Every town had its John Milner

All of us who are up in years remember growing up and having that one guy in town who was our "hero" when it came to cars. I grew up outside Pittsburgh in an area called Belle Vernon and one of my heros was a man named John Holbrook. We were in our teens in the late 50's and early 60's and John was one of the "older guys", probably in his mid 30's and he had a car collection that we all drooled over.

There were other older guys who had some neat stuff, but John was different. He didn't treat us young punks like we were a pain in the butt, but actually let us hang around his garage and he treated us with respect and took the time to talk cars with us. He was genuinely a very nice guy.

He really didn't seem to be hung up on any particular brand of car, he had an Austin Healy roadster, a 35 Cadillac touring car, a 32-34 Ford pickup that was his daily driver, but the star of his collection was a 32 Ford roadster hot rod. I can still see it in my mind today. It was red, channeled, had motorcycle fenders, no hood, and ran a flathead with either 2 or 3 carbs. It was superior to any car I had seen before that time because of the workmanship, John was a machinist as I recall, and every aspect of the car was done perfectly, even down to the sills he formed when you opened the doors.

One thing I really liked about the car was the fact he had adapted a column shift to it, and he even kept that in it when he installed a 265 sbc in it in about 1961 or so. I was there the day he got the Chevy fired up for the first time and followed him as he made his first test drive. I can still see the car rocketing away from us in the chase car when he kicked it down.

After the 60's we moved around the country and I lost track of John but always wondered how he was, if he was still alive, and what happened to the 32. So yesterday I did some internet snooping and found his Sons phone number and called him this morning. I told him he wouldn't remember me, but he said "Sure I do, you had that bugeye Sprite with the 289 Ford in it !" (How do people have memories like that, I can't remember what I had for breakfast !) He told me his Dad is still alive and is 83, and STILL HAS THE 32 !!!!!!! It is buried in the basement and hasn't been driven since 1962.

I asked if he was ever going to do anything with it and he said yes, it is about time for him (the Son) to get it out and clean it up. He said Dennis Carpenter wanted it for his museum but they wouldn't sell. I told him to NEVER sell that car, it is a time capsule, and he agreed. I am trying to get some pictures of the car so I can post them here, but they are not computer saavy he says. He said they have some pictures of when the car was being built, and I would love to have them to share on here.

Finally, he gave me his Dads phone number and I called and spoke with him. He is a little hard of hearing, and it was the first time I have talked to him in about 50 years, but he remembered me and the gang I hung around with. Right now I am on cloud nine, knowing John is still with us and that his Son intends on keeping the 32, and the rest of the collection, intact. (He said his Pop never got rid of anything and has a zillion cars and parts buried in the basement and attached garage.)

I hope I can get some pictures, this 32 is exactly what the HAMB is all about and would fit in here very well. I'll keep trying to get them. Thanks for letting me tell this story.

Don

 

This is a piece of history, Thank you Don!

 

awesome story. my wife is from west newton (just a few miles away).

 

Thank you.... a great story.

 

good story, update when you get those pics!

 

Thanks for sharing! Nice story.

 

Cool story, I would want to go see him and his collection in person.

 

Cool Story- Thanks for sharing.
Awaiting the pictures There worth a thousand words ....

 

Thats a great story Don, I'm glad you managed to contact him.

 

Great story! Makes me want to meet the man!Maybe even give him a call!I bet he has some cool stories! The fact that he kept all that stuff all theses years is sooooo coool!!! I would love to see some pics of what he has stashed just because I am nosey...

 

I appreciate you guys letting me share this slice of my life with you. You have no idea how much it meant to me to actually get to speak with him and his Son after all these years, it was like I had gone back in time 50 years.

Words could never describe how cool his 32 is, it was a very nicely finished car for the time and place. Cars like his came from places like southern California, but not so much in the mill towns of Pa. It was one of those cars that you just stared at and wonder how a man's hands could form metal like that. Even the front motorcycle fenders (I think they were actually 36 Ford spare tire rings) had solid metal backs on them instead of just support rods. His metal finishing skills were extremely good.

But the best part about John was how much of a gentleman he is, and how he loved younger guys enough to put up with us hanging around. His Son recalled coming to my house to see my Sprite and said "I remember when you fired it up in the garage and it shook books off of the bookshelf !" I didn't even remember that story, but he did.

Scotty T, I used to hang out in West Newton. My Dad had a radiator shop there and I was there the day the trailer truck ran down the hill and wrecked into the train. That was not such a good day.

