Skip Hudson’s 1929 A Roadster

I’ve written about this very special Model A before, only last time it was in scale. Today I want to talk about the car a little more and how a young hot rodder named Dan Gurney ended up driving it at Bonneville in 1950, as you see above.

Skip Hudson was actually a childhood friend of Dan in Riverside, Ca. where they grew up together. The town hang out for teens was a place called Ruby’s Drive-In, which was where the two buddies hatched a plan to take Skip’s ’29 Roadster to the 2nd Annual Bonneville Speed Trials that year and see what the hot A-V8 would do. The Flathead engine was built by Ramon Torres who was the local motor guru, and he came along as well to provide mechanical support, along with another local kid named Teddy Bear. Gurney drove out to Wendover in his ’35 Ford Sedan, and you can see the decklid of Gurney’s sedan with the words ‘Bonneville Express’, painted on my his sister and mother before the boys left town for their first time on the salt. (Thats dirty Dan waving in the picture with the 10 gallon hat on.)

Dan Gurney ended up making a pass at 130.43 mph in Skip’s channeled jalopy during Speed Week, which was a very respectable speed for a B Roadster that year, let alone a street-driven car. Dan actually kept that SCTA timing tag framed in his office up until his death last week. That really tells you something about his connection to hot rodding after all those years, doesn’t it?