Hi Carl. You seem to get around in that little rocket of yours. Must be a ball. Question: I'm assuming you are talking about George Barringer. How is this gentleman related to him?
Kurtis you are correct, I while I had lunch I got out Quattlebaum's book on the Savannah races. When I first looked at them I figured it was there because of the trees and moss. I believe they were using the touring car for their practice instead of wearing the race car out. He lasted until the fifth lap and went out with brake problems. The other car is an Autocar roadster I assume they used for running around Savannah. I assume by Simplex Rex you are talking about a dinosaur. These Chadwicks are not the most beautiful or graceful looking creations. The radiators are set quite a bit forward of the axle which gives them awkward appearance.
After all of the great photos of the Fronty Fords and other Ford based cars I found one in a very interesting photo. The front car on the truck appears to be Fronty and maybe someone can identify it by the number. I guess it might be able to be dated by the Milwaukee Mile bill board in the background.
I posted some photos a week or so ago taken in Millers shop. I have not had time to look in Dee's book yet but I did find this photo labeled the Miller Special. The owner at the time was the actor Robert Montgomery around 1932. It appears to be the same car and now that I think about I seem to remember that it was consigned by a movie star.
This is his son. He was 9 and sitting with his mom and members of the Connor family at Atlanta in Sep 1946 when his father was killed in front of them. She made him swear to never sit in a racecar whilst she was alive. He obeyed and played professional sports and then marketing. About 8 years ago after a severe back injury incapacitated him he was coached out of a solitary existence by the local vintage racer Chuck Fausel and has since campaigned a vintage big car, dedicated to his Dad on the Historic Champ/Indycar Trail.
June 10th 1937 I own the negs. It was one of Armin Kruegers early photos taken. Armin was elected to Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2003 for his work in Photography. Cars are #34 and 33. Thanks Ralph http://stores.ebay.com/Greenfield-Gallery
The37KID I have the dual overhead cam Gallivan head patterns you speak of. In the box is a written history of all the owners and a list of people who borrowed the patterns. If you guys are interested I'll get the patterns down from the shelf to make sure I get the history right and post the material here. I have made several castings and have completed one engine for one of my sprint cars. I also have one of Joe Gemsa's renditions of the DOHC Gallivan on my model T hillclimber which spun the wheels all the way up the Newport In Hillclimb, tore the clutch and rear end out 400 feet from the finish, coasted over the line, shattered the all time record, and has since been banned from competion because the car is "too modified to be in the modified class." I think Gallivan's head is pretty special
DITTO! One of the great thing about the HAMB is the fact that people just come out of the blue when an interesting topic is posted, thanks for joining the party. I'd like to know the history on the GALLIVAN DO, were other heads made from it or patterned. If I ever outlive the kids college bills it sure would be nice to get a set of castings and build a T dirt car. [QUOTE=noboD;4957599]Spendingtheirinheritance, Please continue. We need pics. And welcome to the HAMB.[/QUOTE]
spendingtheirinheritance, Welcome to the HAMB!!! Do you know what happened to Gallivan's heads for the Chevrolet 4 after John Gerber bought them? I know that he made some changes/improvements- would love to see them surface!
MAC, I think that engine was in "The Orange Blossom Special" that Joe Gensa restored in the early 1970's. The car had a Miller frame, and a handful of other MILLER bits. Last I knew it was under restoration to bring it back to its INDY 500 configureation with a MILLER Straight 8. I think photos of it are on the HAMB. Were the 4Banger went is anyones guess. Gemsa blew it up at a race in the early 1950's in Arazona, welded it back together for the '70's restoration. I saw it run in Davenpost, Iowa, got John Gerbers autograph too.
T-Head, Thanks for indentifying the Autocar. It's been bugging me ever since Buildy posted the photo. If you ever come across a picture of a Rex-Simplex {not Simplex Rex} you will see the similarities. As to the Chadwick, i think the racing car is quite different in looks to the stock version. {see pic below} While we are on the subject i came across a couple of articles in regards to Willie Haupt. In 1909 he was to be a driver for the Harry S. Houpt Co. Houpt himself had pior connections with the Thomas Company and Lozier before he decided to build a car of his own and being a well known supporter of motor racing he persuaded Monty Roberts to head the mechanical department and later employed George Robertson as the head of his racing operations and it was Robertson who later hired Haupt. I haven't spent too much time researching this but i have found no mention of a racing car/s that were built by the Houpt Co. In the middle of 1909 and well into 1910, Robertson was racing a Simplex and Willie Haupt was racing a Thomas. Does anyone have any information on this matter. My trail stops in 1910 with the Herreshoff touring and raceabout and the Houpt-Rockwell models. Harry S. Houpt later sold his shares and returned to being a dealer of Mitchell and ALCO. Was there a racer built bearing the name Houpt or Herreshoff?
Welcome to the HAMB. Your Great Grandpa is a very famous racer in an equally famous car. That particular car won many races from 1913 to 1914. If you have any stories or photos please share them with us. Cheers, Kurtis.
I have a book on the history of Houpt Rockwell but can't find it, the cars were built in Bristol, Connecticut.
Look at the drivers right hand, one of the early Autocar unique features were the spark and throttle controlls. The steering wheel had two turnable grips like a motorcycle built into the steering wheel. The road wheels look like wood spoke wheels but were stamped steel, two stampings welded together.
'37, A friend has an '03 Autocar. When I noticed the slight groove in the wheel, just where a pinstripe should be, I ask if it was hand carved in the wheel. Looking closer I then realised, as you said, the wheel was steel. The groove was pressed in the steel and would have added a little strength.
