An Era ended on March 31, 2016.
The Brumos Racing team ran their last race at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Ga. in April 2013, and the dealership that featured its name was sold late in 2015 to the Field Automotive Group. As of last Thursday, the operation officially ceased to exist.
It was an era that dated back to 1953 when auto sport enthusiast and gentleman driver Hubert Brundage relocated to Jacksonville, Fla. to open the only Volkswagen dealership in a three-state radius.
In 1955, Brundage raced the first Porsche to compete outside of Europe and was soon rewarded with the only Southeast distributorship for the manufacturer. The Brumos team’s first race under that banner was the 1960 12 Hours of Sebring, where the Porsche finished second. Four year later, Brundage’s life ended in a highway accident, but the legend lived on.
A friend and fellow racer, Peter Gregg, purchased the company the following year and retained the Brumos name for the dealership and the team. Not long after, he befriended Hurley Haywood and the two set about making racing history.
With Haywood behind the wheel, they won five 24 Hour of Daytona events, three 24 Hour of Le Mans races, and two 12 Hours of Sebring—the race that barely eluded Brundage in 1960.
Gregg died in 1980. The dealership passed briefly to his widow and was then was purchased by Dan Davis, with Bob Snodgrass as the General Manager. Haywood remained involved and assumed an executive role in the dealership once his racing days were over.
Haywood won his fifth and final Rolex 24 at Daytona in 1991. Snodgrass became instrumental in developing the Grand-Am Rolex series in 2003 and supported the new series with a pair of Brumos Porsche Fabcars. In one fashion or another, Brumos has been an integral part of sports car racing since the 1950s.
“March 31st marked the last day of operation for Brumos, closing a chapter that has lasted for over 50 years,” Haywood said in a press release from Porsche Cars North America.
“As a brand, Brumos is iconic and has become known all around the world. Our fame originally came from racing. The success Peter and I had in the 1970’s and ‘80’s racing Porsches put us on the map, but all of the automotive brands we’ve sold have benefited from that success.”
“It’s really bittersweet for me—Brumos has been my home for 50 years—I’ve lived and breathed Brumos,” Haywood continued.
The dealership Brundage created lives on as Porsche Jacksonville and Haywood remains a Vice President of the organization. “The biggest change is that we will lose the Brumos name. That name is something I feel is pretty damn special, so that is the hardest part for me.”
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