Tag: Ford

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A Christmas Road Race in Tropico

This intriguing headline appeared in the December 22, 1914, issue of the Pomona Daily Review. The “Tropico Speed Contest” was an amateur road race held on Christmas morning in Tropico, California, and it took place on a two-mile course with many sharp turns, including a hairpin turn at “San Fernando Road and the Pacific Electric Tracks.” In the days leading up to the affair, the drivers hyped it by promising a thrilling performance and declaring that they were “out for blood.”

The main event was a free-for-all with a $100 purse, and a drawing was held to determine numbers and places. The distance was 20 laps, or 40 miles, and this list of cars and drivers was printed in the Los Angeles Evening Express, albeit with a number of typos.

There was also a 30-mile motorcycle race, and a 20-mile race for lightweight cycle cars. The entrants for the cycle car race were as follows:

This photo of Les Rawson, driver of the #17 Christie, being supervised by one Lucille King was also published, but with no explanation as to the identity of Miss King.

There were two additional exhibition races that were referred to as “freak” races. The first of these was a race between two rival jitney bus drivers to settle the question of superiority once and for all. The following comic strip by Gale at the L. A. Times, titled “Mr. T. Wad Certainly Opened Up His Jitney Bus at Tropico!” was published the day before the race.

The other was a race for automobiles considered “antediluvian,” or ancient. One entrant in that race, 73-year-old Tom Morris, declared that he would be taking the turns “wide open.” The Los Angeles Times noted that “wide open” meant fifteen miles per hour provided the racer showed an unexpected burst of speed. Here is a photo of Morris with his automobile, a 1901 Peerless.

Women were not allowed to drive in the race, but some women did enter their cars with a “brother, sweetheart, or friend” driving. Those women were Adele Martin, Helen Holmes, and Jeanne Warden, and it was reported that both Martin and Warden were personally tuning and stripping their cars as well as plotting strategy for the course. One article referred to Holmes as an actress, and there was an actress by that name born in 1893 according to IMDB.

The winner of the cycle car race was H. Lindley in a Mercedes, but the winner of the main event was a druggist named Waldo Throop. Throop had been a sprinter at USC and was among the fastest in the country in 1910, running the 100 in 9.8 seconds. At Tropico, he won the purse and bragging rights in a Ford with a time of 50:15 4-5. R. Dorney drove a Studebaker to second place 40 seconds later, and third place went to G. Pulliam in Helen Holme’s Studebaker, just 21 seconds behind Dorney. There was some controversy as that third-place finish was protested by A. Austria who claimed his Knox was leading Pulliam’s Studebaker at the checkered flag. Also, the driver in the headline at the top of this story, Earl Pitts, claimed he passed 22 of the 24 machines and should have placed.

Waldo Throop is pictured below, the man on the right, and then again in his winning Ford:

This photo is of Helen Holmes in the third-place Studebaker:

There was one crash involving a Buick, but no serious injuries, so the race was a success all the way around. The second annual Tropico race was held on Thanksgiving Day the following year, but a third was not to be. There was no report of why the race was discontinued, but there was a war going on, and then Tropico ceased to exist a few years later when it consolidated with Glendale in 1918. Whatever the reason, it was likely a great disappointment to the thousands of spectators that spent that Christmas Day in 1914 taking in the excitement of the speed, rivalries, and hairpin turns at the Tropico races.

Merry Christmas!

1925 Detroit Motor News Cover

Sources:

“Bill Throop Had Merely a Rebuilt Ford but Ran Like Sin and a Victory Scored.” Ventura Weekly Post and Democrat, 1 January 1915, p. 1.

“Nineteen-Year-Old Boy Does ‘100’ in 8 4-5 Seconds.” Passaic Daily News, 5 October 1910, p. 4.

“Old Car Enters Tropico Race.” Los Angeles Times, 22 December 1914, p. 25.

“Pomona Driver Says Tropico Auto Race Was Unjustly Judged.” 26 December 1914, p. 1.

“Pomona Driver Will Enter Christmas Race.” Pomona Daily Review, 22 December 1914, p. 9.

“Races Again at Tropico.” Pomona Daily Review, 9 November 1915, p. 2.

“Tropico Has Gone Speed Crazy.” Los Angeles Times, 24 December 1914, p. 24.

“Tropico is Busy for Speed Event.” Los Angeles Evening Express, 23 December 1914, p. 4.

“Tropico Ready for Auto Race Set for Tomorrow.” Los Angeles Evening Express, 24 December 1914, p. 3.

