Description:

MY RARE/VINTAGE LEGRAND MK25 S/R CAR—EX-BEASLEY NATIONAL CHAMPION Circa-1980 LeGrand Mk25 Sports Racing Car. This incredibly rare and important sports racer—an ex- national champion—is vintage eligible and ready for a straightforward restoration. It’s a complete rolling chassis with Hewland Mk9, original logbooks/docs and lots of spares and an incredible buy. Here’s the deal… 1980 Mk 25 Chassis # 80-26 Logbooks back to the 1980’s—3 sets Chassis blueprints and lots of spares What you get… Chassis suspension:All there and in very good condition Spare corners and misc 2nd set of wheels Bodywork: 2 sets—Beasley’s and early LeGrand type…both good Gearbox: Hewland MK9 "With Elva, Lola, Lotus and Merlyn S/R cars in the $100K+ range—and much more with history—this car at $5.5K is A STEAL!" Price: $5,500.00. Need the space but not the money so I’m open to legitimate offers


History

"LEGRAND RACE CARS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF A GREAT AMERICA MANUFACTURER Between 1962 and 1991, a bit more than 200 LeGrand race cars were built…far ahead of their time and winning many championships. The legendary Mk25 was one of their most successful race cars! The Beginning: Aldin "Red" LeGrand lead a full life before making the race cars that bear his name. As a young man, his first passion was playing a trumpet in a jazz band in San Francisco. His promising music career ended, however, with the beginning of World War II. He spent the war in the front lines on the beaches of the Pacific theater. Red stayed in the Marines through Korea, leaving the service, with honors, as a drill instructor at Perris Island. He moved to the Los Angeles area and began studying engineering and started a family. While working in the aerospace industry making memory drums, Red was introduced to the fledgling Southern California sports car racing scene. Red, Stuart Dane, and Neil Hillier worked together and thought that racing looked like fun. The Formula Racing Association had a class in which the three friends could race their car, built around a Renault engine and drive train.. This trio made several successful homebuilt cars for this class, and the cars were so good that some customer interest was sparked. The Early Cars—A Legend is Born: A new design for Formula 3 was begun, growing from what the three friends had learned from the Renault specials. The resulting 1962 "Cheetah" Mk1 was a simple straightforward design using many custom light alloy components and was right at the minimum weight of 440 pounds. An interesting aspect of the car was that it used a cable operated the steering rack from the steering column. The car was very light and inexpensive to build. It used a race tuned BMW 700cc twin cylinder engine/transaxle producing 76 horsepower. The air- cooled engine eliminated chassis plumbing allowing for a very light and tinny car. The plan was to have a production run of six cars: three to sell and one for each of the builders. Stuart Dane began the layout and design but was tragically killed in February 1962, at Riverside Raceway in the Renault special. Around this time, Neil headed east while Red soldiered on alone. Red finished up the design work and then retired from active driving. Bruce Eglington, a young engineer and race driver, introduced himself to LeGrand for the purpose of test driving. Along with an immense driving talent, he brought experience from racing several seasons in Lotus 18 and 20 cars. When the Mk1 hit the track in early 1963, Bruce beat all comers in a two heat, 200 mile pro Jr. race at Willow Springs Raceway. Bruce soon took on the role of factory driver. The little Mk1 was so dominant that year that they raced it against the faster Formula B and C cars, effectively killing the Formula 3 class. Success From The Start: Huge success in numerous classes from the Mk3 on. In fact, the Mk3 was an incredible success in that it beat the best of the European chassis on American soil. From sports races and formula ford to F/A, Red’s cars were spectacularly successful. The Sports Racers: The LeGrand Mk18 D Sports Racer (DSR) is perhaps the best known of the LeGrand cars, and for good reason. This venerable design, first produced in 1974, was still winning SCCA national level races 20 years later. The follow on DSR model, the Mk25, first introduced in 1979, won the SCCA runoffs three years in a row with David Kaiser as driver/developer in 1995-1997. When the demand for a new small bore sports racer became apparent, Red was not interested and it took quite a lot of prodding by John Griffith to start on the new design. Many young and talented designers were always around LeGrand race cars. It was the "Think Tank" for local southern California SCCA race car enthusiasts. The Mk18 was a modern, all new LeGrand, generating much excitement. Dave Bean consulted on the suspension, Todd Gerstenburger did the layout of the aerodynamics, and Bob Campbell did the test driving. But John Griffith and Red were responsible for bringing everybody�s idea together into a car that dominated DSR for years. These incredible cars are simple and straightforward. They are designed around production motorcycle powerplants, limited to 1000cc, use a simple straight-through final drive (no differential), have fore and aft wings, but no ground effects, and yet they achieve lap times very close to Formula Atlantic cars. This is another case where Red studied the rules and designed a car specifically for the class taking full advantage of the motorcycle engine/gearbox package. These are small cars; the Mk18 has a wheelbase of 76 in., and weighs only 640 lbs. The Mk18 was a semi-monocoque center section (light square section tube frame with stressed aluminum skin) with full tube frame forward of the dashboard and aft of the firewall. The Mk25 moved the radiator forward, the monocoque chassis was lighter with fewer steel bulkheads, had a stronger roll hoop, and improved suspension geometry. LeGrand started a cottage industry, giving advice and selling any component to anyone trying to make a slightly better Mk18. After Paul Decker won the 1982 SCCA runoffs in Atlanta in his Mk18, he started building his own cars from LeGrand components, and there are more that 10 different bodies that fit the little cars. The End: Red died in November of 1988 and LeGrand Racecars was continued by his son, Robin. Most of this effort was continued production of the Mk25s, and the increasing business of vintage restoration. Robin, with the help of John Griffith and others, produced a new formula car for Bill Huth, owner and operator of the Willow Springs Raceway. An interesting car, the Mk28 had a turbocharged Kawasaki powerplant. The idea was to achieve Formula Atlantic speed with FF budget, and to build a series of these cars for spec class racing at Willow Springs. One car was built and was getting sorted when the rug got pulled from under the project. This car now sits in the show-room at Willow Springs. Robin, discouraged with he lack of success of this project left the racing business, turning over all the vintage LeGrand tooling to the LeGrand Registry. See photos. LeGrand Production Numbers: Overall, more than two hundred LeGrand racecars were built from 1962 to 1991. Many of these early cars are now restored to their former glory and continue to compete on the vintage circuit. My Car: A circa1980 Beasley/LeGrand Mk25 Sports Racer…originally owned and raced by Al Beasley Jr. Many wins and many lap records with lots of documentation—log books and build sheets--from the 1980’s. Al Beasley was not only a LeGrand fanatic but the winner of the SCCA S/R National Championship in 1986 and 1988 and the winner of the President’s Cup at age 62. My car is the Beasley car…a one-off!   "

Competition History

Many wins per log books
Performance Data

• DSR-850cc
  
• Numerous
  

Spares

• Spare wheels
  
• Chassis blueprints and much more
  
• A arms
  
• Body work
  
• Lots more