occasionally impress through 1958, though by then they were fast being eclipsed by more advanced machinery. That year Stevens "rebuilt one car with a GMC-blown, Jaguar C-type engine, with which Al Ullrich and Carl Haas won Class B modified at the Road America 500." The win clinched the 1958 Class B title for Excalibur. At this point Stevens elected to "do a Jaguar", and retired the cars on their laurels.
Roadgoing Excalibur Js were available from Stevens until the demise of Kaiser Motors in 1954 They offered three-speed overdrive gearboxes and were complete with windshield and weather equipment, but could still top 1OOmph. A competition conversion kit was available at extra cost. The racing cars were ultimately retired to the Brooks Stevens Museum in Mequon. Wisconsin, where they can be. seen today.
Stevens continued to design and race production-based sports cars. and the Excalibur name ultimately became the basis for today's line of Excalibur replicars.
What the Excalibur J mainly demonstrated was the innate strength and durability of what many derided as toothless Detroit iron. against a myriad of overseas competitors that were not only more exotic, but far more expensive. The  little  Willys  F-head, a

fine engine in its time, was capable of unimagined depths of power through judicious tweaking: Americans were thus proven as proficient as Europeans in the creation of true sports cars - capable of being raced on weekends and driven to work the rest of the time - from everyday mass production components.
The Milestone Car Society's "Grand National' at Indianapolis Speedway was the scene of a recent Excalibur J appearance. As part of the program, MCS had arranged with honorary member Stevens to transport the car from its Wisconsin home down to Indy, to run demonstration laps on the Historic"" brick-yard, while members sipped cocktails and observed the performance from the VIP lounges on the south turn. The driver was CAR COLLECTOR'S Re-" search Associate, Bill Tilden of Atlanta. Georgia, whose experience dates back to being run off the track at Vineland, New Jersey, by the legendary Donna Mae Mimms and her "think pink" Bugeye Sprite.
Tilden, lapping at lOO, felt no particular signs that his Willys engine was about to send a piston through the hood, as Barney Roos had long ago predicted. "Everything felt very solid," he said, "despite the car's age - it's hard to believe it's a quarter of a century old.
"Indianapolis is unlike many ovals," Tilden continued, "in that there is definite cornering required on all four turns. The banking is nowhere near as high as the typical oval, so you need a good-handling car (at least in one direction) to work up any sort of decent lap times. The Excalibur J cornered perfectly-flat, and was easy to fling into the Indy turns. If there was any limit it was the F-head engine - it was pretty well extended all the way and I don't think we could have much improved on the lOOmph lap times. The significant thing was its handling ability - it was easy to see how the Excalibur could
outrun a lot of faster cars during its racing career."

Should Kaiser have put the Excalibur J into production? Probably not. The dealer body wasn't used to selling that kind of machinery, as was proven by its failure to respond to the beautiful
Kaiser Darrin sports car- another Henry J-based two-seater which deserved better than it received. In any case. a sports model wouldn't have lasted long-Kaiser-built American cars were committed to history early in 1955.