Houge RC10

[kenooze]

Unfortunely, I have just the chassis, but not the trailing arms

[m_vice]

The arms and the mounts design is quit different but the chassis are very similar. Mounting location and everything, you can mount Andy's on a Houge chassis and vise versa but you end up with different wheelbase.

well, that means the mounting location is different between the chassis', too.

Yep, 1/8" different.

[Ruffy]

The reason the Andy's look different to you all is because you may have only seen the Houge arms that we all know about. Houge had a second design phase where he prototyped those exact arms that Andy's have in those pics.
They looked identical down to the webbing, mounting, shock mounting position, etc... just that when I saw the 2nd phase protoype arms that Houge was going to come out with, they were only in the Aluminum proto phase, and one driver told me Houge had those machined two weeks before the Nat's. There were only 5 cars made by Houge with the 2nd phase arms for testing at this national but none of them faired well, which is why he may have sold the design to Andy's. In fact, Tracy Carver's prototype car that wasn't his ( all of these cars were to be returned to Mike Houge after the Nat's) was stolen from him the day before the mains. I was in the pit area next to the Houge's team when this happened so we heard all about it and helped them look around. Not sure if they ever found the car. This was about a year before I got picked up by Associated for sponsorship.

But this is why I think those Andy's don't look like a Houge product to many, because you would have had to have seen the 2nd Protoype Houge arm to know what I am speaking about. But I would bet money that those are Houge's design sold to Andy's products, which they in turn sold as their own.

[scr8p]

like i said, i had no back story.

[Ruffy]

I have pics of this car somewhere, just haven't seen them.
The prototype houge car that had these NOW Andy's arms on it also had an interesting front as it was only approx. 1.5" wide, with long front aluminum arms to bring it out to the ROAR width limit.
I held and studied 3 of the 5 of these prototype cars, Tracy Carver's, Lil' John Walters and another racer's that I've forgotten the name of, all whom raced this prototype Houge car at that Nat's.

I'll hunt for these photos once I feel better, and I hope I have them somewhere still. Then scan them in and post them as this was long before we had today's home computers, scanners or digital cameras.

[JHarris]

Ruffy, Gary Fulp still has one. He raced it at PSL the day we had the vintage shootout.

In an interesting coincidence, I tested one of the first generation Houge cars at an indoor track near Orlando. After a few runs (very good runs!) it was stolen off the table. We got the car back a week or two later, but it never worked the same.

[RC10Eh]

This is building to be a decent thread , wanted to thank you guys for all the info and keep it coming .

[call-911]

Here's my old post on my Houge build. It's almost identical to the car I ran in Stock when I race at JOROCC.

http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=6544

[Ruffy]

Jeff, The car that Gary Fulp had has the early generation "narrow" front end that was out before the later one I spoke of (even though Houge never introduced his front end for retail sale). The front arms that Gary has on his are identical to the aluminum front arms I currently have from Houge too, but Houge's 2nd phase prototype car had even longer front arms than ours.

The later chassis/front-end I speak of is a little narrower than even Gary's car (1st gen. Houge prototype car), and Gary's has the old or standard rear Houge trailing arms in aluminum, but these are identical to the regular Houge Trailing arms sold that were molded black (the standard Houge Arms). Gary's car is the 1st generation one, not the latter one before Houge dropped out of racing altogether.

I haven't ever seen another full up Houge Prototype "skinny" 2nd generation car with narrow front and new rear arms since that Nat's. that one time. I'll have to hunt for the pics so that you can see how cool the car looked.

I myself have had 2 Houge regular production cars many years prior to being sponsored by Associated Electrics, or even long before working for Composite Craft.

[m_vice]

Lots of history and wisdom on this thread, thank for this guys.

I would love to see these photos of the log front proto arms car.
Hope you feel better soon.

[scr8p]

The prototype houge car that had these NOW Andy's arms on it also had an interesting front as it was only approx. 1.5" wide, with long front aluminum arms to bring it out to the ROAR width limit.

something along the lines of the andy's "pro race" front end? narrow bulkhead, wider arms.

[Ruffy]

Scr8p,
It was even narrower than that, imagine about half that width that Andy's Products has on their front bulkhead. Or maybe a little more than half that as an approximate.
Years later after seeing those 2nd phase Houge prototype cars, I went to work for Composite Craft and I was actually sent that entire front end by Andy's you show there, which I still have with me. Even back then I remember thinking how much wider it was compared to what I saw on those 2nd gen. Houge cars.
The front shock tower was like a large V shape since it had medium length shocks on it.

[railey72]

Great information guys. It's cool to hear from those who built or raced these back in the day. I have a chassis and arms that I hope to get built up someday. It has the standard arms and a second set of identical arms but they are machined aluminum. Were the aluminum arms only a prototype or did they do production runs of those as well?

[Ruffy]

Post a picture of your arms, they might be the A&L aluminum arms as I have only seen two cars with the true Houge aluminum trailing arms that are identical to the production black molded arms.
The only reason I say this is because I honestly do not remember Houge selling the aluminum arms. The people that have them, may have either purchased the car or the arms from Houge team drivers or possibly Houge may have sold his test arms out. I honestly do not know for sure.
If your arms are identical in shape to the black production arms, then they may have made their way to you by one of the ways I just mentioned.

Added*
I know that Gary Fulp was very close with some of the local Houge Team Drivers and I think I remember him saying he bought his car off one of them. May have been Mark Novotny, Doug Laurent, or another Florida Houge Racer.

[railey72]

Thanks Ruffy. I will try to get some pics up today.