1969 Templeton Shadowfax

The Shadowfax was created by Mr. Harvey Templeton in 1969. At the age of 57, Templeton had earned the SCCA Rookie of the Year award for the 1966 season. He sat on the pole at Runoffs in 1966 and 1973.

He built the Shadowfax cars from scratch in his garage. They were unique machines and brought with them advanced designs and mechanical components. They are the only FV racers to utilize a zero-roll suspension. Most other cars of the era used a Z-bar setup.

The name Shadowfax came from the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, as did the name Ringwraith. The Ringwraith was Templeton's first attempt at building a FV racer. It was a technically advanced machine that lacked aesthetics. It used zero-roll suspension technology, meaning it had zero resistance to roll, which improved handling. There were no vertically mounted shocks as found on other FV racers. In its place, it had two nonfunctional horizontally mounted shocks, which complied with the rules of the day, but served no functional purpose.

In 2003, Templeton passed away at the age of 94. He had built three racing machines that had controversial appearances but fantastic racing results. In the Monoposto Group, the Harvey Tempmleton's Shadowfax is the only car allowed to race with the zero-roll rear suspension setup.

By Daniel Vaughan | Aug 2007