Racing helmets Texas style (UPDATE III: Earl Cooper)

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Do you recognise this Stutz racer and the gentlemen on board? They look as if they are the financers of a Stutz team or what. The man on the left is showing a remarkable resemblance with Robert de Niro. Now that we are talking Stutz, has anybody of you ever heard of Addison Brown who raced Stutz in California in the thirties? Please feel welcome to send in memories and/or opinions. (photo collection Matt Rubart)

UPDATE III by Dick Trenk:"While car # 5 did take 3rd place in the 1915 Indy 500 driven by Gil Anderson, the photo being shown is not Gil Anderson at the wheel. In that race 4th place was won by Earl Cooper in car # 4. Normally Cooper used #8 on his Stutz cars when racing on the West coast but from time to time other numbers were assigned for a certain race event due to conflict with other entries using using certain numbers. In my opinion (and based on a good photo of him in the Automobile Quarterly 1970 Vol. 8 nr. 3), the man holding the wheel in your photo of car #5 is actually Earl Cooper. In the 1915 Indy race there was also a Stutz car #1 driven by Howdy Wilcox who finished in 7th place. In your photo, Cooper looks somewhat older than photos made in 1915. Perhaps this was a time when he joined with others and posed in the #5 Stutz car long after 1915."

Update II from Alistair Dray: “This Stutz looks like the 1915 Indianapolis car, no. 5, which came 3rd in the 500 that year. It was restored by Sir Len Southward, NZ, and is in the Southward car museum, NZ. The only obvious difference is the pointed tail in your picture, whereas the car now has a round rear petrol tank, with spare wheel mounted behind. I had a ride with Sir Len Southward in 1978, aged 9, and it blew my schoolboy socks right off ! On a race track in 1980, in a demonstration lap against my father's 30-98 Vauxhall, from about 60 mph, side by side, the Stutz easily left the 30-98 behind under full throttle. This photo (click) was taken in 1993.”

Update I by Mark Dawber who writes: “This car is one of the “white Stutzes” that were raced in the late teens in the US. One of the these Stutzes (I think there were at least three) came to New Zealand in the early 1920s and was used to win the New Zealand Motor Cup three times in a row (1926, 1927 and 1928) which meant the driver Bob Wilson got to keep the cup. In the early 1950s when a new series of Grand Prix began at Ardmore airfield near Auckland, Bob Wilson gave the cup to the organisers and it has been presented to the winner of the New Zealand Grand Prix ever since. Unfortunately in recent years (since 2001) New Zealand has not had a premier single seater class in the Grand Prix has not been held. As elsewhere touring car racing has become more popular. The Stutz racer survived and was restored in the 1970s and takes pride of place in the Southward Museum near Wellington.

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