Special Feature

The Beauty of the Beast

Pete Lyons
Augie Pabst at the wheel of his Scarab during last yearÕs Brian Redman International Challenge at Elkhart Lake. (Photo: Pete Lyons)

Some of us – we know who we are – go all slack in the knees before certain racing machines. One example for me is the Reventlow Scarab sports car of 1958. They still rivet my eye more than 44 years after I first saw their lovely lines.

Why? I am moved to wonder. We all love racecars, that’s why we’re meeting here today; but does every such vehicle ever made hold our eyes and our hearts in thrall? Not like the Scarab does, nor the F1 Gurney Eagle, the Maserati 250F, the Bugatti Type 35, some few others on mental lists we all keep. So what is that special magic power possessed by these icons?

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