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1954 Huffaker Marston Healey Special

Roadster
Chassis number: JH 001

This is a one-off racer wearing an aluminum body by Joe Huffaker and is the first racecar Huffaker built.

In 1953 Joe Huffaker, Sr. and Mick Marston made a plan to build a sports racing car. Mick procured a wrecked 1953 Austin Healey 100 and Joe began to fabricate the first Huffaker Special at his home in Novato, California. He race-prepped the engine and fabricated the tube chassis, aluminum body, and DeDion rear suspension. The original engine was, for a short period, equipped with a rare but unreliable Hunter twin-cam cylinder head. There are inboard rear brakes and torsion bar springing.

In May of 1954, the Huffaker Healey Special ran its first race in SCCA Class D Mod. Marston went on to race the car through 1958 at many venues including Pebble Beach, Cotati, Tracy, Buchanan Field, and the old Sacramento Fair Grounds. In 1957 Marston purchased a rare Hunter Twin-Cam Head and raced the Huffaker Special with the Twin-Cam 100/4 in Stockton, in April 1957. It was fast....very fast....but only for short runs. Joe Huffaker went on to build and campaign cars in nearly all the country's premier racing series, including the USRRC, Trans-Am, Indy Cars, IMSA, and more.

This car competed in the Del Monte Trophy at the 1956 Pebble Beach Road Races and has made 17 appearances at the Monterey Historics and Reunion.

Lou and Laurel Pavesi have owned the car for thirty years. The car was lovingly restored in 2005 with the help of the Huffaker Family.

At the age of 18, Joe Huffaker's family moved to California and his interest in Hot Rods and racing instantly peaked. After attending the College of Marin where he earned a degree, he began work on building dirt track roadsters. Though having no formal training, his natural skills, and abilities were enough to create some rather competitive machines. His talents were recognized by Mickey Marston, an automobile salesman, who commissioned Huffaker to construct a racing special based on a wrecked Austin Healey 100.

The racing special was given a tubular frame and fitted with the drivetrain of the Austin Healey. Modifications were made by Huffaker to the engine making it better suited for the competitive D-Modified class in which it would race until 1958. The rear suspension was a de Dion setup with modifications by Huffaker. There were inboard drum brakes used to keep the car under the driver's control. The car was then clothed in a lightweight and hand-formed aluminum body with an overall weight of just 1800 pounds. The project took just five months to complete.

Huffaker would continue building and preparing race cars for a number of racing series including Trans-Am, Sports-Racing, Indy Racers, and even formula cars.