Marx Made 2 HO Indy cars, the "Harvey Special" & the "Willard Special". Were these actual cars in real life or were they just made up names to avoid copyright issues ? The white / Red #77 car is an original Marx "Willard Special" & the yellow #33 Car is an AML / American Line Repop of the Marx "Harvey Special" (Mine has a T-Jet Hot Rod roll Bar & AML Willard special w/s added-long story).Aside from the names were these just Generic toy designs or were these copies of actual real life vehicles ?



Neal:dude:

Seems like Willard made batteries but I am probably wrong.

Jim Norton
Huntsville, Alabama

Real cars but the liveries are not. The Willard Battery Special was driven by Parnelli Jones to an Indianapolis 500 victory in 1963. The Harvey Special is from the same era, I don't know who it was driven by but it was built by Mickey Thompson.

The Harvey Aluminum Special was entered by Mickey Thompson as noted by AZslot Racer. Dan Gurney drove it in the 1962 Indy 500, Dan's rookie year.

http://www.thompson-motorsports.com/indy6204.html

Russ

Both were based on real cars but fell a little short of their 1:1 counterpart

BY the way you acn buy NOS body kits of both these cars under the American Line name.

The Willlard Special was the start of this car

http://www.vabeachho.com/Indy/No14DeanVanLinesSpecial.jpg

And if you would like to see what you can model for the TJET look here:

http://www.vabeachho.com/Indy/


Roger Corrie

The Harvey Aluminum Special was entered by Mickey Thompson as noted by AZslot Racer. Dan Gurney drove it in the 1962 Indy 500, Dan's rookie year.

http://www.thompson-motorsports.com/indy6204.html

Russ

Great site, Russ.

But I believe the '63 car was the basis for the Marx Willard.

http://www.thompson-motorsports.com/indy63.html

You're correct, DD. I should have dug deeper for pictures of the 1962 car. The 1962 car has a more conventional layout. You found a really cool site too! Isn't the internet sweet?

what a great site, very cool how much innovation went into Indy car construction in the early 60's. thanks for posting all this!