After World War II, many soldiers returned home to their hot rod hobby with newfound skills, thanks to Uncle Sam. Dick Troutman and Tom Barnes were two such ex-GIs.
After the war, Troutman and Barnes worked in the machine and airplane industry before working on Indy cars for Frank Kurtis. Eventually they went into business for themselves and founded Troutman Barnes, a fabrication business.
Troutman Barnes was responsible for many road racing cars of the 1950s, including Jim Hall’s Chaparral 1 and Lance Reventhlow’s all-conquering Scarabs. Besides customer cars, the team occasionally built racers of their own, including the first Troutman Barnes Special, which was raced by Chuck Daigh in the 1950s. But we’re not going to talk about that car.
We’re going to talk about the Troutman Barnes Special II, a rear engine car that was built in 1964.
“Racer Buck Fulp called Troutman Barnes and asked them to build him a Special to go racing,” Jim Gallucci, the car’s owner since 1998, says. “They installed a Chevy engine and Fulp raced it in 1964. But the tube chassis was not in style anymore, so after the season Buck parked it and bought a new Lola T-70 to race Can Am in 1965.”
Gallucci is no stranger to this era of racing; he’s owned as many as five vintage Can Am racers at any given time. But the 1964 Troutman Barnes Special II was built and raced just prior to the Can Am. Outdated, the Special II was returned to Troutman Barnes, where it was stored until the late 1960s. “The car was basically worthless at that time,” Gallucci says.
The car was eventually sold to master aluminum fabricator Jack Hagemann, who stored it for the next 35 to 40 years. Gallucci occasionally visited Hagemann to talk racing, and he had always dreamed of purchasing all of Hagemann’s shop equipment, but never mentioned it to him. One day, though, he noticed all the equipment from his shop was gone.
Back in the day, Chuck Daigh drove this pre–Can Am era Troutman and Barnes Special on West Coast circuits. When its tube-frame was deemed outdated, the car was relegated into the back room of a machine shop. JIM GALLUCCI COLLECTION
Gallucci discovered and purchased the historic car and, after a thorough restoration, today races it in vintage racing events. JIM GALLUCCI COLLECTION
“Jack (Hagemann) was 95 years old and had sold everything because he didn’t know I was interested,” Gallucci says. But Hagemann hadn’t totally liquidated his shop. “Knowing I was disappointed, Jack said, ‘I’ve still got something for you.’ In the back room, under all sorts of shit, was Buck Fulp’s old racecar, complete down to the original Halibrand kidney bean wheels. I bought it on the spot.”
When Gallucci called Fulp to inform him of his recent purchase, Fulp relayed a great story. “He told me that when he drove back from California to South Carolina with his new racecar on a trailer,” Gallucci says, “he pulled into a hotel one night only to find the trailer missing. Buck called the police, and it took a couple of days for them to find the racecar and trailer sitting on a field off the highway.”
These days, Gallucci races the Special II in West Coast vintage sports car races. “It’s not the fastest car; these cars don’t need to be fast,” he says. “But she drives like a sweetheart.”
