It is indeed the 1963 Thorgeirson H-Mod Special. American, perhaps. But I said "not US".
The car was built in the early 1960s by Doug Thorgeirson, who was a welder at the Canadian shipyards on Vancouver Island. It was raced extensively from 1964 to 1968, but was unaccounted for after it was sold by the builder. It was discovered in 2004 and restored for vintage racing. Thorgeirson said he borrowed a Lotus 23 from a friend, and spent all weekend studying the car and taking measurements off the lightweight chassis. He used the British-built car as the model for his home-built.
When he first conceived the special, it was to be powered by a Porsche engine. But after spending a couple years and $5000 building the car, Thorgeirson didn’t have the budget for a Porsche motor. He went to a wrecking yard where he found a Fiat 600 and rebuilt that engine using parts from the European tuner Nardi. Normally, the Fiat is a rear engine car, so to accommodate placing the engine in front of the gearbox, the transmission had to be mounted upside down.
The fiberglass nose is actually the rear section of a Devin roadster, a popular kit car at the time. Thorgeirson said that in order to save money, he ordered only the one piece from Devin. He then used that piece to make a mold for the rear of his car, which he cut off short to create a Kammback effect. Thorgeirson raced the car from 1964 to about 1968. He competed on road courses, hill climbs and even on oval tracks on Vancouver Island and at Westwood and Mission Raceways near Vancouver, B.C.
