Mc Kee is still a very busy guy...Son Sean has been to his facility and has
quoted low production parts to him. (Iowa Laser)
BTW, Mr. Benford needs to get busy on his Group 44 Clone so we can see it in
2005.
> Forgive me for indulging myself with this group, but once you hear the
> story you will know why.
>
> This past Saturday my son Andrew and I went to the Sycamore (Illinois)
> Threshing Bee. This is a show with all sorts of steam powered tractors,
>single
> cylinder popper motors, Maytag washing machine engines, Briggs & Stratons
> powered everything and old gas, kerosene and diesel tractors. Even one late
>'40s
> MF. The star of this show is a huge 250 hp horizontal compound cylinder
> Corliss valved steam engine that once was used as a ammonia compressor for
> refrigeration. A beautiful piece of engineering and some amazing castings
>were
> used to build this engine.
>
> I was listening to the head engineer give his routine speech about the
> Corliss engine along with a gentlemen in an IRL shirt. I happened to be
>wearing
> an old HSR polo shirt that has the Group 44 Jag on the chest. I nodded hello
> to him and he did the same and smile once he got an eye of my shirt. A bit
> later we came across this gentleman again looking at the antique cars. He
> asked me if I was a Jaguar fan and of course I go into my sports car racer
>mode
> telling him how I am building a TR4 for vintage racing, and that I plan to
> paint the car in Group 44 colors just like my shirt. Which he relies, "Oh -
> Bob Tullius, he drove for a race car for me". Which car I ask? "The Howmet
> Turbine", he says. So here I am in the middle of a corn field with Bob
>McKee!
> We had a great conversion about the steam show, Cam-Am and sports racers
> and other old school stuff.
>
> Bob is still has a shop in Lake Zurich Illinois doing is doing a bit of
> restoration work on race cars and working on electric vehicles. He even
>invited
> Andrew and I up to the shop.
>
> Now the amazing item of this story is that I was at the 1968 Six Hour FIA
> race at Watkins Glen and watched Mr. Tullius race one of the two Howmet
>Turbine
> cars.
>
> Looking forward to watching the FOT crew race at the September VSCDA Road
> America event.
>
> Thanks and Thumbs Up,
> Steve Benford Jr.
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