‘After it had wowed the crowds at the 1953 Petersen Motorama show, the SR-100 was not seen for 70 years’
A sinister black Mercedes-Benz 540K Spezial Roadster claimed Best of Show at the 72nd Pebble Beach Concours dʼElegance, but the mystery car many were talking about was the 1953 Kurtis-Sorrell SR-100. This low-slung roadster, in dazzling metallic-cherry paint and on ʻkidney beanʼ Halibrands with whitewalls, drew the crowds from the moment it arrived.
Based on a Kurtis-Kraft Indy 500 racing-car chassis and powered by a GMC straight-six with six Carter sidedraught carburettors, this stunning aluminium-bodied roadster was long thought lost, until it was discovered by Texan surgeon, author and collector Mark Brinker.
Bob Sorrell was a Californian fabricator who worked on everything from Bonneville record-breakers to miniature tethered racers. Like many, Sorrell honed his craft during WW2 and, as well as superb metalwork, he offered glassfibre bodies moulded from his SR-100. Most famous was the Dick Lane Roadster, which was the October 1955 Car Craft magazine cover car.
Among the many who visited Sorrellʼs Inglewood workshop was Tommy Ivo, the legendary drag racer and television star, who commissioned the bodywork for two spectacular top-fuel dragsters, the Barnstormer and the Croshier-Baltes-Lavato. Sorrell also produced hardtops for various British sports cars, but many of his designs were left uncredited after owners tended to remove his badges.
Sorrell died in 2003, but would certainly have been tickled pink that his first body was a star at Pebble Beach. After it wowed the crowds at the 1953 Petersen Motorama show, the one-off SR-100 was not seen for 70 years, and among its many new fans at Pebble Beach was Jay Ward, a creative director for Pixar. Owner Mark is now planning a book on Sorrell, entitled Genius in the shadows.
One of the last Sorrell-bodied racers was based around the rebuild of the Dean Van Lines Lister-Chevrolet ʻKnobblyʼ, which Don Hulette had rolled into a fiery wreck during the 1960 Los Angeles Times Grand Prix. Aided by Jim Larkin, the repaired and modified chassis was fitted with one of Sorrellʼs SR-100 glassfibre bodies, then painted red, white and blue to be christened the ʻPatriotic Spec
