History Iconic Roadsters that set the bar for the rest of us

Quite a collection of great choices. With few exceptions they are absolutely timeless cars that you have to stop and think what decade they were built in.
Spencer's roadster has always been that car that just flat did it for me since I was a teenager. Norm's Kookie car is the one that corrupted me when I never missed 77 sunset strip in hopes of seeing it for maybe 30 seconds.
Like a number of other guys I studied most of Gray Baskerville's photos, read everything he wrote several times and followed his exploits with his 32.
I was at Pismo beach for Trog in 2016 and walking around on Friday taking photos of all the nifty stuff there and I walked around the corner and over here among the family cars, delivery trucks and real close to my rental car was this little full fendered orange 32 roadster with some prominent red oxide primer spots. Then it hit me like a sack of bricks, I was looking at Baskerville's roadster right there in front of me. Not power parked, no whooptedo, just parked over in the corner like other drivers minding it's own business.

While I was taking photos a couple about my age walked up and the guy had the same stop and stare thing going that I just had done. I don't think his lady quite understood why the two of us were so enamored with this beat up little old roadster when there were cars with 10 K paint jobs 150 ft away.

 

I know that most rodders refer to this humbly built 1932 Full Fendered Roadster as Gray’s but if you ever spent any time with Gray, he’d be the 1st to tell you that this will always be the “Paul Horning 1932 Full Fendered Roadster” as his Pal Paul and Ernie Murishige (M&V Automotive-Pasadena) built the roadster and when powered by an Olds and equipped with a gasser rake got Paul into all kinds of street racing trouble. When Paul past away due to a motorcycle accident (not his fault), The Roadster became just Ernie’s. He in turn knew that Gray would keep the memories of Paul with him. Paul had a young son and Gray made sure that he got an education.
Jim-present owner is its present caretaker and I think he refers to it as “Gray’s roadster” as he liked it so much that he had PC3g build a close relative to it but in a burgundy hue in the late 90’s. He in turn ended up with his cars inspiration after Gray’s passing. IMHO it will always be the “Paul Horning roadster” I’m Glad to say that Jim is a Outrider Brother.

 

HOW ABOUT A PICTURE OF THE EDDIE DYE ROADSTER ?

 

Boyce Asquith's deuce

 

I was thinking about that also. I remember when Wayne Y told me about it; he was sick to his stomach over it.

 

I was waiting for someone to post that shot of Boyce's 8 second street roadster. My favorite!

 

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/boyce-asquith-32-roadster.282142/

 

Another iconic hot rod that hasn't been posted. Dennis & Debbie Kyle's roadster.

 

Damn near every roadster in this pic is iconic. LA Roadsters.

 

The Dick Magoo roadster was cool back in the 80's!

 

Still is!

 

Dean
Many years ago at Pleasanton Boyce let me sit in his roadster as I was checking seat and column positioning for my build, it had a pretty trick home brewed tilt away column.
A long time favorite of mine too!

 

I’ve been on the hunt for this car for almost 40 years. It was well known in the car community where it made it’s presence known. No one has seen it since it left the last known host and the host is not friendly enough to toss a name my way.

Me thinks that a club member bought it from the club and it’s just hiding somewhere.

One thing is for sure....I’ve learned more about the past, and nothing about it since it was last seen.

It’s an obsession that will probably turn into a tribute build and as my luck would have it.....3 weeks after completion it will arise from the darkness.

 

My Dad's roadster is always my favorite, spent plenty of hrs playing and watching this car.

 

The car -- and color -- looks kinda like Ed Losinski's car, who ran with the Chrisman Brothers back in the '50s. Judging by the cowboy hats, though, I doubt that it was actually a West coast car.

 

It is a Chrisman car. Apparently he built a few for others in a very similar fashion. Was a feature car in January 1957 Hot Rod. He supposedly built it on spec for Wayne Reed, but I don’t think he ever took possession. It was a few tenths away from 140 in the quarter in 1956 according to the article. It was at the 58 nationals via home movies on YouTube and had a number 417, but I can’t find it registered in the printed NHRA Oklahoma program. Maybe they just made some test passes. The Chrisman’s took it with them when they went racing from 1956-1958. Fairly certain this was the #177 Bonneville roadster that was the companion to the 30 coupe. I think I have a picture of the Bonneville trophy at the uncles house for speed week accomplishments. The Coupe was sold and the Roadster disappeared from view when they exited land speed racing in 1954.

My dad and his two brothers bought the roadster between 1959 and 1960.The black cowboy hats were part of the mystique/attitude of my dad and his two brothers. They only wore them when they were racing the roadster. No one in the family remembers them having those hats. They wore white hats when spectating and more than likely used press credentials/signage to finagle their way into the racing events. They parked their rental van right next to the tower at Indy in 63 or 64 as seen in some of their home movie footage. They were characters and I would never have guessed they had a schtick going on with the black hats.

Chrisman had the 8 hilborn injectors perfectly tuned. The dad and the brothers never exceeded the m.p.h. Set by Chrisman even after they switched over to a supercharger because they kept leaning out or tipping the can too much and melting things with the injectors setup. They ran the car along the East coast and the Southeast and got as far as New York at some point. They sold the car to a local car club here in Georgia and they ran it as their club car for several years. When the tracks wouldn’t let it run until it was safety modernized they supposedly sold it to someone in Atlanta and supposedly it is still around here.

No one in the car community or the racing community ever saw it again. It was well known in titian red when the Lowe Brothers campaigned it. Car club changed the color, and they have never been very helpful. One of their members probably bought it. If they kept their meeting minutes, I’d join up just to poke around and see if I can have the rest of the story.

Here’s the last picture of it and a picture of the car when it was running on the salt. Funny, I know so much more about the car before my dad and his brothers owned it than after they owned it.



Creepers Car Club in Marietta, GA. Still active, but few that were around in the late 60’s/ early 70’s when they ran the car.



Squint your eyes a little and the core is there.....

 

I forgot to include the black hat color picture reference... Cover of Rods Illustrated June 1960 probably shot at what would become the Atlanta Speed Shop track in Covington, GA. There are only three known color still pictures when it was in drag trim, and they are in this thread. I’ve got some home movie color footage of it, but it needs to be consolidated into a single file to post.

I should write a book about this quest....

 

Funny, of all the trips we made to the salt, I don't remember running a roadster.
My brother's leathers from 1967.

 

Probably not. How do you pronounce Lowe? Like Lowe's home improvement centers I'll bet.
My Dad and his parents pronounced Lowe like Howe, but with an L.

 

Just like Lowe’s is pronounced. No relation to that family either. I did work at Home Depot number 2 in the 80’s though. For some reason I prefer Lowe’s.

I do have family out in the Idaho, Washington State, California, and Nevada area. They all moved from Atlanta. Those three Lowe brothers were the youngest and had 8 other siblings. The grandmother was a strong, yet tiny woman.

 

There are 3 of us Lowe brothers too. Dad was born in Colorado, and his parents moved the family to Lincoln, Nebraska when he was 6. First day at the new school he met the little girl that would someday be our Mom.

 

How now brown Lowe.

 

My Dad used to say that. How did some asshole Aussie know that?

 

Dean, maybe you should soften that up a bit, like using the term Aus-Hole. Sorry Tony, I couldn't resist.

 

He has called me worse than that.
But I still love him.

 

OK no one has said these .

 

Always thought this bucket was cool!

 

a “new” build compared to others.
I think this one helped folks appreciate or reminded them of past creations.