Interview: Warren Olson

Warren Olson arrived in Southern California fresh out of South Dakota in the late 1940s, just in time to take part in the motor racing revolution there that changed motor sport forever in the USA. The list of people and projects he worked with would fill a book. He initially worked on his own, then for road racing pioneer John von Neumann, and from that beginning went on to become the go-to-guy for Lance Reventlow’s Scarab operation. Following the demise of Reventlow Automobiles, he worked for Carroll Shelby and then for General Motors, shepherding their show cars to car shows around the world. Finally, he left the world of motorsport to return to one of his other loves: the aviation industry. Today, he’s retired and living in Rio Vista, California, but he still makes occasional forays into the motorsport world, which is where VR’s John Wright met him, at the Scarab Reunion at Road America.

So, Warren how did you come to California, since you are originally from South Dakota and went to school at the University of Minnesota?