Jerry Titus and Davey Jordan, Sebring 1963

 

Hollywood Sport Cars, owned by Chic Vandergrif, was a West Coast Sports car dealership which distributed an assortment of British sports cars. The dealership also was noted for sponsoring many of the cars competing in the area. Some how a relationship was forged with Jerry Titus, editor for Sports Car Graphic Magazine and this relationship lead to many "project" cars which were featured in the pages of Sports Car Graphic. One of those was"Project Alpine" which resulted in a series of articles covering the race preparation of the Alpine. Jerry reported back to the magazine with many articles covering the Alpine's performance from Riverside to Sebring.

 

For the Sebring race in 1963 Jerry chose Davey Jordan as co-driver. Davey was a young rising star on the west coast. As Jerry describes in his article (From the cockpit report, SCG at Sebring), "Aside from the fact that he's fast, he'd demonstrated prime Sebring attributes - he's goof-proof, extremely consistent, has a mechanical knowledge that made him non-abusive on his equipment, and a cool head that was working all the time." For Davey, it was his first experience with the Alpine and his first "sponsored" ride so it really couldn't have been better.

 

Of course, if you mention Hollywood Sport Cars then Doane Spencer's name quickly follows. Doane prepared the HSC Alpine for Jerry and Davey through the years. Naturally, Doane was there at Sebring pulling off miracles to keep the car going. Jerry and Davey pulled off a Third place finish within their class only beaten by two Porsche-Abarths. For more details regarding the Sebring race please check the article featured in SCG in 1963. I may try and post this entire article in the future being that it covers the Alpine in fine detail.

 

A little background on Davey Jordan - Davey started racing in 1959 driving a Porsche managing a few wins in the novice class and by 1961 won Cal Club's F-Production Championship along with their "Driver of the Year" award. Davey, driving the Porsche 1600, then won the championship again in 1962. After Sebring 1963, Davey would switch to the HSC Alpine and managed 3rd place in the championship after a year of nagging mechanical problems. As Davey puts it, "I must have used up all of my good luck with the Porsche, because our Alpine luck was awful. We had one problem after another, which resulted in a very lackluster result." According to Davey, Chick Vandergriff owner of HSC, wasn't seeing the results they had hoped for and compounding problems support money for the Alpine was drying up which led to the end of Davey's driving career with HSC.

 

As a side note, Jerry and Davey made a cross country trip in an Imp. Sunbeam had just introduced the Imp and wanted to promote a durable, fast and fun entry level sports sedan. The project was to drive the Imp from L.A. to N.Y.. Davey and Jerry went from W. Covina, CA to the Hlland Tunnel in New York in 46 Hours - 45min. Sunbeam claimed a Continental Record and advertised it as such.

 

I would like to thank Davey for providing these images. This is really a wonderful archive of images of Hollywood Sport Cars effort in the 60's. In the next couple of weeks I hope to expand this area significantly. Again, many thanks to Davey who provided me with this information.

 

 

Click to Enlarge Documents

Jerry's instructions to Davey on getting to Sebring for the 1963 Race.	Sports Car Graphics' Envelop	Notes from Jerry regarding the LeMan's Entry.

Sebring Correspondence

Amazingly, some of these letters indicates that Jerry Titus was contemplating a LeMans effort with the Alpine in 1963. He was discussing with Norman Garrad the possibility of a Lightweight Alpine for 1963. Unfortunately, this didn't transpire but it is exciting to think about the prospects of the team at LeMans.

Images from Sebring and the West Coast - please click for enlargements
	Jerry Titus and Davey Jordan before the start of the 1963 Sebring race. The Electric Blue Hollywood Sport Car Alpine has been prepared by Doane Spencer and will go on to finish 3rd in class. You can just see the Harrington which ran Sebring behind the HSC car.
	Davey Jordan at the start of the 1963 Sebring race. Note the Theodoli Harrington pitted adjacent to the HSC Alpine.
	Sebring Turn #3
	In the 1963 race the Alpine broke a rear axle. Jerry Titus is seen here removing the wheel while Doane Spencer gets the spare axle from the truck. Note the Indy style fuel filler in the center of the trunk.
	Busy sawing off an 1/8" of the axle. This would cost the team time but the Porsche Abarths may have still had a time advantage.
	Warehouse straight at Sebring.

Images from the West Coast - please click for enlargements
	Jerry (#330)goes under Davey (#14) in Turn 7 at Riverside in 1963. Titus went on to win the race.
	Bob Richman's Alpine driven by Davey Jordan was prepared by Doane Spencer. The car is Maroon with a Silver stripe running down the side. This photo is from Riverside in 1964. It's a great photo and the Alpine has great lines.
	Bob Richman's car again driven by Davey at Riverside's Turn #1

California Sports Car, 1962

Jordan in the Porsche chasing Ken Miiles' Alpine

Hollywood Sport Cars click to the image for a larger view
	A Hollywood Sport Car business card from the mid-60's.
	A receipt from HSC for a cam, hub and misc. parts.
	Hollywood Sport Cars' catalog.

West Coast Results from 1961-64

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