"Highway Patrol" has replaced "77 Sunset Strip" on MeTV and it is another show we watched when I was a kid. I was caught by surprise when an episode opened with a really neat Olds powered '32 Ford roadster. I don't remember it probably because I was only 12 when this episode aired in November 1956, a full two years before 77 SS series debuted and the entire episode was about the "black supercharged hot rod" being used in a series of robbery get-a-ways. The car doesn't ring a bell with me and doesn't have the notoriety of the Kookie Kar but is a very cool car. But it is apparent the Olds engine was not supercharged. Maybe someone here knows the history of this neat roadster that was featured in the season 2 episode 7 of Highway Patrol and if we would recognize the owners name from 1956. And hopefully someone here can post that episode. It will get your pulse up a little higher listening to that hopped-up engine revving down the highway at 120-130 mph.
@frank spittle ....I've seen that episode within the last year or two. Can't help with whose car that was, but have a thought on the term 'supercharged'. While real car guys/hot rodders know what a supercharger is, I think the general public was more familiar with the term 'souped up' and some no doubt heard the term 'supercharged' somewhere along the way. Slang or colloquial language being what it is, I can imagine the term 'supercharged' being used as a synonym for 'souped up' ............not technically correct, but they didn't know the difference. I, too, was a big fan of Highway Patrol back in the day. I was 12 in 1956, so we are contemporaries! Ray
The car is alive and well just in a different fashion, it was also the car in the movie Hot Rod Girl that was turned on its side in the beginning. It was put back up on the rails in 1970.
Thanks Sixcarb for the pixs with different versions of the car. The third one down with leaking liquids is what it looked like on TV. I bet the present owner knows the name of the owner in 1956.
I own the car now, it's been in my family since 66. in 1956 it was owned by the movie studios and then came east by way of Sammy Packard. The young man that owned the car from Hollywood in 1952 ended up dying in a boating race before the car ended up on the movie set.
MANY thanks, @Sixcarb! The origins of this car have haunted me for decades... Remember the shots in Hot Rod Girl, some of the closeups (and even from across the street) were of a 'look-not too much alike' '32 Cabriolet, chopped fixed windshield. Actor John Smith looked over both windshields, he was tall... Amazing how this info finally turned up. Again, thanks.
My dad bought the car from Sammy Packard. I'm sure he would love to talk to you about the car. I can't direct message you because I just made an account but if you call Mongeon's Auto in Rhode Island you can get ahold of him.