“Tropico Road Race Success.” Los Angeles Times, 26 December 1914, p. 6.

“Waldo Throop Wins Tropico Road Race.” San Francisco Examiner, 26 December 1914, p. 14.

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Ford Spyder Hubcaps

We have a guide for early Ford V8 hubcaps that you can access by clicking here, and I am going to add to it with this recent find:

This is an original 1937 Ford dealer accessory wheel cover that is unofficially referred to as a Spyder, or sometimes Spider, hubcap. Officially, Ford called it a “Hub and Spoke Cover” as seen in this 1936 Genuine Ford Accessories brochure:

Similar versions were offered for the years 1936 and 1937, although the markings were recessed for ’36 and raised for ’37. This is what one looks like installed:

Attribution: nakhon100, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. This photo has been cropped.

For 1938, the wheel covers were revamped with a larger V8 symbol:

The 1938 version was carried over for use in 1939, as well. All three versions have been reproduced, but the originals were made of stainless steel and were of good quality. This 1936 advertisement includes them in some gift ideas for those lucky enough to own a Ford V8. Notice the catchy poem!

Photo from the 1937 Ford brochure

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A Rare Radiator Cap

Over the last several weeks, we traveled the highways and byways in search of car parts on the Highway 36 Treasure Hunt, the Nebraska Junk Jaunt, and the Highway 136 Trail of Treasures. We found many amazing parts, some of which will be featured here in the coming weeks, but this radiator cap is my favorite find of all:

The seller of this cap did not know what it was, and other shoppers guessed “Rolls Royce” due to the winged “R”. It does not, in fact, belong to a Rolls.

This ornate cap was originally found on a Rockne, manufactured by Rockne Motors Corporation, a Studebaker subsidiary, and named for legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne after his tragic death. The coach was enroute to Los Angeles when the airplane he was in burst into flames and crashed near Bazaar, Kansas, on March 31, 1931, just days after being named manager of the Studebaker sales promotion department. The coach and the car manufacturer were a natural pairing as Studebaker and Notre Dame were both institutions of South Bend, and Rockne had been traveling the country giving “pep” talks to Studebaker salesmen. One newspaper article said that he was employed by Studebaker to boost sales “through his knowledge of psychology and ability to lead men.”

Studebaker created the new Rockne as a memorial to the late coach, and it was launched in December of 1931. The first one manufactured was presented to Mrs. Knute Rockne, the widow of the coach. At the unveiling, Studebaker president Albert Erskine said, “It seems to be highly fitting that the finest qualities of Knute Rockne, the man, should be so brilliantly reflected and recalled by as fine an automobile as the Rockne Six will be. It is a source of great pride to us and to his family that this new automobile will honor his name and perpetuate his memory.”

The 1932 Rockne was available in two lines, the “65” and the “75,” with prices starting at $585 and $685.

It was a great-looking car, and reasonably priced, but in 1932 it had to compete with the new Ford V8 which was available at even lower prices:

For 1933, the Rockne Six was offered in the Model 10. It is shown as a sedan with suicide doors in the top photo below, and you can just make out the radiator cap:

When Studebaker’s Paul G. Hoffman introduced the 1933 models to a group of Studebaker salesmen and dealers at a Boston meeting in December of 1932, he was quoted as saying, “Our challenge to depression – there they are!”

Unfortunately, the Depression won this one. In Stephen Longstreet’s history of Studebaker, A Century on Wheels, he put it this way: “The Rockne Six was well engineered, well built. It was also low-priced. But even that price was too much for a nation selling apples at street corners.” Although sales were not bad for a brand-new automobile, Studebaker was facing serious financial problems, and the Rockne was not produced after 1933.

Coach Rockne’s personal car was a Studebaker President Eight Victoria. It was reported in September of 1931 that one of Rockne’s former players, John Edward “Jack” Chevigny, had purchased this car from the coach’s widow. Chevigny is the Notre Dame player that made the famous “That’s one for the Gipper” touchdown in Notre Dame’s game against Army on November 10, 1928. Chevigny was also a United States Marine Corps officer, and, tragically, he was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Sources:

Advertisement. Ford. The Kansas City Star, 31 Mar. 1932, p. 15.

Advertisement. Rockne Six. Argus Leader [Sioux Falls], 30 Dec. 1932, p. 10.

Advertisement. Rockne Six. The Atlanta Journal, 8 Jan. 1933, p. 15.

“Coach Rockne Killed When Plane Crashes.” The Lafayette Sun, 1 Apr. 1931, p. 1.