Don

 

Cool story Don! Hope you can get some pics of the deuce eventually!

 

Cool story, thanks for sharing with us! Hope to see pictures of the car, something like that is priceless.
Your story reminded me of a 55 or 56 Ford that belonged to the older brother of a friend of mine back in the early '60s in Spearfish, SD. The car was red, had a hot Y-block and 4 speed, chrome reverse wheels, no front bumper and was raised in the front gasser style. I always knew when he was coming home because the rumble of that cammed up Y-block was unmistakable. The guy didn't mind if we looked over the fender while he was running valves, tuning etc. I can still picture it in my head like it was yesterday.

 

belaire michigan had its own (milner) in the late 50's early 60's he ran a baby bird

with a Y block that basicly out ran all the flat heads in the area

my uncle got out of the navy in 1959 and bought him-self a 57 vette 283 power pack car
and turned it into a street racer in detroit after adding all the speed parts he could find for it
and switching the 3 speed out to a T10 4 speed
with gas at only 16 cents a gallon he wasnt worried about how much gas he went through to drive it to northern michigan to vacation with my grandparents for the fourth of july holiday
the story goes
he ran into town to get gas and ciggerattes and while filling the tank the local guy pulled up with his bird and told him ...
( I Eat Plastic Cars fo Breakfast)
so the challenge was made
they arranged to meet later to settle the bet , my uncle ran back to my grand parents place and gave the car the typical back yard tune up
pulled and cleaned and re gapped the plugs adjusted the points bumped up the timing
grabbed the fat jets out of the pill bottle in the glove box
and un corked the pipes
after dark he went bird hunting ( and was hoping the guy wouldnt show)

after the typical bullshit of who got the Leave, what was the starting /finnish line
the race was on at the end it was a total argument over who won beacuse they were dead even
and without electronic timing there was no way of knowing
so they decided to run again the second time around my uncle got the arm drop
and pulled him by a 1/2 car
and then it was 2 out of three challenge from the local guy
local guys clutch smoked on the third run and it was over
my uncle won a (carton) of ciggerettes
those were the days

 

Growing up in Sun Valley, CA in the 50s and 60s, we had an older guy, up the road from us, that we all admired for his cool stuff. Some guy named Norm Grabowski or something like that

 

I thought he only carved rocking horses.

Hope others have stories like this to share, it is part of our history.

Don

 

We too had a Milner in the 60's/early 70's named Wayne but everyone only referred to him as "knuckelhead". He was the true gearhead town resident that every car kid admired. He was always the go to guy to drive your car in a street grudge race, a designated driver at the time you could say. I actually won some money on a race once where he drove someone's Rambler Scrambler for them. Betting on knucklehead for the win was a sure thing for us guys. Now this thread has me wondering what became of him. I still have photos of that Scrambler he drove that nite.

 

Thanks for the story. Great to hear about a piece of local hot rodding history.

For me as a high schooler it was a guy named Bill (Chevelle) Bell. Bill had a 68 Chevelle with a cross-ram big block in it. The thing was legendary, and Bell was the one all of us went to with engine questions. He was only a few years older than me, but had everyone in town covered...

Speaking of covered, his mom was burning trash in their yard next to the Chevelle, which was under a car cover. The cover caught fire and the car burned to the ground.

 

Even Mayberry had its own.

 

every town had a couple of "hoods" hadn't heard that word in a long time

 

We had two. Kent Bowlin, who worked at the Esso station and had a beautiful '66 duece that he tweaked and tuned on all night between pumping gas and other duties. He held his own in several races I managed to attend, and was just damn impressive to watch. There wasn't much street racing in town, cops were dead on your ass. but just below the city limits between Vienna and Parkersburg there was a no-mans land that wasn't in either corporate limits, and by the time the Sheriff Dept got there the racing was long over and the cars gone. The other guy was Gary Pifer, I don't remember any one particular car being associated with him, seemed he ran something different every time. There was some conjecture as to where they all came from, but we didn't care. Now Gary was a wiz at tuning, especially the Mopar stuff. A Vienna PD Lieutenant told me the story of working midnights and things were slow so he cruised into the Union 76 where Gary worked to get a little tweaking done. They had the hood up and the distributor apart when some guy stopped in front of the station and checked to see if the car was actually down. Then he did this massive burnout and headed south for the city limits. Gary had the car back together and running in time for Paul to catch the guy two lights down, about nine blocks. I was too young to have a car then, but I sure spent a lot of late nights,(and early mornings), downtown. I just told Mom that I started my paper route early.

