Jappic Racing Cyclecar Re-creation Project in Progress

Got a note from Adrian Ward the other day who thought you might be interested in a project he’s currently working on. He’s one of those guys who’s been working in motor racing his entire life, starting at Harris Performance, then running the Ohlins race service at British superbike and IOM TT, went from there to work for a number of F1 teams, Benetton, Arrows, and Willams, and much, much more, you know the type, keeps getting his hands into machines that go fast. So, one day over a few pints of beer (how many countless projects begin that way?), he decided to re-create the Jappic racer, a recreation of a 1924 record breaking cyclecar powered by a 1924 racing JAP engine running on methanol.

… the original car was very well known in vintage circles mainly due to its advanced design and the number of records it held , it was destroyed in a workshop fire in ’31 and over the years a few people started to build a re-creation of this car, but none got very far. … I underestimated how long it would take, but as it’s a re-creation and there is so much information it had to be done right.

The engine and gearbox are of the correct type that was fitted to the car, almost everything else I’ve had to make, hope to get it running this year and finished for the vintage revival at Monthlery next year.

Everything has to be handbuilt, which means you have some woodworking, metal working, welding and everything else that goes into making it a true recreation. Adrian has a small problem, when you’re building a recreation of a somewhat famous car (among the vintage racing crowd the Jappic is well known), you have to watch the details, especially when there is a lot of information available about the original. He keeps coming across more and more data which means he keeps striving to make the racer as faithful to the original as possible. He’s been at it for several years and is really hoping to finish later this year, though he finds himself in that position all builders know, where there’s only 20 percent of the project remaining which will consume about 80 percent of the build time.

It’s nice to know bits of history like the Jappic will live again. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, this is one more of those historic projects that should make it out the door and into the sunlight this year.

Link: Jappic Racer