“Depression Is Challenged Now.” The Boston Globe, 7 Dec. 1932, p. 30.

“First Rockne Auto Is Given to His Widow.” Battle Creek Moon Journal, 23 Dec. 1931, p. 9.

Fraley, Oscar. “Johnny Has Gone to Join the Gipper and the Rock.” The News and Observer [Raleigh, NC], 28 Mar. 1945, p. 9.

“Jack Chevigny Dies on Iwo Jima.” Buffalo Courier Express, 25 Mar 1945, p. 18.

Longstreet, Stephen. A Century on Wheels: The Story of Studebaker, A History, 1852-1952, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1952.

“Loud Explosion and Spurting Flames in Murky Sky Heralded Disaster Which Claimed Life of Rockne and 7 Others.” Daily American Republic [Poplar Bluff, MO], 31 Mar. 1931, p. 1.

“New Rockne Six Expected To Be 1932 Sensation.” The Fresno Bee, 2 Dec. 1931, p. 12.

“New Studebaker, Rockne Shown.” The Atlanta Journal, 8 Jan. 1933, p. 15.

“Rockne Accepts Studebaker Job.” The South Bend Tribune, 24 Mar. 1931, p. 5.

“Rockne Joins Studebaker.” Press of Atlantic City, 25 Mar. 1931, p. 12.

“Rockne’s Life.” Los Angeles Evening Post Record, 31 Mar. 1931, p. 1.

“Studebaker Announces New ‘Memorial’ Car.” Kansas City Journal, 1 Dec. 1931, p. 10.

“Studebaker Rockne Six Makes Debut.” The Herald Palladium [St. Joseph, MI], 1 Dec. 1931, p. 11.

Whitaker, John. “Speculating In Sports.” The Times [Hammond, IN], 4 Sept. 1931, p. 22.

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“Repurposing” Car Parts

I started this post a couple of days ago and was going to begin by saying that, if your experience is anything like mine, you hear one question over and over when out buying car parts: “What are you going to make with that?” Well, it happened again this past weekend.

We attended the 42nd Annual Old Trusty Antique & Collectors Show in Clay Center, Nebraska, which includes a flea market. We were happy to find many desirable hubcaps that required multiple trips to the truck with arms full:

Starting at the top left and moving clockwise: Three Oldsmobile Fiesta-style tri-bar checkerboard aftermarket caps; a 73-87 Chevy 3/4-ton 12-inch dog dish; 1930 Buick wire wheel hubcap; 30-32 Chevy wire wheel hubcap set of four plus one aftermarket version with the dash in place of the bowtie; and three 64-66 Chevy truck hubcaps (one clip and two nub-style.

At one point a woman approached me to ask what I was doing with all those hubcaps. She said she was worried that she was missing out on some great new craft idea and seemed more than a little disappointed when I answered that I was going to sell them to people who needed them. . . for hubcaps. We never want to see car parts sent to the crusher but also aren’t crazy about perfectly good parts being used to make another clock or yard-art gizmo. Vintage and antique car parts have historical value, and we vastly prefer to get them into the hands of the restorers that need them to maintain the authenticity of their projects.

That being said, we do understand the love for old cars and their various sculptural parts, as well as the enjoyment that comes with surrounding yourself with them where you live. The internet is brimming with ideas for repurposing vintage car parts, but many of those ideas involve the partial, or total, destruction of the parts being used. If you are a person who likes to immerse yourself in the classic car aesthetic, here are some ideas for adding car parts to your decor while maintaining the integrity of the parts for future use:

These old Motorola radios have vibrant colors and a great vintage look, and here they were just piled up to make a small table or stand:

This vintage headlight bezel with chrome trim has been made into a mirror for a car-themed bathroom by sticking a round piece of glass into place with silicone. This bezel is from a 1956 Ford and has the original “buckskin tan” paint.

You can’t go wrong with a wall of hubcaps. From top to bottom, this one features Pontiac, Hudson Terraplane, Chevy, Nash Lafayette, Oldsmobile, and Ford dog dishes.

Emblem letters that are the stick-on type, or ones that are missing their mounting posts, can be made into magnets like these that spell “RAT ROD.”

Everyone loves a beautiful hood ornament, and a good way to display them is on chunks of wood with holes drilled into them to accommodate any mounting bolts still on the ornaments. They look so much better on a shelf than another made-in-China-by-slave-labor knick-knack.

Clockwise, from the top: a Brockway husky, a George Petty-designed Nash flying lady, and a Chevrolet golden gazelle accessory hood ornament.

