Oregon hot rodder, inventor, business owner and philanthropist passed away Wednesday, he was 87. https://www.oregonlive.com/business...eneur-and-philanthropist-ken-austin-dies.html
Sad to hear , condolences to those who knew him. I met him at the Portland swap meet and talked about casting and fabricated quick change rear ends. I guess he inspired me a bit.
I have known Ken for over 20 years, and was hoping to see him last Saturday when I visited his collection, on a tour with the World Of Speed Museum. One of the gifts we received was a copy of his book, telling his life story and his love for his wife Joan. Very interesting read. R.I.P. Mr. Austin.
Reading his obit it’s immediately apparent he used his good fortune to better his community, the mark of a great man. Godspeed Ken.
Ken's 'T" Coupe, he used as a test bed for his manufacture of quickchange rear ends, intake manifolds and heads. He ran it at the drags and Bonneville in the early 50's, with Flathead and Ford overhead six.
That's him ! He also built intakes to fit Arduns. Albert Drake referred to him as "The Stuart Hilborn of Oregon".
I never knew of him. He sounds like a man who achieved much and shared his wealth with good causes and institutions. RIP
Rest In Peace, Ken. Of all the things he did in life, I wonder were he would rank being Benny the Beaver (OSU mascot)?!
A great guy who was always a contributor to the community in so many ways. Growing up in Newberg I met him some 55 years ago when he was starting his dental business in 2 Quonset huts on Blaine street. He started with next to nothing and was so successful offering opportunities to many “locals”. Jerry Hill is one of those who worked for Ken in the early days. An ongoing “sideline” for Ken was building and rebuilding cars as well as designing and fabricating high quality cast parts for hot rodding and racing. He will be sorely missed in the community and in the car hobby. EM
Was Jerry's second shop, the Quonset Hut, one of the two Ken started in ? I know Ken was quite fond of Jerry, as we all were.
So very sorry to hear this, Ken was a great guy and really fun to talk to. He gave our club, the Slo Poks a personal tour of his personel collection and Hot Rod parts manufacturing facility several years ago. R.I.P. Ken....God Speed!
It was not Marty. One of the 2 "huts" is still there. The other is the official original starting place for Adec of the (2) structures and was rebuilt inside of the current Adec facility many, many years ago. These 2 Quonset huts were side by side behind the Newberg Post Office and across the tracks on Blaine street. Now that you brought this up I'm going through my memory of Jerry's shop locations. He was at his parents home as a young guy of course. He was in Dundee at his home there. He was later off of North Main Street in a larger complex that also housed his brother Larry's Muffler shop. The last shop was at his hone in the Hess creek area of Newberg off of Villa Road near the RR trestle. Interestingly, when he lived in Dundee (late 60's to early 70's), he was in a new subdivision (at a time when Dundee had less than 500 people for sure). The streets and for that matter the highways were absolutely dead to traffic. Jerry would occasionally want to test something on his dragster and went around asking his neighbors if they would mind him doing some testing in the subdivision. No one had an issue with that as noted by another friend who lived there at the time. - EM
EM, I started going down to Jerry's around 1974, when his was in the shop behind his parent's place, he was working swing shift at ADEC. When he went in business full time, he moved into a Quonset Hut, I think it was Washington street. He was there until about 1980, when he and Larry, moved to the complex off of North Main Street.
I had forgotten that he was in that building Marty given that I had just gotten out of the Navy at that time. That is the old Nickell's Automotive (auto parts business), yes the same name on the side of Ken Austin's "T". In the rear of the hut was Gray's Automotive machine shop (owned by Mick Gray, who later moved to Tigard). - EM
Condolences to the Austin family on the passing of Ken...Rest in Peace...Thanks for your contribution to Hotrod and so much more. That T Coupe you built...priceless Thanks for sharing this loss to the Community @DDDenny and to the others for sharing their knowing Ken with images of some of his Hotrod past. Regards, Stogy
RIP Ken ..once again it looks like a life well lived and something to be proud of. I believe this applies to the vast majority of Hambers...We don't sit on our ass's and watch the world go by
Jimmy, Do you remember seeing it in Hot Rod when Gordon Sully owned it ? I seem to recall, it had an exposed torque tube in the cockpit.
Is this the flathead V8 version? I have seen photos but can't recall interior shot. I need to go thru my mags again as it has been sometime since I read thru them. This photo of Ken's T is in the latest Rodder's Journal (#81),
Back in 2015, Joey Ukrop did an article on the coupe when Gordon Sully owned it. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/notes-on-the-tidy-t.983839/
Just stumbled across this interview. https://www.georgefox.edu/journalonline/fall14/feature/stained-glass-reflections.html
The Jalopy Journal
