|
Thank you for including my letter of inquiry with newsletter #44. To answer your question about where I live and teach, Tehachapi is the name of the town. It is in the hills above Mojave. I teach fourth grade. You asked for me to send any articles I have that I wrote for Hop Up. Because of problems with our computer I only have one of them in a format to be sent online. Here it is! Eric Loe History of a Cover Roadster, by Eric Loe In 1925 Hi Halfhill was a young teenager. He was not yet old enough to drive, but he was old enough to know what he liked, and he liked hopped up cars. Hi looked forward to any time he could catch a glimpse of a lowered, cut down, roadster, or walk past Sterling's Garage, near his home in Los Angeles, where Doug Sterling ran the premier shop at the time for modifying Model Ts. He would peer through the open doors and admire the transformations in progress. His curiosity was therefore peaked when an older boy in his neighborhood (A fella Halfhill described as a "dandy," he always wore nice clothes and had money to spend) went to the local Ford dealership, bought a new '25 T roadster, and delivered it to Sterling's shop the next day. Soon the dandy was cruising the streets of L.A. in his new roadster. The lowered car featured an axle dropped at Sterling's shop and reworked springs, chopped windshield and top, Buffalo wire wheels, and a Frontenac overhead valve conversion. For the next few years the hot "T" was a fixture of the neighborhood, often proudly sporting a coat of Muroc dust. But when the restyled 1930 Model A Fords came out the dandy lost interest in the "T" and sold it to buy a new model. The new owner of the roadster was a friend of Halfhill's, Frank Pommer. Pommer was interested in machine work and was putting together an impressive machine shop in his parents' garage. He removed the body from the chassis and began to rebuild the roadster using Star frame rails and Model A running gear. The work he did was beautiful, but soon the project stalled and the partially built car languished behind the garage. In the meantime Hi Halfhill had worked through his first car, another "T", and had then moved on to a nice, mildly modified '29 roadster. The Model A was good daily transportation, but Hi, along with his buddy, Claude Neal, wanted to go racing at the dry lakes and they wanted to do it more seriously than the '29 permitted. They approached Pommer to see about purchasing the unfinished '25. He agreed to the sale and the pair began to prepare their new race car. Claude and Hi began by completing the installation of the Model A running gear, and attaching a Model A front suspension to the Ford front crossmember Pommer had spliced between the Star rails. They had the axle dropped at a local blacksmith shop. Next the pair bought a used 2 Port Riley head, and Winfield cam and carburators to get the motor ready. Finally they mounted a hand pressure pump on the driver's "door" to deliver gas from the remote tank and cut down the back of the body to reduce wind resistance (a popular modification at the time) and were ready to start racing. The roadster was a consistant performer through the 1932 and 1933 racing seasons. Neal and Halfhill, with help from Pommer, continuously made improvements to the car and were rewarded with ever increasing speeds at the dry lake. Halfhill recalled that the roadster's highest recorded speed was 114.65 mph. on September 17, 1933. The roadster was purely a race car during this period and was not used on the streets. It was one of the only full bodied roadsters at the time to be towed to and from the time trials. The only time Halfhill could recall the racer being driven any great distance during this period was a humorous episode that reveals what the atmosphere at the early lakes meets was like. The Muroc Racing Association did not allow the consumption of alcohol at their meets. Participants and spectators alike were prevented from participation if they were found to be under the influence, but this did not keep people from drinking. Halfhill always brought two gas cans to the lakes, one filled with gasoline, the other with liquor. On one particular day the trio had already made one run during the morning, but were unhappy with the result so had made some adjustments to the motor. Halfhill and Pommer stood back as Neal hopped in the roadster to take it on a test run across the lakebed. As they stood watching they were surprised to see the roadster turn toward one of the dirt paths leading off the lake and disappear! It turned out that Claude had partaken liberally of the "gas" can and had forgotten why he was driving the roadster. He was halfway back to Los Angeles before he realized what was going on and decided to just keep going. There was no more racing that day. Keeping the roadster competitive was a time consuming job. The 1933 season saw the introduction of George Riley's new four port head. The Neal/Halfhill team did not have spare cash to buy one of the new $80.00 conversions so they decided to take drastic measures in an effort to keep up. They ported their head to its absolute limits. This step did contribute to their highest speeds and helped keep them competitive (In the June 25, 1933 Muroc program they challenged any other single spark Riley, except four ports, to race for a side bet. There were no takers). It also created alot of extra work. The metal separating the water jackets from the ports was so thin that they were constantly springing leaks. The pair had to remove the head after every meet to weld up holes that had formed during their runs. The dominance of Riley's new heads sparked Frank Pommer's interest. He turned his design and machine shop skills toward building his own four port head. As work progressed and Frank's enthusiasm increased for the new project Hi and Claude were becoming tired of the time and effort required in keeping the "T" ready to race. Pommer offered to buy the car back. He wanted to use the new motor he was building in his old roadster. The pair agreed to sell. Pommer had big plans for the roadster. For the motor he not only designed and built the four port head, but also created the exhaust header, intake manifold, engine mounts, finned side plate and aluminum timing cover with mounts to accomodate the Mallory dual coil ignition and Miller supercharger. He designed and cast an aluminum transmission case to enclose the Ford V8 gears and cast a finned, aluminum center section for