I still remember screwing those side mirrors on the hornmobile. It was a surprise for Ted, still don't know whether it was a smile or a grimace when he first saw them. Great tow vehicle.

As long as you kleep the revs up !

Although the Squirrel was built to race, I only ever competed in one Open Race Meet at Amaroo Park if I remember correctly, this photo shows the Squirrel and George Steeden's GT in between races.

The reserved sign says for Graham Collier, I guess we were subbing for him that day.

Ted.

you have some great photos there guys.

keep them coming


OZ

Here's the Screamin' Squirrel with yours truly at the wheel ascending Amaroo Hill Climb.

Great photo, just how we all remeber of your great ability to get the most from a Bellett.
Geoff.

I wreckon it's Silverdale!

Very possible "Poppy", I was going by the colour of the road!

Ted

Looks like Siverdale to me, may be just getting old

What? your'e not 12 anymore?

I have had some interesting personal messages recently, discussion with the sender has brought to light that maybe we should share with everyone, maybe, just maybe, you might find items of interest, I will present them in the order of receipt.

Hi,
I am Lasse Kärkkäinen from Finland (also member of Finnish Isuzu Owners Club) and I am part of the team that builds 1600GT and GTR to PC Simulation GT Legends. I already have good info about GTR's run by importer in rallies here in finland and PomBellett send kindly all infos of the Rolie to get started with PR90 OHV engine, but I found the discussion about your squirrel and while it is not GT, it still seems to had everything that race tune PR90 engine would have had as well, so I decided to ask if you by any chance have any memories about max torque and max power (and their rpm points) the engine produced and how high it really did scream?

As PR90 has been homologated before end 1965, we are planning to place it in FIA Historics class TC-65, in which it faces some competition from Alfa-Romeo GTA, Jaguar Mk II 3.8, Austin / Morris Mini Cooper 1275 S and Lotus Cortina, so getting the torque curve right is one of the main things making it competitive and still realistic.

yours,
Lasse 'Nappe1' Kärkkäinen
Kotka, Finland

Lasse,

Thanks for contacting me, in my day racing the Belletts, we did all our own tuning, only once did I put the car on a dyno and I think we topped the 100bhp mark at the back wheels, but the car was slower at the track, so I got back in and tuned by ear.

Horsepower and torque figures I am really unable to help with, I used to rev to 8,500 rpm, the engine was a standard bore GT (1584cc), OHV, ported and polished head, extractors, big cam (don't know the grind), balanced, twin 45 DCOE Weber side draft carbies.

For its day, pretty fast and a consistent class winner, unable to really help with any other information.

Regards
Ted Freeman.

Hi,
Thanks, this gives some more clues what we should have. power loss is probably around 25%, so from flywheel we are talking about 125hp with no overbore. (so with bored to under 1600cc class limit obviously it could do some more, unless the head restricts it too much, which I doubt as being ported and polished.) The shift point is excelent info, I have been looking clues for that quite while. Did you changed the revcounter to some 3rd party one or how you spotted the 8500 rpm? The default goes only to 7000rpm if I recal right...

Any idea how much the Squirrel weighted as dry? It seems that it was stripped down to minimum weight by getting rid of all unnessessary interior stuff. The coupe body of PR90 is a bit heavier than the sedan, but not that much...

How about the gearing? did you use some short ratio gear set (at least for PR90 there was 4 different sets homologated) or just plain street box with shorter final drive?

Excelent, great stuff. Thanks for the information so far.
yours,
Lasse

As it was a sedan to start, there was no tachometer, as memory has it, it would have been an aftermarket one.

The metal framework inside the doors, boot lid and bonnet were trimmed out as much as possible, we also had the car on its side in the garage so we could strip all the insulation off from underneath, I think we saved about 5 kilos there.

I ran a GT gearbox, the diff was just a sedan one (normal street ratio as I recall, whatever that was), though it was a CIG Locker (welded solid).

If you have no objection, this conversation may be worth sharing with others, if you agree, I will post them on the Screamin' Squirrel thread, I have a few more photos to add, additional text discussion would not go astray.

Sorry I don't still have a Bellett, they were/and still are a fantastic machine.

Ted (Teditor) Freeman

Thanks for sharing Ted. As it is on another thread, Nappel 1 has done some amazing work with GTR on "GT Legends" PS. You can enjoy the ride viewing the clip he has put up a link to

Screamin' Squirrel would have been crazy pulling 8,500 rpm. My SOHV standard GT was slightly bored, mildly camed, is aspirated with the original twin Hitachis, but did'nt recieve any head work on the rebuild so it certainly doesn't produce anything up to those kind of rpm. in fact Nappel said it "unless the head restricts it too much". But it is estimated to have slightly more hp than a standard street coupe, and i say this as it developes eye opening torque (pulling power) every time i get it into some hills, somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 rpm.

Also Ted, keep those fantastic pics coming. So enjoyed pics of the Drane machine. You and the car had 9 lives .

B.

I have asked if our upcoming PR90 variation could have Screaming Squirrel paint job as option.
So, a bit luck and Screaming Squirrel could reborn digitally as 1600GT.

I will post to "GT Legends" -thread more videos and pictures later on.

...and we need some information about the sponsor stickers. what they were and is there better refence pictures? This all means of course that re-born Digital Screamin Squirrel is on it's way.

Where are you Ted ?? Please give Nappe 1 the nod of approval for Sceamin' Squirrel rebirth. Awesome

Btw, forgot to mention. Out of all those useful bits of info I've picked up out of a GT users manual many years ago, the dry weight of the GT SOHV is 972 kgs. I quote this to people who say "Oh, it must be a light car being so small". In reality, almost being a tonne for it's size proves it's solidity.

I have no problem with the Squirrel being reborn, I have a few photos left to post, none really that helpful though, hopefully Dave Waldon might chime in and have some more from when the car was in his ownership, I believe Barry Heydon finished up with the rolling shell, any photo's Barry.

Can anyone advise what finally happened to the car?

can you recal what those stickers were? we might be able to look the logos of companies / trademarks from the net if we just know what we are looking for.