This photo features a small cloche made with a sediment bowl. The glass bowl has only been modified with a wood craft piece stuck to the closed end with silicone. It sits on a base which is also made of wood.

Finally, if you embraced the galvanized metal trend and used it as wall covering or to encase a bar, it makes a great place to display old license plates with magnets. No nail holes required!

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The Year the American Auto Industry First Hit One Million in Inventory

The American auto industry hit the million mark in inventory for the first time in 1960. This story about the new record appeared in March of that year:

Although this article tries to paint a rosy picture, the country was on the precipice of a recession caused in part by industrial overexpansion to meet post-war demand. Another reason for the high inventories in the auto industry was the record output of compact cars which were surging in popularity. During the first week of March, it was reported that the six compact cars accounted for 25.1 percent of the total output for the week. In addition to the AMC Rambler and the Studebaker Lark, the Big Three were offering the Ford Falcon, the Mercury Comet, the Plymouth Valiant, and the Chevrolet Corvair. Chevrolet was outpacing everyone in terms of both production and sales.

Automobile inventories have been in the news regularly for the past few years, due mainly to the lack thereof. It was downright spooky to drive by the empty dealership lots, barren wastelands caused, at least in part, by production cuts during the pandemic and global microchip shortages. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently published this visual depiction of the fluctuation in domestic auto inventories since 1994.

Domestic Auto Inventories (AUINSA) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org) U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Domestic Auto Inventories [AUINSA], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AUINSA, June 17, 2024.

As you can see from the chart, inventories have started to rebound from the depths plummeted to in February of 2022. Even so, those unpleasant sky-high prices do not appear to be coming down anytime soon.

For comparison purposes, you could buy a new Chevy Biscayne in 1960 for around $2,300. For a couple hundred dollars more, you could get yourself a new Bel Air two-door hardtop Sport Coupe.

That is roughly equivalent in purchasing power to $26,000 today. There are still some new car options under $30,000 in 2024, but none will give you the same thrill you would get from cruising around in that ’60 Sport Coupe. Let’s hope improving production numbers and rising inventories translate into lower prices and better access for today’s buyers, but even if inventories return to that million mark, buyers will never again have access to the fine and diverse automobiles available the first time it happened:

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An Armored Cadillac and an Army of Fords

In the years leading up to World War I, the United States had no large standing army and no processes in place for the building and support of such a force. For this reason, steps were taken to train civilians to be able to defend the country. One idea promoted by General Leonard Wood involved the use of military training camps for civilians, and you can read more about that here: The Plattsburg Movement and its Legacy

One of these camps was located on the shores of Lake Champlain, and, in 1915, a writer for the New York Tribune named Hank Caldwell traveled there to watch a motor train consisting of 15 vehicles pull into the camp. The motor train did not have an official title, but the officers involved, including organizer Captain Raynal C. Bolling, dubbed it the “First Motor Machine Gun Company.” The caravan consisted of trucks, ambulances, and transportation cars furnished by companies like International, Mack, and Autocar. Buick and Simplex contributed wagons with mounted machine guns, but the undisputed star of the caravan was an armored Cadillac that had recently crossed the country on a tour with cadets of the Northwestern Military Academy under the command of Colonel R. P. Davidson:

This eight-cylinder Cadillac had steel armor, a Colt machine gun, and ports for rifle fire. Gas mileage was 10 miles to the gallon, and it was said to be painted battleship gray with delicate black striping.

Credit: August 1915 issue of American Motorist

General Leonard Wood was interviewed by Caldwell during this visit and made some interesting comments about his desire for American automobile owners to organize, under the direction of the army, in defense of the nation: “As a trained body, our hundreds of thousands of motorists, with their cars, would be one of the powerful arms of our army.”

Wood noted, “The national rivalry of our motor manufacturers has brought about a great variety of cars of all sizes and descriptions,” and therefore the first step would be to form motor corps consisting of only one make of automobile to enable the interchange of parts and tires. When enough owners driving a given make of car was found, the next step would be to assemble them in a camp setting where they could be given military training.

Wood also thought that each owner should bring some friends along:

“It is possible that an owner could be induced to muster enough recruits to fully man his machine. If so, he would come into the training camp with his car and four, five, or six men, according to the capacity of his machine, and. . .in this way we should obtain enough men with every two or three hundred cars to form a regiment. To this regiment we could assign trucks, ambulances, armored cars, machines guns, and special motor vehicles. . .”

