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Passing of a Legend...

(Joe Huffaker Sr, father of GTLite racer Joe Jr has passed away. Our condolences to the family and to Joe, a multi-time champion in small GT racing.)

For more than 30 years, Joe Huffaker Sr. was one of the most successful racecar constructors. In 1954, he was contracted to build an Austin-Healey Special. The car, known as the Huffaker-Healey, was a common site in the late 1950s on race tracks in Northern California.

In 1959, Huffaker joined British Motor Cars in San Francisco to open a competition department. Known as BMC Competition Department, this effort spawned a very successful string of cars including the BMC Formula Juniors and Genie Sports Racers. During this era, BMC Competition Department became one of the largest racecar manufacturers in the United States.


From 1964 to 1966, Huffaker’s attention was turned toward Indianapolis 500 competition. He helped build the famous MG Liquid Suspension Specials, for which he received an engineering award for design and development. Huffaker also helped develop safety technology in the form of the deformable fuel cell.

Joe Huffaker, Jr, Joe Huffaker, Sr, and Kjell Qvale
Joe Huffaker, Jr, Joe Huffaker, Sr, and Kjell Qvale

Not forsaking SCCA racing, BMC Competition continued to build dominate production racecars such as MGBs and Jaguar XKEs. But in 1967, Huffaker left BMC and formed Huffaker Engineering where preparation of winning cars continued. These included SCCA championship winning MG Midgets, MGBs, Triumphs and Jensen-Healeys. In the 1980s, Huffaker Engineering built Pontiac cars for the Trans Am and IMSA series.


Following Mr. Huffaker’s retirement, He left Huffaker Engineering in good hands with his son, Joe Huffaker, Jr.

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