Art & Inspiration Cotton Werksman's T roadster.

Cool beans, like a lot of the 60 something brigade on here I followed the build on the car faithfully when he built it.
One thing always comes to mind and that is that he welded the complete chassis with a torch and no electric welding on it, at least what was built in his garage.

 

Cottons son (Matt) here. The original car was found and purchased by a friend of my Dads and he brought it to my shop this past weekend as a surprise for Cottons 83rd birthday!!!

 

Your dad almost looked stunned at first as he was taking this event all in.
If this had been me; I'd feel like I could not have been given a more perfect
birthday present. Something tells me Cotton agrees.
Doug

 

I have a question.
In the mid - 1950s I built a swing axle rear axle setup to use in my fuel coupe. After a few weeks of running it, I pulled it out. The car caused the axles to "climb" and run on the inner edges of the slicks, resulting in an exciting ride down the strip.
The setup used an early Ford center section with Buick U-joints and bells. The axles, housings and brakes were Olds/Pontiac. The axle housings were welded to Buick drive housings so that the housings could bolt to the Buick bells. The ring gear was mounted on a solid spool.
Sometime around 1960 (?) I sold the setup to someone in Illinois. Later I received a phone call asking what parts I had used to built the setup.
My question is if Cotton was the one who got the axle? I am just curious as to where it went.
Thanks
Don Montgomery

 

Matt...
I've always wondered what the 'legend' (Mandarin?) on the rear of the tank translated to.
That reunion with your Dad and his pals made it like I was right there...
Great to see Cotton doing so well. The 'drive' was a real nice touch, very special car visiting its very special builder!
Kudos to you guys.

 

Mike, I once thought it said: (one word, at the time he brought it to Memphis)...
Matt has cleared the mystery up!
H E
M I

 

The symbol on the tank is my Fathers nick name "Cotton" only the guy who painted it on accidentally reversed the image so it's actually backwards LOL

 

Hello-
to Rockerhead in CAL. YES this is your old rear end and YES it is doing the same thing to my double diamonds. is there any way to fix this ? GREGG

 

Hey, Gregg;
This is (still) a problem for the early VW & the early Corvair crowd. AFAIK, the racers & hot street guys use a device known as a "camber compensator". Looks & acts exactly like an early ford cross-spring, w/the center of the (single leaf) spring mounted under the transaxle, so the curve faces down. The spring ends are attached to the outer axle ends - again just like a early ford, but the amount of "downforce" used is limited by design, to counteract the "tuck-up" tendency. Since the spring eyes want to twist the axle ends down, you'd want to use limiting straps so you don't get the tuck-under (or at least too much) going around corners & braking. The c-c is used in addition to, the normal springs. Does seem to band-aid the situation rather well, but you'll never get rid of the tendency to have the tires ride on the inside edges as the suspension goes through its' travel - it's just the nature (design flaw?) of the beast. Interestingly enough, the c-c worked in drag racing situations as well as auto-crossing & rallying. Not that swing axles are bad, just need to know it's limitations. IIRC, Mercedes & Auto Union used this on their racers in the 30's->50's. Might check out what options they used. Also, I don't think the swing axles ever worked well w/square edged tires like drag slicks, seems most I've seen used standard "round-edge tires, or at least rounded-edge tires similar to the road-racing tires of the late 60's through today.
FWIW, HTH.
Marcus...

Oh, BTW: Was a very nice/neat thing you did for Cotton. Jim told me a couple days prior, & was very excited that things were going to work out as they did. Glad they did.

 

Hi Gregg To hear that some of my old axle setup is still around is really neat. I was running a supercharged Chrysler engine on fuel, in a '32 coupe in 1956. Ollie Morris had built a swing axle setup for his rear engine dragster that seemed to be working well. So I built the swing axle setup in an effort to take the torque load off the right side as traction was a problem for the coupe. The transverse Ford rear spring shackles were attached near the brake backing plates, similar to the stock Ford arrangement. The spring was mounted behind the rear axle and was adjustable for height.
The first time out the car was almost uncontrollable when the slicks cambered in and rode on the inner edges. I added spring leaves to make the spring stiffer, but the spring ends were still too weak to stop a large camber increase. After 3 or 4 weeks I had to put the solid axle back in the car. My car was one of the fastest A/F coupes then and I could not live with an ill-handling loser. So I did not take the time needed to work out the problem. I also did not have the knowledge available today or the easy availability of things like torsion bars, coil overs and better shocks.
So I am not the one who can help with that problem. I imagine that input from guys like nrgwizard or others with VW racing experience would be of the most help.
Thanks for letting me know what happened to the setup. I spent a lot of time making my setup and then it did not work out for me. I am glad that it has worked out for you.
Regards - Don Montgomery

