Stutz Supercharger

[alsancle]

Steve Pugh casually mentioned in a thread up in the AACA general forum discussing AK Miller that he knew of a Stutz Blower for sale. About a month later it was sitting on my desk. I was going to bring pictures to the meeting at Hershey but naturally forgot them. I figured you guys would enjoy some so here you go.

This blower was removed from a car in a wrecking yard outside Chicago by William Johnson in 1937. Mr Johnson was an engineer and as a side job worked for local racers. He wrote a letter to Stutz in 1937 inquiring about parts and the availability of more blowers, as well as the performance characteristics of the SV16 and DV32 engines while supercharged. The response from Stutz came back within 2 weeks and informed him that all the engineers were gone and that the company was more or less gone with just a service shell remaining. He also made detailed engineering drawings of the blower with the idea of adapting it to racing. After WWII he moved to southern CA and around 1951 his dad packed up all his "junk" including this supercharger (in the crate pictured below) as well as other racing parts including a Duesenberg Grand Prix engine and Model A Duesenberg blower and shipped everything to him. He seems to have "retired" from the racing hobby with his move to California so everything stayed locked in his garage until his death a few years ago. Most of the contents of the garage were purchased by a well known restorer and his even more well known celebrity client. Fortunately they were not in to Stutz so I got this.

[Shawn Miller]

Wow what a find! so whats it going to be installed on?

[alsancle]

I hadn't thought out the plan that far forward. :-).

A.J.

[Guest J446]

Very Cool!

[alsancle]

If you guys are interested I updated the page on Stutz Superchargers and there are a few more pictures there plus a comparison with the 540k system which is the most similar of the prewar blower setups.

http://home.townisp.com/~alsancle/StutzSuperCharger.html

[D Bosco]

The Lancefield fabric bodied Stutz that AK Miller had found and purchased in England was supercharged. The factory supercharged chassis was exported to England where it was bodied, as AK recounted the story to me when he showed me the car in the early 1990s.

[alsancle]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: D Bosco</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Lancefield fabric bodied Stutz that AK Miller had found and purchased in England was supercharged. The factory supercharged chassis was exported to England where it was bodied, as AK recounted the story to me when he showed me the car in the early 1990s. </div></div>

Don, that's neat that you got to see the car when AK still owned it. Did he ever actually drive the car? I have a picture of that (AK's) blower on the dyno at George Holman's place when he was setting it up for Skip Barber. I know George had to do quite a bit of work to get the blower to run properly.

regards, A.J.

[D Bosco]

AJ - Mr. Miller did have the car running about 10 years before I saw it in the 1990s. He and his wife turned the crank on all of the cars at least every 6 months. I volunteered to do it for him when he was on in years, and he understood me perfectly and told me to spend all the time I want in his barns to look at the cars. He even had a Henderson touring car, since it used a Stutz rear end. He was such a nice man to me and my wife and little kids, and we visited him many time in Vermont and in NJ. I really feel bad about all the crap and criticism people have layed upon him. He may have been sharp in his dealings, but also he was contantly waiving off an onslaught of people who wanted to buy his cars cheap. He was one of the original free spirits in the 1930s when it was not the popular thing to do. One day I will write up a nice memorial to him.

Don

[rick abbott]

This may be a moot point by now, but Bill Johnson was a friend of mine and my Father's - Bill Abbott. Unless there were two Bill Johnson's with Stutz blood, the one I knew lived on the east coast, NJ I think, I can look it up. He had the only other real boat tail I knew/know of plus a bunch of other cars and parts. Bill J was a true eccentric, who of us are not. I would suspect George Holman to be the real source of the blower recently....by the way, if ever for sale

I would love to have it, even though it's installation on the SV16 didn't prove worth the trouble, hence the DV32

Rick Abbott

[alsancle]

A year or two ago there was a DV32 Bearcat for sale at auction that was built by Bill Johnson. I asked George about it and he confirmed that there were in fact two different Bill Johnsons. A east coast one and a west coast one. I believe the blower was the only Stutz piece that the West Cost Johnson had. He had lots of Duesenberg stuff.

Btw, George has perfected the blower application for the SV16 so you do get the true boost when it's engaged. You are right that it's a lot easier to get the same horsepower simply from the DOHC head.

[alsancle]

The Lancefield fabric bodied Stutz that AK Miller had found and purchased in England was supercharged. The factory supercharged chassis was exported to England where it was bodied, as AK recounted the story to me when he showed me the car in the early 1990s.

The Lancefield Coupe, with fabric replaced with Aluminum by A.K. Miller is now sporting chrome wires. Here is a picture from Amelia.

[JonathanSierakowski]

The Lancefield Coupe was also displayed at the Keels & Wheels Concours in Houston in early May where it took Best in Show. The owner was a very nice guy and had several cars on display there. One was a Weymann-bodied Stutz Monte Carlo which had an interior that looked like it could have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was very sharp looking and extremely comfortable to sit in.

AJ- the blower is awesome! Looking forward to hearing what you end up deciding to put it on.