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1957 Halliday Renault Special
Vintage Articles for Both 1955 and 1957 Halliday Renault Specials
1953
1953, July 5 (unknown but have the clipping) Photo of Dr and Mrs Paul Winters check point during Rally
Important Points: This is our only photo of Dr. Paul Winters as of 5/25/2024
1955
1955, May 10: Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet (Van Nuys, California) – 3 Renaults in the Race
Important Points: John L. Green Jr. is mentioned for the first time in our research. The John Green Corporation of Los Angeles, California was the west coast distributor of Renault automobiles. By 1958, Green supplied cars to nearly 50 different dealerships located in California, Arizona and Utah. Question – why was John Green announcing this? Did his racing team exist and include Halliday or was it more of a collaboration?
1955, May 20th (unknown but have the clipping)
Important Points: This is a slightly different article than the article that appears above this one.
1955, June 7 (unknown but have the clipping) – Hansen Dam racing
Important Points: John Green announced “full representation of all Pacific Coast sports car races” for Renault. Interesting – were Renaults raced at every west coast race? Was John Green the west coast “player” that made it happen for Renault racing in America? If so, it was similar to the role played on the west coast and west coast racing by Monroe Gretsky who brought the British Singer to the west coast as a distributor and created the west coast Singer racing team from his location (see Peter McKercher’s book on Singer racing). In this article, they discussed two recent victories at Santa Barbara beating Volkswagens, Simca and Crosley Specials – all of which were in higher (faster/bigger displacement) classes. The article is dated June 7, 1955 and says that Green was recently named Renault Distributor for California, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico by Kenneth C. Howard – general manager of Renault Selling Branch in New York (another similar relationship to Singers and Monroe Gretsky who worked with Bill Vaughn of New York to bring Singers westward). This is the article that mentions that Green is busy organizing a full racing team which was officially announced the next day. Interestingly they identify two cars that are part of the race team. Car 1 is a 748cc four-door sedan (modified stock car?) and they mention 6 drivers of the car. Car 2 is the modified Halliday-Renault Special (car #1) with Dr. Paul Winters at the wheel. So Winters must be the 7th member of the race team but what about Halliday?
1955, June 8 (unknown but have the clipping)
Important Points: The article mentions the “seven member French Renault team”. Does 7 members mean 7 cars? Probably not. We have no information on the disposition of the results of the Hansen Dam race. BTW…Hansen Dam was used to race only one time and Joel Driskill has a poster from the event. Are there more articles in magazines/newspapers about the 7 person Renault race team?
1955, June 13 (unknown but have the clipping)
Important Points: it appears to be a version of the article above that was published on June 7, 1955. The end of each article is the same
1955, December 1 Citizen News (Hollywood, California)
Important Points: More small cars are being entered in the Palm Springs Race – Dr. Paul Winters and the Halliday Special is mentioned
1956
1956, April 27 Long Beach Independent (Long Beach, California)
Important Points: This is an important article and establishes several facts for us and the car. Halliday’s first car was called “potent” and the article highlights a Renault representative coming over from France and awarding Dr. Paul Winters with a Renault Trophy. The award was made to Dr. Paul Winters for his success in racing both Renault Specials and stock Renaults. In addition, Renault publicly approved of Dale Halliday building Renault-based race cars and encouraged Halliday to further venture into sports car construction using Renault components. Halliday is also mentioned as a “Clay Smith alumnus. (we need to research Halliday’s relationship with Clay Smith who is strongly linked to successful race car building in the early and mid 1950s). Also important, the article mentions that a second “Renault Special” powered by a 750 cc engine is just about finished. As the article continues, the fiberglass body is not on the car (unknown if it had to be built or was in the process or finished), but that the car is scheduled to get its first test Sunday (late April or early May 1957) against the first Halliday Special at the Santa Ana Drag Strip. (we need to research this in the santa ana excel spreadsheet). It’s also mentioned that Chuck Marshall is going to drive the new renault special in competition – is this a famous driver?
Note: On 5/25/2024 I received the Santa Ana Drag spreadsheets from Joel Driskill and I did not find the any Renaults, Halliday Specials or Winters Specials raced in the timeframe mentioned above. It may have happened but I don’t have database confirmation with available tools.
And….there’s still more. The first and second car specs are provided as follows:
Renault Special 1: 875 pounds with gas. The original 28 hp engine has been built to 47 hp.
Renault Special 2: 780 pounds and develops 51 horsepower
Finally, this article dated April 27, 1956 says that someone has ordered Halliday to build a “third” Renault Special – and that the Renault Factory (headquarters) is getting more interested. We need to research Renault in Europe to see if they have any information in 1955-1958 on Dr. Paul Winters (trophy awarded to) and Dale Halliday (authorization/approval to build given to).
1956, July 20 (unknown but have the clipping)
Important Points: Dr Paul Winters driving a stock Renault sedan supplied by Import Auto sales
1956, November 11 – (unknown but have the clipping)
Important Points: Dr Paul Winters racing a Nash Metropolitan and Dale Halliday tuned/prepped the car for racing.
1957
1957, July 28 Independent (Long Beach, California) – race Dr. Paul Winters driving
Important Points: This is the first written mention we have found so far which indicates that Halliday’s Renault Special #2 (red car) was being raced. In the full article, they reported that “the Long Beach MG Club will hold a road race time trials at the Navy’s Reeves Field on Terminal Island. It was a 1.7 mile circuit with 14 turns. They expected “hotter machinery” which included mention of the new (Special #2) Halliday Renault Special. They went on to say that it was “a very pretty car.” While this is the first published mention of this Special #2 red car which was reported on July 28, 1957, at this time we believe the first race the car was raced at is the Santa Barbara Road Race on May 18-19, 1957 where we have film evidence and reporting from a database (Marvin McFalls has this data and we need to get it from him).
1958
1958, April 12 Independent (Long Beach, California) – racing with driver Dr. Paul Winters and Halliday Special
Important Points: This is an article which talks about the upcoming race at Palm Springs airport. This matches nicely with the Palm Springs race which occurred on April 13, 1958 (the next day after the newspaper came out). This is the last article we have found so far that discusses any Renault racing with Halliday or Winters. As a note, we start to find as of February, 1958 articles about Dale Halliday working prominently (published name) at 1 or more businesses as a Service Manager and/or mechanic. Perhaps Halliday bowed out of racing in 1958 (looks like that so far) and/or Winters left too – Winters would have been around 54 years old.