Pics 2007

Bob, I located photos of the Kapteyn R5089 R3 Avanti taken about a year ago. The car has languished in bad to worse hands since 1974. It actually only has about 46,000 miles on the road. The 2nd owner I bought it from in 1972?(Frank Kopis) was MaMa's favorite boy and she paid for endless work on the car for the kid. It was the first factory built R3 Avanti, a 4 speed trans with 4.55 axle and it wasn't fast enough for jr. He had the dealer install a 3:05 ratio and then of course it had no street power so he bought a 460 CID Chevy race engine out of a stock car and had it installed by a hot rod shop. They were sloppy installers and among things the exhaust manifold rubbed on the pitman arm so the steering would not neutralize after a turn by itself. Kind of scarey when you were moving fast. It over heated badly, idled at 1800 RPM and when you let the clutch out it lunged sideways with the torque it had. It was undriveable on the street and shortly after this installation it had an electric harness fire due to dealer installed power windows wired diect to battery not fused and the door switch stuck in the on position one night. Five years later it had sat in the garage untouched and was mildewed, filthy and had doors removed, seats out, dash board on the floor, a real mess. Frankie met a gal and wedding bells were ringing and he called me up about an offer I gave him years before. He took the money and we got it out of there overnight before he changed his mind. I got it running again but it was a mechanical mess with the Chevy engine so I pulled it out and sold it to a drag racing guy who put it in an altered Chevelle. Ran one 12 second run, second run he missed 2nd gear and blew it up! I had previously bought the R3SH320 engine out of it from Wayne Johnson who had bought it from the speed shop that did the GM installation. It had sat outside with heads off all summer in Chicago rainy weather so it was in need of everything, The engine shop I took it to said it needed at least .030 overbore to clean it up but that was too much to bore an R3 without sleeving the cylinders. At that point I bought a R1 block out of a wreck and had it rebuilt to R3 specs by Vince Salay in South Bend who did engine work for the factory engineering group. We used the crank, rods, pistons and cam from R3SH320 since it was a balanced set of parts. That engine ran on a test stand once, was installed in car when I sold it to Mark Dahl in 1974. Dahl let it sit outside for years, fooled around with the distributor, got it out of time and it never ran again. I was bad mouthed by everyone for selling it down the river but it was a money thing, I needed immediate cash to buy a 1930 President and Dahl had the cash. Addendum Dahl sold it to Kapteyn and Kapteyn bought back the factory R3SH320 block from Jim Pepper. What has transpired since I don't know, Kapteyn says he sent it to Auto Machine in St Charles, IL, the best rebuilder in Chicago area. (Dec 2007) My car (R5089) was bought new in Downers Grove Illinois. It was the first one ordered and the third delivered. Egbert and Loewy used to run around in it and they made improvements. This is the first "thick back "seat car. The second owner was John Shanahan and the third was Mark Dahl who sold it to me and my son. R-589 still has its original engine. Powershift with a 4:55 axle It is out of the car and the short block has been rebuilt by AUTO MACHINE in St.Charles IL., by the same company that did Ron Hall's engines. This car has only 43.000 miles and had a Buick engine installed at one time. Jim Pepper had the original block and graciously sold it to me. Robert Kapteyn (SDC Forum) John Shanahan has a lot of information on these cars and made a detailed report for Jet Trust news. It may be that he gave you his files. His email is studeracer_37@yahoo.com. Thanks for your inquire.Please stop by next time you are in the area. Bob

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