1962 Shirdlu Special

This car is one-of-one designed, built, and raced by Frazier Sibbald, George Olsen, and Howard Bliss, all of California. Sibbald was the racer, Olsen the designer, and it is believed Bliss was the engineer and fabricator. Being that H-Mod cars were limited to 750 cc it needed to be very light in order to achieve good performance.

A triangulated square-tube frame was utilized with a fiberglass nose and tail, aluminum doors, a hot-rodded BMW 'airhead' from a 700 Sport Coupe, and Legrand Formula car suspension were blended into this miniature Lotus 23B. Weighing only 635 pounds, performance from its 80 horsepower engine was eye-opening. For perspective, a base model 2017 Corvette has about the same hp/weight ratio.

The origin of the unusual name? We cannot be sure, but it's possible Mr. Bliss may have been a typesetter. Linotype operators and typesetters used to limber up by typing the nonsense words 'Etoin Shrdlu', the most commonly used letters in the English language.