One of the most characterful, pugnacious and hot-roddy of Rob Manson’s various California Road Race Specials is the Schaghticoke Streets Manning Special. Let’s look at all three Manning specials first. Their most significant feature is Manning’s ultra-lightweight, rigid, tubular chassis. Pre-War Ford suspension and drum brakes are used and power is from a classic hot-rod Mercury Flathead V8. Conceived, and each of them built, as race cars, they were all street-legal in period and today to be able to qualify for the SCCA historic races. The very essence of The Manning Special is that the plan set was made available by the creator so that others could build Manning Specials. That is what happened, in numerous cases of which two survive; thank goodness… otherwise there would be no Manning Specials showing and competing today.
Three near-identical Manning Specials were built and road-raced in the 1950s, the first two of which raced at the Pebble Beach Road Races in 1952,1953 and 1954.
1. The Manning Special was designed by Chuck Manning and the first model he himself built in California in 1951 as a technical exercise for Road & Track magazine. The car was quick: he was outright winner of the Palm Springs Road Races on March 23, 1952 “despite stiff opposition from some of the fastest cars and drivers in the West” (Motor Sports World, April 4, 1952). He was on the podium at Torrey Pines, Carrell, Madera, Chino and Hansen Dam (details here). At the Pebble Beach Road Races he was 4th in 1953 but had an accident in 1954. He then made the plan set available, for $2, to subscribers. Chuck Manning was a Stress Engineer at Douglas Aircraft. Hollywood actor Jacques Bellisiles purchased this first Manning Special from Chuck Manning but it was destroyed in a yard fire in the mid-60s.
2. The Sparks & Bonney Special, the second Manning Special. When the first car was destroyed in a fire, the owner Jacques Bellisiles had Tom Sparks of Sparks & Bonney Racing of Hollywood build another one in about 1956, from the original plans. He then raced it for several years in Cal-Club and SCCA events on the west coast as the Sparks & Bonney Special; most sources refer to it in this way, not as a Manning Special despite it looking identical. Hal Dolden and Michael Kingsley are often credited as racing the car (https://www.racingsportscars.com/type/archive/Sparks%20Bonney/Special.html. The car featured in a TV show Car Crazy in 2001-2023 (https://www.imcdb.org/v516768.html). Most of us believe it has disappeared but of course it could be sitting in a barn in the mid-West under 70 years of dust.
3. The Schaghticoke Streets Manning Special. The third car was built in about 1955 by the man who worked with Chuck Manning on the first car, Wally Chapman. He took the plan set home from Manning’s to his upstairs back bedroom at his grandmother’s house in Schaghticoke, New York. John Streets, then a young engineering student from England helped him finish it and then raced it in Eastern Canada, New York and the northeast until a major accident in 1959 (https://www.supercars.net/blog/1955-schaghticoke-manning-special/). John Streets and John Buddenbaum rebuilt The Streets Manning Special in the 1990s, exactly to Chuck Manning’s plans, in Redwood City California. Since Rob Manson bought it ten years later he has raced it regularly on the west coast and in England, often with guests drivers including Jay Streets (rally and historic FF driver), Skip Streets (SCCA Formula V, historic FF, 2000 ace, Mondiale Dodge exponent) – both sons of the late John Streets, the car’s builder) and Englishman Marcus Bicknell (BARC Clubmans Proto Champion 2013 and 2014 and big bore racer in Europe),
More at https://dmtrg.com/rob-manson-1952-streets-manning-special/
The Streets Manning Special specification…
Engine: Ford Mercury Flathead (Side Valve) 8 Cylinder (V8)
Displacement: 4185 cc (255 cubic inches)
Horsepower: 198 bhp @5000rpm, torque 300 ft-lb at 1800rpm
Induction: 3x Stromberg 97 downdraft carburettor, Navarro intake manifold
Gearbox: Ford, 3 forward gears and reverse, Lincoln Zephyr gear set
Running gear: 1936 Ford, scrap yard sourced, Manning tubular ladder chassis,
Brakes: Drum brakes from a post-war Ford Lincoln
Normal tyres: Dunlop Racing L 16 inch
Based: California, USA
Designer: Chuck Manning, a stress analyst at Douglas Aircraft in Los Angeles who contributed to Road & Track magazine (see (1)), conceived the type, built the first example and published the plans.
Builder: Wally Chapman of Schaghticoke NY and John Streets. 1990 rebuild John Streets and John Buddenbaum.
Nomenclature: While the car has been known on the West Coast as the Streets Manning Special (California resident the late John Streets rebuilt the car in the 1990s), it has been the Schaghticoke Manning Special to everyone on the Eastern seaboard because it was originally built there. Solution? We now use both names all the time… the Schaghticoke Streets Manning Special.
See also research and commentary from Joel Driscoll at https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/chuck-manning/building-your-own-sports-car-the-manning-special-part-1-road-track-september-1951/https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/chuck-manning/the-manning-special-in-search-of-lost-history/
(1) Road and Track magazine was founded in 1949. The ampersand (&) in the title was introduced in 1955 by then Editor Terry Galanoy, who replaced the word “and” in the magazine’s name to make Road & Track magazine. The words Road and Track were graphically too long for newsstand-effective recognition.