The Lost Speed Shop

Well actually, the speed shop isn’t completely lost. It’s located at 1036 Fifth Ave. in the town of Aurora, Ill. The structure itself isn’t particularly unique — just a small, cinderblock building painted in a grey, red and blue motif. Out front, a pair of garage doors consumes two-thirds of the building. Tall plate glass windows, now covered, wrap around the southeast corner. A weathered plywood sign near the roofline reads “Service Perez.�?

You see, minivans and imports are probably being hustled through those two bays as we speak. But that wasn’t always the case.

About half a century ago, the building belonged to Hillcrest Speed & Engineering. It’s logical to assume they sold speed equipment, swapped motors and shot the shit about the latest issue of Drag News over Marlboros and Cokes.

But as a journalist, it’s never right to assume.

I first encountered this little speed shop while exploring the origins of the Revell “Miss Deal�? last spring. In my search, I spotted the Hillcrest name scrawled in shoe polish on the rear quarter of a 1953 Studebaker. The car was the quintessential low-buck gasser, featuring a beam axle, seasoned fenderwell headers and a Hilborn-injected 327 Chevy poking through the one-piece tilt front end. I wondered what role the Hillcrest team played in the creation of this machine.

A few months later, I stumbled upon a suspiciously similar Stude. Same color, same stance, same clip and radiused fenders. Hell, the photographer was even standing in the same place. A quick glance at the quarter panel — which sported the Hillcrest lettering — revealed that this was the same car, now paying homage to novelist Steinbeck with its “Grapes of Wrath�? moniker.

Interestingly, the car had gone topless. Perhaps this was spurred by trends by the big guns on the match race circuit — think Tommy Grove’s Melrose Missile and Hayden Proffitt’s ‘Vair. Or maybe it was a side effect of a crash during a 1320-foot blast. Either way, the Hillcrest Studebaker had a firm grasp on my throat and left me gasping for more information.

Soon after punching in the number for the business listed online, I was greeted by three tones and a woman’s voice alerting me that my call could not be completed as dialed. No problem, I thought. I’ll just nab the property records from the Kane County Assessor. More numbers, more tones, more dead ends.

I called a few local businesses and strategically picked names from the phonebook hoping to spark memories of the Speed Shop at the corner of Fifth and Lincoln Highway. Not a single one had a clue what I was talking about.

Speed Shops don’t just disappear without a trace. So why should Hillcrest Speed & Engineering be any different?

-Joey Ukrop

Photos from the H.A.M.B.