Last week, on a Formula Vee: Canadian F1200 and Challenge Cup Series social media channel, a gentleman named Dave Perry posted some pictures of his vintage 1971 Kellison Formula Vee, a car which Demaras Racing didn’t even know existed.
Dave runs Old School Restoration based out of Alabama, specializing in returning race cars to life. In his post, Dave gave some background on the car, and its constructor, Jim Kellison. Back in the 50’s and 60’s Kellison designed and built fiberglass-bodied race cars. His most well known creation was the Kellison J5 Coupe, which was a car magazine ‘cover-girl’ on multiple occasions.
The yellow Formula Vee pictured above was found in Ohio, and was previously raced by the late Frank Nelson. Dave Perry bought the car (sight unseen) and began a complete nut and bolt restoration. The car was one of the earliest lay-down Formula Vees, displayed surprisingly good aerodynamics for the era, and was easily identified by the offset steering box bump.
Below is an print ad for their Formula Vee car back when Kellison Car Manufacturing Company still had their shop in Lincoln, California, USA.
Only a half-dozen Kellison Formula Vee race cars were ever built. Amazingly, even today Barron Racing fields two of them in CVAR (Corinthian Vintage Auto Racing) in Texas.