Nice read and here is some stuff I know:
Troy Rogers was the fabricator for Hall, a son of a country farmer that got to see the world working for Hall as he started with Hall way, way back in the 60’s, early 60’s. I have visited with him several times about the old days. Sadly, Troy passed away a few years ago, probably from breathing to many paint and fiberglass fumes. Great guy.
The only other person besides Hall that could tell stories is
Franz Weiss who used to be Halls engine guy for the Indy car program but was there early on right along side Troy. A cranky kraut but one hell of a mechanic and quit Hall to start VDS in Midland ending up being the only builder/rebuilder of the Chevy indy car engine other than Penske whom could build only his engines for his cars.
GM was heavily involved very early on in the Hall operation, including help develop the Chaparral “automatic transmission”, which started out as a single speed and eventually ended up a three speed. There are stories of many, many times unmarked 18 wheeler trucks were on the Chaparral property carrying everything from experimental cars to early computer instrumentation.
I was amazed how few Chaparrals that were made and all but one still exist(destroyed in a crash). The endurance cars just were new bodies on existing cars.
A good friend of mine finished up the restoration of the cars and he is probably the only person to have driven every Chaparral still in existence.
Pre-peg is fiberglass mat that has been pressure impregnated with the resin and is kept cold so the resin does not cure. It is easy to manipulate into a mold at room temperature and only after the workers are satisfied with the installation will they insert the whole part, in the mold, into an oven which when the temperature is applied cure the resin making the finished part when taken out of the mold. It is a really neat way to make complex composite assemblies that are much lighter and stronger than using the old method of laying up cloth in a mold and then either applying resin by hand or spray, then doing it again for a second layer. Both methods are still used today but pre-peg is the one used for aircraft and racing applications such as F1 tubs and body parts only with carbon fiber.
the automatics(iirc with electric kickdowns) were truly ahead of their time