were made in El Segundo in the 1950s and 1960s.
We believe the dark green car, which is a hand-laid fiberglass body from the 1950s, to be built by John Bond of Road and Track in the late 1950s. It will take some more research to make this determination, but Bond decided to build a Byers after he ran a story – and a Byers SR100 – on the cover of Road and Track in February 1957. Then in March 1959, he wrote another article discussing how he built the car. George is shown with his car earlier this week during my visit with him.
The orange Byers was just a body acquired at the same time as the John Bond car. George is in the process of building it into a vintage race car and the engine is built and ready to go – a 392 Chrysler Hemi with a rare Jot Horn four deuce intake manifold with four Stromberg 97s. What a screamer this will be. Some of your readers may have some history on this body – it was built and run near Plymouth, Ohio, in the 1960s and has a chopper gun fiberglass body sold by Kellison (called SR100) and built in the 1960s.
We found a number for Mulvane’s Speed and Custom Equipment, the business advertised on the back of the orange Byers, but it’s since been disconnected. Anybody recall seeing this Byers race?