 

Great story Don!
From the other side of the world in these lands we have our John Milner, with Italian names ...Giovanni Or something like that.
Completely different cars... Here there were no hot rods ....but the car ran the same....


I am young but I can remember a man in my valley. He always had the best car Ferrari, Lancia used to run... all know and remember him, in the '70s with a Lancia Stratos .......

 

Don't know who owned the SC/Rambler, but I've owned two of them and there wasn't much around in '69 that could beat mine. Maybe it had something to do with the car. Would love to see pics of the one you're talking about.

We had a guy in my home town named Bruce that was our Milner. He was very mysterious about what he had in his Nova and always kept the hood chained shut, but was always cool to the young hot rodders. I went looking for him several years ago and found out he had been hit head on by a drunk driver coming home from work one night. Wish I had looked for him a little sooner.

 

We had a few spread over different era's. Doug Gosh with his 70' Olds Cutlass 455 with nitrous, Pinson brother's with their 55' Bel Air with a 468" BBC, one of the Duell brother's had a BBC powered 70" Nova with Firestone Wide Ovals on Anson slots.

 

Not sure if I'm breaking any rules about reposting but if I am, I apologize...I posted this on another thread awhile back yet I feel it reads better here....this one of many stories I have but I really believe this was the turning point in my life...:

I remember back in the day, one Saturday my pappy took me to Woodstock (Ontario, Canada) to get one of those prison haircuts I always dreaded. I was about 11 years old then, he parked his old Pontiac on the West end of Dundas street facing east and we got out crossing where there were no lights or crosswalk ..(nice safety lesson Pops!) We were back from about 50 feet from the intersection when we both heard this wild revving and chirping looking over to see a powder blue 57 Chev (with a diamond back window and straight axle) lining up with black and white (new) 68 Camaro.

Well, these 2 knuckleheads get on it as the light changed, to race to the next light, leaving about a hundred feet of scratch each. From where I was standing it was a real tight race and I'm pretty sure the 57 got him. I saw that 57 from time to time over the years, and I always wanted to thank him for getting me hooked on cars to this day..

 

ok , no offense intended ... i thought john milner was killed by a drunk driver . glad i am wrong ............. steve

 

The guys down at the Shell station in town. One named Olson an I can't remember the name of the other one. They always had some hot cars that they had built including a 55 Chev tudor with a 401 Buick nailhead set back 10% that may or may never have gotten finished after I got drafted. A bunch of us hung around there and they let us use the hoist in the evening when things were slow or let us use the manual tire changer. We got to slip out of town and watch more than one street race when someone with a hot car came to town and challenged them.
In fall of 1965 I started auto mechanics in Grandview Wa. The "Milner" there was none other than Bob Norwood who is now well known for his Ferrari shop in Dallas. In the mid 60's you could drop by Anderson Motors on a Sunday and find one or more WSP patrol cars would be in for the Norwood touch that usually merited 20 extra mph top end. He had a former cop car drag car named Rambunctious that he later setup with an altered wheelbase. About that time he also had a little T known as Insanity T that ran a 361 wedge with a Chrysler long ram crossram on it. His sidekick Jim Mathison who is still one of the best torqueflite men in the country had a quick early 60's six cylinder Mopar and would shoot the paint on your car for about 20 bucks if you had it all ready to paint and supplied the paint. First class paint too.

 

My hero, who is on this board, is Bottle Bob. In the San Fernando Valley, back in the '70's, he was the one to beat. Him and his '68 brown Corvette. We lost touch for over 30 years and reconnected again. We even met for dinner on a Friday at Bobs Big Boy in Toluca Lake, which is impressive, since he never goes out. Now he's into health and fitness. He won the Gold Medal at the Senior Fitness Games in Pasadena. 87 pushups at 66 years of age. Now he has me training for the Fitness Games next year.............

 

God bless the HAMB. You guys are capturing the HISTORY of early rodding which, then, was almost ALL about having the fastest machine around. Great thread!

 

2 cars come to mind that were the talk of the town back in the 70's, but i don't know who drove them: One was the infamous Green Gremlin with a Hemi that cruised hwy. 100 and a black '67 Camaro with the words "Night Stalker" painted on the quarter panels.