the rearend. Pommer designed and built the 4140 chromemoly tubing front axle along with the kingpins, spring perches, tie rod, drag link, tie rod ends, drag link ends, radius rods, pitman arm, and aluminum steering box housing Franklin gears. The kingpins mounted mechanical brakes with snapring wire wheels. He built the steering wheel of spring steel and mahogany and cast the horn button in bronze. The column drop was crafted from a Miller 91 connecting rod. The body also underwent great changes. Pommer hired Frank Kurtis at a rate of $.50 per hour to build aluminum nose, hood and belly pans for the car. He also had Kutris rework the entire cowl section to eliminate the body line and redo the back of the body where Neal/Halfhill had previously cut it down. The discarded section was still behind Halfhill's garage and was retrieved so Kurtis could section and then reattach it to the body to give a more "graceful" line. Pommer built the windshield frame, engine turned dash and trim molding to run around the top of the cockpit. He had the interior upholstered in red and black cowhide and goatskin. The body was painted black. The gas tank was mounted behind the rear axle. Pommer never finished the project. By 1938 he had begun to design an overhead cam head for the motor and was working on mounting the supercharger when he sold the roadster for unknown reasons. Jim Donahue acquired the unfinished project but made little progress before passing it along to Chuck Schultz, a member of the Bungholers club, around 1940. Schultz got the car back on the road, first with a 2 Port Riley, then with a 21 stud V8. It appears that Schultz also discarded the snapring wheels in favor of Kelsey Hayes wires, and perhaps re-placed the gas tank inside the turtledeck, had a rear rolled pan made and replaced the mechanical brakes with hydraulics before selling the roadster in the late '40's to Ray Bowles. Ray began by personalizing the car. He added a distinctive front nerf bar featuring his name. The nerf attached low to the front of the frame where the headlights had been mounted necessitating the repositioning of the lights up higher on new mounts protruding through the sides of the hood. He then began to enter shows and events with the roadster. The roadster got a lot of use during Ray's ownership. In December of 1949 he participated in the Pasadena Roadster Club Reliability Run with the roadster. The January, 1950 Hot Rod Magazine featured the roadster on the cover in front of the Rose Bowl with an explanation that the car had won the Hot Rod Magazine, Best Appearing Car award at the event. That same month the roadster was entered in the National Roadster Show in Oakland and later that year was also in the Autorama held at the Shrine Auditorium. Bowles later drove the roadster to the east coast and back hauling a house trailer. Ray Bowles sold the roadster to George Hadjis and George Williams in 1952. The pair bought the car because it was so nice. Even after nearly two decades the interior, paint and chrome were in very good condition. The car was still such a standout that it was featured in the January, 1953 issue of Hop Up Magazine, with a very detailed article written by Dean Bachelor, before Hadjis sold the roadster to Tom Pryor while Williams was serving in the military. Tom Pryor only owned the rod for a short time. Not long after buying the roadster he ran it into the back of a stopped delivery truck. The front axle was bent and the Frank Kurtis nose and hood were destroyed. Skip Hedrich bought the remains of the roadster from Pryor and began to rebuild. He straightened the custom front axle and installed chromed Ford disc wheels. He replaced the old '36 Ford V8 with a newer 24 stud model and substituted a Model T radiator and shell for the ruined nose to get it back on the road. He also repainted the roadster bright red and had a top made for it by Sorensen's Top Shop in Pasadena. Once the car was back in working order Skip began to replicate the nose. Kurtis' original aluminum work was beyond repair, but Hedrich pounded it out as best he could and then smoothed it with bondo until it was good enough to use as a form. Then, with the help of one of his brother's buddies, he created a replica of the nose in fiberglass and had a new grill and hood made for the car. After the new front end was finished the car was featured in the August, 1955 issue of Car Craft Magazine. Not long after the Car Craft article came out Skip was in a local Pasadena drive-in with the roadster when he was approached by a man in an Air Force uniform. The flyer was on leave from Moffit Air Force Base in Northern California and wanted to buy the roadster. Skip wasn't interested in selling until the man pulled a big bundle of bills from his pocket. It was more money than Skip could refuse and the transaction was made then and there. Skip went home with the cash and the new owner took the car, but they agreed to meet at the drive-in again the next evening. While Skip was showing the Air Force pilot the car he had noticed that one of the fuel lines was leaking. He told the new owner he would replace it the next night. He arrived at the appointed meeting place with the new line and tools, but the new owner never arrived. The following evening the airman was at the drive-in and showed Hedrich that he had made repairs himself. He had replaced the leaking hose with one he had taken off his grandmother's old gas heater. Skip was dismayed to find that the spongy replacement would sweat out gasoline when he squeezed it between his fingers! Hedrich had not brought his replacement that night, so arranged another meeting for the next morning. The Airman stood up Skip again the next morning. He decided to forego the proper fuel line and headed back to his base in Northern California. He didn't get far. While driving over the Grapevine the inadequate hose failed and sprayed the hot motor with fuel. The owner escaped injury, but the roadster burned to the ground. The warped and melted wreckage that was delivered to the scrap metal yard after the fire contained little of the original Model T that Hi Halfhill had seen delivered to Sterling's Garage over three decades before. Only parts of the much modified body remained. But those bits of sheetmetal had made a long and unique journey through the formative years of hot rodding. They had formed the backbone for one of rodding's great roadsters. Editor's notes: Eric, Thank you for a great story.
|