Reply to "Detomaso - Guanci SJJ1 GT ??"

Alejandro De Tomaso met John Guanci through one of John's best friends, Tom Tjaarda(De Tomaso's American car Designer) and was asked to help with some input on John Guanci's car the SJJ1 GT. John Guanci knew a lot of people in the racing car industry that De Tomaso also knew so they collaborated with famed Can-Am race car builder & racer Bob Mckee to help them in the design.

Heck, they were all mutual friends anyway so it seemed natural to get together, build a awesome car and play some golf also. It wasn't really out of his way because he also was working on another car design know as the Daihatsu Charade that was to go into production in the early 1980's to be sold exclusively to the Japanese market. He was about to discontinue production of the 2 door Longchamp anyway and the Daihatsu was a interesting project for him. Bob Mckee was working on the Daihatsu project also so collaborating on the SJJ1 GT seemed natural.


Only 2 SJJ1's were ever produced. 1 car was a 6 cylinder turbo car and the other was a 8 cylinder GM custom built 350. They had a order already for their first car and Frank Thurner had already paid down half on the car which was $25,000, but wanted more HP. So they custom built the GM 350 for him. I owned the 8 cylinder car and the other was owned by John Guanci's son.

So the answer to the question of how did I make the connection on the car was actually from pictures that I saw of the car being built. De Tomaso is actually in he pictures with John Guanci and Bob Mckee. I knew right away that I had found something very rare so I purchased the car. I sold the car to the owner of the Southward Car Museum which is in Wellington, but the owner said the car was going in his private collection that he has in London England.

I appreciate all the questions you guys had. I guess it doesn't matter anymore because the car was picked up yesterday so it's gone now anyway. Just thought you guys would be as interested in the history as I was.

Cya, Jeff H.