Saw this on a Land Speed Racing Board's classified section, while checking for early results from the current and ongoing SCTA speed trials on the salt flats. Said to be one of the three 1963 Avantis that Andy Granitelli prepped and raced at Bonneville in 63. No engine/trans. No price, photos, or description at link, just contact's email address (which may not even be working from the sounds of it). //////We have one of the 3 Andy Granatelli '63 Avanti LSR cars available. This car has been run many times, with several different engine setups by the famous Burke family over the years. Lots of history here. No engine or gearbox and needs restoration. It is undamaged and rolls just fine. Please contact: mllowe@gmail.com for more information and photos. We can deliver, if necessary. This project needs a new home. Thanks, Michael/////// ------------------------------------------- Try to find out the EX number on the frame. It is on the drivers side right under the steering column. That is opposite the stock Avanti S/N location. I worked on 2 cars for Bill Burke and Joe Granatelli. One was EX-2942 the Due Cento car and EX-2143 which was the 229 car. EX-2143 was later renamed the Terrible Turkey. EX-2942 as far as I know still belongs to Richard A. Bennett the 3rd. of Ridgeley W. VA. (Irwin PA) EX-2143 was the 'Burke-Bros.-Leggit-Exostec' last powered by a 305 ci. destroked Chrysler Hemi built by Les Legget of So. Cal. The engine was set back and the stock upholstery was removed and replaced by one bucket seat towards the rear of the passenger compartment. In the suspension dept, the complete front suspension was removed and a straight axle put in to keep it straight at speed. 18" rear wheels were used to increase the gear ratio,while a set of small tires were used at the front to keep the nose down. An attempt was also planned of a larger engine for the B/Fuel coupe class, but dammage to the rear frame crossmember and parachute mounting hardware when Steve Burke poped the chute at full throtle, forced the retirement of the car. There were 2 other cars the 8 and 9 car but I dont think Burke had anything to do thih those. ceecab Aug 13, 11:11 pm show options Newsgroups: alt.autos.studebaker From: "ceecab" - Find messages by this author Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 23:11:46 -0400 Local: Sat, Aug 13 2005 11:11 pm Subject: Re: Granitelli 63 Bonnevile raced Avanti FS Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse EX-2942 as far as I know still belongs to Richard A. Bennett the 3rd. of Ridgeley W. VA. Yeah--Dick Bennett owns it, but he's in Pittsburgh now The car is slowlyyyyyyyyyyy being restored to * race conditions* except for an R-3 instead of the originalengine which is long gone. Slow is right he came to the shop to pick it up in 1969 with his new wife and a Rambler wagon with a car trailer, the engine was long gone, I got the heads and manifold. It had a Ford Cammer in it when he picked it up, he went through the roof. Bad thing about those cars they were never registered. Joe Granatelli told Bill Burke that he should not sell them when he was done with them he was supposed to junk them. If they touched a California street or highway you would be responsible for regestration and intrest and penalties back to 1963. Wikipedia During the fall of 1962, on August 14th, the prototype R-3 (299 cid) driven by Andy Granatelli set several land speed records with the top speed of 168.15 mph (270.61 km/h) for the Flying Mile. This Avanti was later modified into the Due Cento for the 1963 Bonneville runs. In October of 1963, Granatelli took several Studebakers to the Bonneville Salt Flats, including an R-3 Avanti in which he reached a record speed of170.78 mph (274.84 km/h). By the time he was done, Granatelli had set or broken 34 U.S. land speed records in the Avanti, allowing Studebaker to proudly proclaim it the "World's Fastest Production Car". In addition to being fast, the Avanti led the domestic auto industry in the use of front caliper disc brakes (Dunlop discs produced under license by the Bendix Corporation). A one-off custom version of the Studebaker V8 was the Granatelli-developed, experimental R5. With Bendix aircraft fuel injection as used on the Novi Indy car and a Paxton supercharger mounted to each cylinder bank, it produced 638 horsepower (476 kW) on the Paxton dynamometer. The R-5 was mounted in Granatelli’s special Avanti “Due Cento” (200 in Italian), with which he planned to break 200 miles per hour. Unfortunately, Granatelli could not get enough traction during his Bonneville run, achieving a top speed of 196.62 miles per hour. The R5 never officially competed again. ========================================================================== QUOTE(Gunslinger @ Oct 31 2006, 03:46 PM) * I understand the R-5 engine in the Due Cento was disassembled and its parts are unknown. I've never seen anything to the contrary of that. I believe the car still exists and is owned by someone...who I don't know. After this many years it's probably been through a succession of owners so who knows what it looks like now compared to its appearance at Bonneville. I haven't seen anything which identifies the VIN of the Due Cento. ----------------------------------------------------- AOAI Forum Dec 2007 The car is presently owned by me, Richard Bennett, Irwin, Pa.. It was sold to Bill Burke of Peterson Publishing I believe in 1966 or 1967, who was a Bonneville veteran. He ran another Avanti for many years, starting with a Studebaker engine and followed by many other engine combinations and set several Land Speed Records. Bill purchased the Due Cento from Andy Granatelli and ran the car with non Studebaker engines in 1967 and 1968. I purchased the car from him in 1968 and am presently in the process of a ground up restoration. Fortunately, Bill did not do too much damage to the car, however he did cut the firewall out of it and repaint the car orange. It has been stripped to the bare fiberglass and will be redone exactly as it originally was. I also received all of the aerodynamic pieces with the car. The serial number of the Due Cento is EX2942 as it was the prototype Avanti build by the Engineering Department before the Avanti went into production. It has many unique features such as hand laid cloth seen on the underside since it was the first one made from a mold taken from the clay, fake dash, fake taillights and many more unusual features. The car as it is seen in "The Bonneville Record Holder" can be identified as the car not having any names, emblems or identification on the body (most of the scenes are of a production Avanti dubbed in for the promotional film - note production identification and lack of rollbar). This is the car in it's original form as run in 1962 when it set 29 speed records before being modified into the Due Cento for the 1963 runs when the #9 Avanti set the record. The "real deal" is shown in several shots, some of which are the shots with the timing officials as they turn their heads and you hear the loud wine of the Supercharger; at the end where Andy is photographed with the car and the beautiful shot at the extreme end where the car is shown in a misty shot screaming down the 'long black line'! I have several pictures and magazine articles of the car at Bonneville, but am constantly searching for more items to assure that the car is done accurately. Some magazine pictures show many photographers, so there must be more stuff out there. Hopefully they have not all been destroyed. If anyone has anything, I would really appreciate hearing from you. The one thing that I really need and don't have is a picture of the top of the front fenders to see how and where the gold leaf stripe terminates on the windshield side. If anyone has any pictures, films or additional information, I would appreciate hearing from you. My e-mail address is rabennett3@hotmail.com and phone number is 724-864-5205. Hope to have the Due Cento at an AOAI meet soon so that all may enjoy all the History! ---------------------------------------------------------------- The 229 car or the California Sunshine of Bill Burke's was EX-2143. Paxton put the numbers on a plate and pop rivited it to the drivers side frame rail directly opposite the R series type.