 

Thanks to NRGWIZARD also ROCKERHEAD for the tips and comments . I do not get on the web that much , just once in awhile . To DON , are you the fellow who writes the "COOL" hot rod books ?
again "THANKS ---- GUYS . GREGG .

 

Hi Gregg
I am Don Montgomery from Fallbrook, California. I have written and published 8 hot rod history books meant to tell and show about the earlier days of hot rodding. The numerous early photos I used offer a real look at the hot rods and the activities from those days. I began racing at the Lakes in 1948 and the drags in 1950. So my book efforts were meant to portray accurately as possible what we all were doing about 60 to 70 years ago ( or 45 to 55 years ago in drag racing).
Thank you for the "COOl" comment.
Don

 

Matt (or anyone)
Been Jones'n for some Cotton roadster updates.
Anything new going on with the car?

 

It's not a sure thing, but it's rumored that the yellow roadster might be at the T-bucket Nationals in Indianapolis the weekend after July 4th.

 

This thread is a gold mine of some of the heroes of the hobby....

How cool would it be to get as many of those three iterations together as is possible?

 

Anything new to report?

 

Didn't Cotton also build a T with a Corvair in the front? I can almost see it through the cobwebs of my brain.

 

Are you thinking of this one? It was built by Don Kendall.

 

Yep!--------Cotton Werksman was an Associate Member of LAR club,----Card # 194------Don-----Mine is # 144

 

I'm not sure.. Seems like the one I remember was built by Cotton Werksman. I remember it had Goodyear Blue Streak racing tires all the way around. That is along the lines of the one I remember.

 

Thanks for dredging this thread up! I'd forgotten all this cool stuff. That black car inspired me to build another roadster, it ended up being a '34, not a T, but I painted it black!

 

Sorry, nothing new at this point.

 

Reading Don M's custom IRS issues. Went through a fair amount in setting up a C4 Vette IRS in my '31. The control arms were mounted so lines would intersect w/the center-of-mass of the car, to offer a level launch, rather than lift or squat. Riding on the edge of slicks? Yikes.

 

I have this pic, not sure where it's from of the yellow car. All three of these have been an inspiration to me since I saw the the black one in American Rodder

 

There is just something about a full space frame chassis!

 

This car...those multiple cars, based on this design, that Cotton build, helped build...whatever. Brilliant!!!
I mean seriously brilliant in how he was able to meld the new tech(?) into the old and still come up with a car that fits into any pigeon hole you can toss it towards.
It's modern, classic, traditional, vintage...elements of all really...and yet the parts don't clash.

How the hell do you do that!?!?

I'm not sure you'd need two hands to finger count the cars that have pulled that off so successfully.

There are a few certain cars that define Hot Rod.
The other 99% are just trying to emulate that vibe and a good many do no doubt.
But theres just something about those 1% of Hot Rods that represent the core.
It has nothing to do with shiny paint, satin, patina, retro parts, billet, chrome, wax, stainless, leather, hartz cloth, radial or bias ply, or coming from the shop of the latest cool builder etc.
Ultimately thats all just bullshit.

This car, like those few others, just seems to transcend all that.

Much respect Cotton Werksman.

 

Rockerhead,
In an earlier post I mentioned Mr. Werksman built that IRS setup, I was wrong/mistaken. He later told me he bought the setup from somebody in CA. He may have told me that a long time ago but I forgot. There's a lot of misinformation out on the internet so I felt it necessary to chime in and correct myself.
Later,
Wally

 

Yes...I believe the original builder was on the HAMB talking about the rearend and how he built it for drag racing but found that it jacked the rear of the car when running slicks and actually hurt traction at the strip.
He sold it to Cotton who went on to use it in this of course.
Pretty cool setup for the time especially.

 

That someone was Don Montgomery! Drag racer. Hamb: Rockerhead

 

Perhaps I missed it, but when were these cars built? Thanx, Gary