Michael well done identifying all those pics Speaking of unfortunately named drivers, I wonder if anyone might have any period pics of Dick Seaman's little black Delage, so neatly hot rodded by ex Alfa chief mechanic Julio Ramponi when it was 10 years old. A string of wins late in 1936 in this car likely helped Seaman go on to become a Mercedes GP star the following year and until his tragic death while leading thet Belgian GP in 1939.
I have a question for the group. Does anyone have any information about IMCA driver Swan Peterson? Someone on the racing history group asked with no success,so I told him I`d try here.
Ehdubya, This was probably the best Delage ever, well, after Giulio Ramponi got to it. If he hadn't taken atleast 200lbs out of it and as you say, hotrodded what was by far the best racing engine of that time it would have ended up as just another outdated GP car. Here's some from the '36 JCC @ Donnington. That's Peter Whitehead in the ERA in front of Seaman in the first photo.
Thanks Kurtis,I`ll let the fellow know that. If anyone has any results from his career(Swan Peterson) or photos of him I`d very happy to pass the info on to the gentleman who needs the info. Tommy Milton and Midget racing great Ed Dutch Shaeffer also only had good vision in one eye,as well.
Buildy, The only other bit of onfo i have is his death in Davenport, Iowa. 1936?? and his marriage to Lillian Boyer who was a famous aeroplane stunt woman and wing walker. Found some results from Kansas over at Bob Lawrence's site. Just type in his name in the site map.
Kurtis; Bristol Conn. where the Houpt-Rockwell was made, is next door to my home town of Terryville. According to a book I have called New Departure Classics I have figured out the story. The Allen-Kingston which has a racing history in at least the 24HR races was built in Kingston NY by Walter C. Allen who was from Boston and had imported Mercedes there. The Allen-Kingston which was a fully developed Mercedes like car with the exception of shaft drive. It came to Bristol because Allen owed Rockwell who ran the New Departure Ball Bearing Co. a lot of money for all of the ball bearings he bought from them. In 1910 Rockwell took it over and basically changed the name to the Houpt-Rockwell after he was asked to produce cars by Harry S. Houpt, so that he could sell them in NY. At that point they already had their own taxi cab manufacturing company well established. It was and incredibly well built car that was designed by Allen-Kingston. They added a six cylinder and ceased operations in 1911 because the New-Departure board members decided not to pursue building cars. I included photos of the Houpt-Rockwell car because it was the Allen-Kington design which had been raced previously. I will let you fill us in on Allen-Kingston racing. The first photo shows a Houpt-Rockwell Raceabout. Center photo Allen-kingston top Houpt-Rockwell chassis bottom. Right hand photo Allen-Kingston engine, both were a very generous sized 5 1/2" x 5 3/4". Best, T-H
Thank you very Kindly,Kurtis. The Boyer connection is why the fellow is interested. He is a Boyer-no relation to Joe Boyer. Not sure if he is related to Lillian Boyer. Any info or photos of Lillian Boyer are needed as well.
T-Head, Thanks for the information. As i said i haven't delved too much into the history of all the companies involved, my primary objective was to trace the racing history of Willie Haupt and find a race car built by the Houpt connections. Having said that the Allen-Kingston involvement is something i didn't come across in my research. The Mercedes influence definately came from W.C. Allen's dealership and later Fred Moskovics who worked as a draftsman at Daimler and upon his return to the U.S. he was hired by Daimler-Mercedes to head the company's effort in the 1904 Vanderbilt Cup and as you know would later join the Allen-Kingston Motor Co. Apart from this and the De Palma involvement i haven't researched past the closure of the A-K Motor Co. That's a great photo showing the two identical chassis with different fuel tanks. As Batman Used to say.....
Somewhere I have seen a photo of an Allen-Kingston racing at one of the 24Hr Grinds which may have been at Brighton beach. I will be on the look out for it.
[/QUOTE] Here is the information from the log book, stacks of notes, and writings on the boxes of the Gallivan DOHC patterns. The first entry indicates that George Lyons purchased the patterns at a government auction of Jack Gallivan's assets. Jack must have messed up. George Lyons sent the patterns to Joe Jagersberger (the RAJO man) to convert the valve actuation to the cup rack system. Joe Lencki borrowed the patterns next. Next there is a reference to Slim Rutherford which I can't make out. George Lyons sold the patterns to Charlie Kozen. Don Lockwood bought the patterns from Charlie Kozen. Joe Gemsa borrowed the patterns and casted some T based heads and then converted the patterns to mount the head on the A/B block. He used cog belts to drive the A/B cams. The patterns then went to George Parker and they were reconfigured to the T block. The patterns then were sent to Chuck Davis and he made two samples. The next user was Russell Potter who "lost" the gear tower patterns. Tony Vershoore was the next to cast up some heads and remade the lost gear tower patterns. He returned the head patterns to Lockwood and sold the gear tower patterns to Dave Szumowski. I purchased The patterns from Don Lockwood in 2008 and some gear tower castings from Dave Szumowski. There are some excellent articles about the Gallivan heads and others on Northwest Vintage Speedsters web site, www.nwvs.org Go to the technical section, click on vintage Ford articles--by subject, then under RAJO click on RAJO DOHC or Speedsters-Fronty-Rajo. Since I am so computer limited, posting pictures is beyond my skill level and will have to wait until one of my daughters comes over to help me post. In the meantime you can go to my website, which my kids have created for me, to see pictures of some on topic racecars. Also check out the link to Gary Bridge and Iron at the bottom of my home page to see some dynamite iron. www.buymegivemetakeme.com
The Jalopy Journal
