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Marvin and Dick Kraft built and raced the ‘Bug,’ which was a track roadster that had been stripped down to its bare essentials for drag racing. It is sometimes called the prototype of the first dragster, although they were not the first to lighten a car by taking off stock parts. The ‘Bug’ was little more than frame, axles, wheels, engine and drivetrain. They removed the radiator and ran water through thick tubing and back into the engine in a closed system. I asked Kraft just how far the car could go before it overheated and he told me that he drove the car to the Santa Ana drag strip, raced the car and drove it home. Kraft and Webb would add parts and take other parts off on a weekly basis. They had a pile of parts and from this they rebuilt the ‘Bug’, which Kraft sold to the Don Garlits museum in Ocala Florida. Ron Roseberry later took a few spare parts and recycled parts from other cars and made a reconstructed ‘Bug’ for display at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona, California. The ‘Bug’ represented the very beginnings of the new sport of drag racing and shows how the racers were adapting to short track straight-line racing. Marvin’s racecar building career diminished as his amusement park animation business expanded. “Sam Barris, Shorty Post and my father were talented lead men before bondo became important in body work,” said Dennis Webb. “Before bondo, fabricators would fill in weld marks and holes with lead then sand and smooth it out. Barris, Post and Marvin were the best in the business. My father worked mostly on track roadsters and custom car fabrication, but he did do tuning as well,” added the younger Webb.
Marvin passed on his love of cars to his son. Dennis was born on August 22, 1944 in Orange, California and grew up on the orange ranch. He works in the same shop that his father did and lives in the same house, although now the orange grove has been cut down and the land subdivided for houses. “When I was three years old I thought everyone had a yard full of hot rods,” said Dennis. “My father’s influence shaped my entire life. I couldn’t wait to get home from school to see who was at the shop or what cars were there. I was probably closer to my grandfather, Robert Gross, than to my father, who was very busy earning a living. My grandfather was the general manager for the Sunkist Orange Packing Plant in Orange, California,” added Dennis. The younger Webb attended Fremont Junior High School and then Anaheim High School, where he took the metal shaping shop class twice and Heli-arch welding. Right from the beginning he loved working with metal and made a decision in his life. “If I was going to do metal fabricating then I had to study hard at it. My father was very busy and he couldn’t teach me personally, but I learned a lot by just watching him work. My metal shop teacher was George DeRubis and he recognized my enthusiasm for fabrication and gave me extra attention and encouragement. I will always remember him,” said Dennis.
The younger Webb graduated in 1962 and worked for his father on the animation projects. He enlisted in the Navy in 1965 and served two tours of duty in Viet Nam as a crash crewman aboard the USS Ticonderoga aircraft carrier. He was discharged from active duty in 1967, but spent four more years in the Naval Reserve. After he left the service, Dennis opened his own business working on hot rods, just as his father had done. He also worked on projects for George Barris for a few years doing bodywork on dune buggies. “I was an independent contractor for Barris, not an employee of his,” said Webb. He married Judith Bress in 1970 and they have two sons, Daniel who was born in 1974 and Robert who came to them in 1979. Daniel is a tile setter in New Mexico and Robert does home renovations. “Neither of my sons took to metal work,” said Dennis. Over the years the type of fabricating that he did has changed, but he is still on the ranch, carrying on the family tradition of building outstanding cars. “In the 1970’s and ‘80’s there was lots of work building street rods, sedans, roadsters and coupes. Then in the ‘80’s I started doing panels, floorboards and firewalls for drag cars. I taught myself how to shape aluminum, which is a very soft metal and many fabricators don’t like to work with it. Dick Courtney wanted a ’29 Highboy roadster similar to the one he had in the 1940’s. He encouraged me to do hoods. I told him he would have to take the hood elsewhere and he told me to do it and when I protested he said he had faith in me,” said Webb. Today he is known for his aluminum fabricating. “I’m learning about the art of fabrication every day,” he added.
Bob Schuringa came to him and said, “I want a 1925 track style roadster, but all I have is an engine. Build me this car.” Dennis built the car from photographs and built the underbelly, pan, aluminum nose and hood. Schuringa demanded that the car fit the legal requirements for the T-track roadster class although he intended it to be for street use only. Dave Cook now owns this car. Webb also does restoration on Indy cars. Frank Currie said to Dennis, “I want to enter a real authentic 1920’s car in the Great American Race,” and so they began to plan and build a car in 1990 for the 1991 race. It was a 1920 Packard Indy racecar design. Frank did the mechanical work and Dennis did the chassis and bodywork. Currie won the 1991 Great American Race with this car. This started a long career for Webb with drivers in the Great American Race. The race is across America from coast to coast over grueling back roads and all kinds of weather conditions and the cars must be at least half a century old. It is vintage racing at its finest. Tom McRae, co-founder of the Great American Race came to Dennis and said, “Buick is our sponsor for 1994 and they want a 1932 Buick Indy car in the race.” Webb copied the Red Schaeffer 1932 Buick Indy car for McRae. Frank Currie wanted to build another car for the 1996 Great American Race and found a 1910 Selden. The car was very large, bulky and heavy and Currie wanted to make a lightweight runabout out of it. Webb and Currie redesigned the body and came up with a racier looking car, which won the 1997 Great American Race. Currie was a dry lakes racer after World War II and a local Southern California hot rodder who owns Currie Rear Ends and Driveline Components in Anaheim, California.
Dennis is constantly busy with orders from collectors and museums that want fine vintage racecar restorations. “That’s all I work on now,” he said. He looks for photos in books, magazines, newspapers and other sources and has amassed quite a library of his own. From the photographs, Dennis does a drawing of the body layout and designs his own plans. Then the customer and Webb decide on the final action to take. “Sometimes the customers stay and help and we never proceed until everyone is happy with the design,” he added. Leslie Long and Wally Parks wanted to restore the Calvin Rice/Melvin Dodd dragster that Calvin drove to the first championship title at the 1955 NHRA Nationals. “They got in touch with Melvin Dodd. Dodd said he wouldn’t do the project unless they let me build it. Long only had the flathead engine from the car, but from photographs and Dodd’s memory we rebuilt the car. Melvin was the original owner of the dragster. There has always been an argument as to whether this car or Mickey Thompson’s dragster was the first sling shot dragster. All the old timers told me that Dodd’s car was the first. I started and finished in 1993 and the car was exhibited at the 40th anniversary of that first 1955 race,” said Dennis. Rick Rollins from Santa Ana, California had the original Ed Winfield 2-up, 2-down engine and wanted Webb to build him a restoration of a Legion Ascot racecar that Winfield would have driven. It was a Bobtail Speedster. Winfield was an American legend when it came to inventing and improving an engine. He took a Ford Model T flathead engine and completely redesigned it to improve its performance. Marvin and Dennis Webb started a family business that restored and rebuilt some of our finest, vintage racecars. Dennis can be found at the shop his father worked in since the 1940’s, recreating some of the most beautiful cars from our past.
Gone Racin’ is at [email protected]
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