1913 Ford Model T at the Republic County Historical Society & Museum at Belleville, Kansas.

So, the United States government was contemplating outfitting the cars of citizens with machines guns; file that one under, “How times have changed.” The participants attending this 1915 camp were enthusiastic about the idea. Caldwell reported this about a Mr. Derby from North Carolina who had driven his Ford to the camp:

“Mr. Derby said that he is convinced the light car is the practical thing for army use and that upon his return to North Carolina. . .he will organize a company of 100 Ford cars, and it is his intention to mount them with machine guns and drive from North Carolina to the encampment next year. He thinks this idea should be taken up by Ford owners in all parts of the country, and next year he says we should have 700,000 Fords ready for use against the invader.”

1913 Ford Model T at the Republic County Historical Society & Museum at Belleville, Kansas.

These days, Mr. Derby, I would recommend using the Ford F-150.

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Another Mystery Car Part (Hint: It Is Not Made by Mercedes)

Do you recognize this emblem?

This three-point star measures three and one-half inches in width and, although it bears a strong resemblance, it is not a Mercedes emblem. A helpful seller recently listed this full set of six, complete with original packaging and part number, on eBay.

These stars were an accessory “star ornamentation” sold by Ford in the 1950s. The back side of the packaging contains the following installation instructions:

Studebaker made a similar tri-star emblem in 1953, although the Studebaker version is considerably larger at around 9″ in width.

I don’t how many Ford owners would be comfortable drilling a total of twelve holes in the fenders of their car just to add these stars, but that may be why I have never seen any actually mounted on an automobile. If you have one, send me a photo at americancarhistorian@gmail.com.

Nebraska State Patrol’s 1950 Ford
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The “Big Three” and “Little Three” Car Companies of 1954

I found this blurb in a 1954 newspaper:

If you’ve been watching the automobile news, you know that there are now only six passenger car manufacturers in the U.S. – the “big three” and the “little three.”

So, can you name the six surviving car companies of 1954?

The Big Three are easy to identify:

Ford

General Motors

1954 Chevy Corvette

1954 Chevy Bel Air

Chrysler

Recalling the Little Three is more problematic as there was a lot going on in the way of mergers and acquisitions. In no particular order, they are:

Studebaker-Packard – Detroit’s Packard Motor Car Company bought Indiana-based Studebaker in 1954 and became Studebaker-Packard.

1954 Studebaker Station Wagon

1954 Packard Clipper Super Touring Sedan

Kaiser-Willys – Kaiser-Frazer had started up after WWII, riding high on the post-war boom. The company struggled in the early 1950s after a series of missteps, and the Frazer name was dropped. In 1953, Kaiser purchased Willys-Overland and, in 1954, the companies merged into Willys Motors, Inc.

1954 Kaiser Darrin

1954 Kaiser

1954 Willys M38A1

American Motors – AMC was formed in 1954 when the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation merged with Hudson.

1954 Hudson Hornet with Twin H-Power

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1964 Ford

This beautiful 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 XL hardtop is pictured in front of the Mill at the annual Stuhr Museum car show in Grand Island, Nebraska. Check out the gorgeous white leather interior and bucket seats:

The tail lights in ’64 were the size of dinner plates and featured the sunburst design:

When you think of Ford in 1964, you likely think of the introduction of the Mustang, but Ford’s emphasis in 1964 was on power. Ford advertised it as “total performance”:

Clockwise from the top: Thunderbird, Fairlane, Galaxie, Falcon

Engine options for the Galaxie included five different V-8s, ranging from the 195-hp 289 to a 425-hp Thunderbird 427 V-8. Excellent choices for a fabulous Ford line-up!

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The Greyhound Murphy Cap

The iconic greyhound pictured above is adorning a 1929 Lincoln. Of all the hood ornaments and radiator caps ever produced, the greyhound might be the one most reproduced. It is definitely “buyer beware” when it comes to the greyhound as even sellers frequently don’t know what they have. I picked up this greyhound radiator cap years ago:

The underside of the cap is marked “THE MURPHY CAP MFG BY RUPERT DIECASTING CORP KC MO.”

Rupert Diecasting was located in Kansas City until moving to Kentucky in the 1960s. I have been told that this cap was only produced in 1933, which makes it pretty rare. I haven’t been able to verify that, but it makes sense as I recently found a copyright infringement lawsuit that was filed against Rupert by Franklin Diecasting in 1933 regarding Franklin’s copyrighted “Greyhound Combination Ornament and Radiator Cap”. If you have any additional information on the Murphy Cap, I would love to hear from you. Contact me at americancarhistorian@gmail.com.