Even as the iconic Bill Vukovich was dominating Indianapolis during the mid-1950s with the revolutionary Fuel Injection Special, his eccentric car owner, Howard Keck, was losing interest. Thinking the roadster technology already passé, he challenged his master mechanics, Jim Travers and Frank Coon, to develop something different.
They did — a radical streamliner.
When word got out that the “Whizz Kids” were building one, others hastily assembled streamliners for the 500. But they simply hung fully enclosed bodies on standard Kurtis frames, creating a weight penalty that the benefits of streamlining could not overcome.   
The Keck streamliner, on the other hand, was a clean sheet of paper design, body, chassis and engine.
Keck had tried to buy a Novi engine from their owner, Lew Welch. When Welch refused Keck instructed Travers and Coon to build one. Famed Miller and Offy engine designer, Leo Goossen put what they envisioned to paper, a 183-cubic-inch V-8 with a Roots type supercharger. 
The chassis and running gear were innovative, utilizing lessons learned in suspension setups from the Fuel Injection car, and incorporating a number of weight-saving innovations. The finished car weighed 200 pounds less than most other Indy cars of the time.
Norman Timbs, designer of the Indy-winning Blue Crown Specials, was a consulting engineer on the project. He made scale models of the car from Travers and Coons’ ideas, and finalized the design in the wind tunnel at CalTech. Heady stuff for 1954. Metal master, Quinn Epperly, then hand-formed the curvaceous body from sheet aluminum. 
The rear of the car was the most radical. It sported an adjustable wing, the first on an Indy car. The concept of using a wing to produce down force was still some 15 years in the future, and beyond what Travers and Coon had in mind. Rather, they envisioned the wing as a tool for balancing the car front to rear. 
Had Vukovich survived there is little doubt that the Keck streamliner would have been as status quo-changing as had been the Keck roadster. But, that wasn’t to be.
Before the car could be completed and another driver assigned, Keck suddenly and mysteriously pulled out of racing. The shop doors were   locked and the unfinished streamliner sat untouched until 1985 when Keck sold off his racing equipment. 
Purchased by a successful Memphis, Tenn., businessman, who preferred to remain anonymous, the car was finished by former Indy mechanic Jim Robbins.
Today, the car resides in the famed Kruse Auctions’ collection in northern Indiana. It never turned a wheel in competition. Yet, its incredible pedigree puts its value in the millions, and secures forever its place in racing history.