The Johnson Shipley Bonneville racer auction on eBay ended on 15th October at 5:00am with a bid of US$80,000.00.

You can find the eBay auction page if you click here.

This car, which was one of just three built by Car Craft Machine, was created using a P51 Mustang fighter aircraft drop tank, as “belly tank” salt lake racers needed to be.

The car achieved a number of Bonneville National Speed Trials records including a B-Lakester record in 1963 with a speed of 255.501mph and an A-Lakester record in 1964 with a speed of 263.350mph, although that was only a one way speed as high winds forced the termination of further runs that year.

For its record runs this belly tank racer was fitted with a supercharged 331 cubic inch Chrysler V8, the supercharger being a GMC 6-71. This impressive unit delivered power to the rear wheels via a Gilmore in and out gearbox.

This vintage Bonneville Lakester is in the process of a full restoration. You will find a comprehensive article on the car, its history, and the restoration project at the Sports Car Digest website if you click here.

Hopefully there will be the needed injection of finances to restore this unique example of the Bonneville Lakester speed cars of the fifties and sixties. With apologies to all Star Wars fans may we say to those taking on this restoration “May the Funds be with you”.

Jon Branch is the founder and senior editor of Revivaler and has written a significant number of articles for various publications including official Buying Guides for eBay, classic car articles for Hagerty, magazine articles for both the Australian Shooters Journal and the Australian Shooter, and he’s a long time contributor to Silodrome. Jon has done radio, television, magazine and newspaper interviews on various issues, and has traveled extensively, having lived in Britain, Australia, China and Hong Kong. His travels have taken him to Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan and a number of other countries. He has studied the Japanese sword arts and has a long history of involvement in the shooting sports, which has included authoring submissions to government on various firearms related issues and assisting in the design and establishment of shooting ranges.