1918 Stutz Bearcat

This car took part in a 5 lap Edwardian Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in June 2008.

The programme of the event has car number 95 in this race as the 1908 Brasier Voiture de Course of Mike Holt, but this is his 1918 Stutz Bearcat. The car is chassis S2306 and was once part of the A.K.Miller Stutz collection in Vermont, USA. Mike Holt obtained the car from that collection in the 1990s as a rusted rolling chassis which was mechanically complete but with no usable body parts, and sourcing the parts and performing the restoration took 12 years. The Stutz Bearcat has a 4-cylinder 6 litre sixteen valve engine with dual ignition.

On 19 May 2016 I showed photographs of this car that I took at Oulton Park in 2008.

Stutz Bearcat

This car competed in two of the handicap races at the VSCC's Hawthorn Memorial Trophies Race Meeting at Oulton Park in June 2008.

It's Mike Holt's 6 litre 1918 Stutz Bearcat. The Bearcat was the first American car to be regarded as a racing car, one competing in the first Indianapolis 500 mile race in 1911, and you can read the story of Stutz here.

Here's Mike Holt at Britten's chicane during the first of his races that day.