History Radical Ray Erickson

Ray, your car building skills are extraordinary.

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Ray: I put it to making model airplanes as a kid. My brain would just dive in there and say “The answer is . . . OK, let’s try that!” I keep talking to my brain and it helps me out.

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Next up on the Radical Ray tour is the Crosley-powered 3-wheeler.

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Ray: This is a Crosley-powered 3-wheeler I built in 1972. I rode it for eight years. Ray Farhner took it on his show tour for a couple seasons. Bill Bowman toured the East coast with it and had a write-up in CAR CRAFT magazine. Had a Crosley engine, Buick Opel 4 speed trans., and a rear-mounted Renault radiator. I made the fork, fork covers, headlight brackets, frame, body, tank, nacelle, and engraved scroll gauge panel. I adapted a Buick Opel 4-speed trans to the Crosley engine . No driveshaft, coupled the trans. direct to the Crosley rear end. Everything hand constructed. For the paint I used clear epoxy over coarse silver metalflake, with red and blue candy-apple trim design. It was sold here in the area a long time ago and I haven’t seen it since.


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Ray later added the storage "trunk" and painted it yellow.

 

Then there is the Crosley-powered lawn tractor.
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Ray: The tractor has a Crosley 4-cylinder, single-overhead cam engine, a 5:13 ratio Crosley differential. A 2-to-1 reduction gear box between the trans and the rear end. A lot of chromed parts, and a scroll engraved instrument panel dashboard. Blue metalflake and gold leaf scallops. Four chromed exhaust pipes, no mufflers. I showed it one time at "I-70" Odessa speedway. They had a country & western show and Hank Snow and Little Jimmie Dickens were there. I ran it back and forth in front of the bleachers at intermission. It tached out at 8000 rpm, that figured out about 50 MPH. I, of course, took off the belt to the 54" mower deck. It was one of the "12 Feature Vehicles " in the 1970 Oakland GRAND NATIONAL ROADSTER SHOW. With no mufflers it was loud as hell.<O</O

 

That is one amazing story and I want that mower. That is the coolest mower have ever seen. Hats off to Ray. Grand National Roadster show, no less.

 

Ray appreciates it, hotrod. Get this:

The GNRS trophy was awarded to Ray for “Special Feature”. Under “Roadster Show” it says “Coliseum”.
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Ray: The entrance to the gate was at the back of the building . . . and the guy, the manager of the show, they were inspecting each car as it came in, and they closed the gates while they’d inspect a car. In front of me was a guy from Texas in an A street rod, Model A and they wouldn’t let him in. And he said “What do you mean? I just came all the way from Dallas, Texas.” And they said “Well, buddy, it’s not Oakland Roadster Show quality.” He said “What the hell are you talking about? I just told you I drove here from Texas in the damn thing.” And they said “Well, that’s the deal, you’ve got to pass inspection at the gate.” Well, he burned out of there and I thought “Oh crap! I’m here with this stupid tractor.” Four straight pipes and even with the little motor it’s loud. I come pulling up to the gate and I hear somebody yell “Here he is!” And they just threw the gate open. “Follow me.” And he starts walking and I thought “Oh crap! He’s gonna stick me in a hole in a corner of the building.” And he said “This spot here.” Everybody’s looking while I’m making all this racket going through the show area and I thought “Oh shit, he’s gonna put me in a hole.” And I got all set up with my . . . I had a picket fence and artificial turf and fake snow on the plow and I got all set up and dusted off the thing. Looked around and here’s the turnstile where they take your ticket when you enter the show. The first machine you saw. Weird, man. Couldn’t believe it.<O</O

 

Ray still has the tractor, although it is in need of restoration.

 

Thanks Jason.

That's the one.

 

Ray’s current ride is a ’50 four door Packard that he chopped and channeled around 1990. He bought the car from a used car lot in 1987 for 100 bucks. He then bought a ’78 Mustang as a parts car. This is an early example of fitting the Mustang IFS geometry to rod building.

Ray: I junked it out, used the crossmember, reinforced the top, bottom, and sides and made my own frame rails .It took me four months. I engineered it, everything, and I don’t even know what I’m doing, I just copied what Ford did and it worked. I aligned it with stuff I got from Whitney, but that doesn’t mean it’s not dog-tracking. I took it to a professional shop, this guy does them all the time, and he’s looking at it before he checks my alignment and he says “Who did your front end?” And I said “I did.” And he says “Oh, you’ve built a bunch of those, huh?” I’d never built one in my life. He says “Damn! You got the castor right, it’s just the toe-in that’s off, you’d be dog-tracking.” You can’t really check that yourself.


Here's the Packard when Ray got it:


And during the build:

 

Here's the straight 8 . . . Ray has since changed out to a sbc.

 

Of course, Ray did some engraving for the Packard.

Ray: I engraved the dash on a sheet of brass I got out of our metal bin-- Engraved the scrolls & and Masked it off & etched the background down Below the scrolls , detailed it & buffed it-It originally said "LaHoya" In the top of panel--When I did the Packard dash I riveted another plate labeled PACKARD.over the LaHoya words.

 

Ray: At the" BACK TO KANSAS NHRA DRAGS"- in 1994, I had the good fortune to meet & talk a while to WALLY PARKS. What a gentleman and a nice guy. IT WAS A REALLY HOT DAY & he was doing just fine. He was 77 years old then.This event was held in Topeka , Kansas. He had come over to look at my PACKARD. COOL, HUH!!

 

Seems there's no end to the stories Ray has.

Ray:
A short story: In 1956, at one of our weekend dragmeets, I was standing in the staging area about 40 ft. back from the starting line, over near the left side, and I heard someone holler out “Hey RAY!” I looked at the cars lined up waiting to make a pass but I didn't recognize any of the cars. The voice called out again and then an arm came out the window of a new ‘56 Studebaker Golden Hawk. These had a 289 Stude engine and factory McCullough supercharger. I walked over there and it was a friend of mine. I said “Who’s car is that?”. He said “It’s mine.” I said “It’s brand new, why are you running it so soon, you don't want to hurt it racing, do you?” He said “Hell, it ain't gonna hurt it!” He said, “In fact, would you like to take it thru the quarter?” I said “HELL YES!!” He says, “Well, try not to take it over 5 grand, like you say, it is NEW.” Well, I pulled the 40 ft. up to the line and nailed it. DAMN, I went 1000 rpm over every shift, IT CAME UP SO FAST! It turned 96 M.P.H. in the quarter. How about that for a new stock factory built car? I was pretty impressed.
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More about Whistle Bait:

Ray: I frenched & pointed these headlights & taillights & side scoops & on quarter panels back when I did the chopped top. Also made dies & louvered roof. Jimmie (Jim Greene of Wild Child's fame) told me my chop on the '52 was The inspiration for him to build customs for a living. That was a nice compliment coming from him. I appreciated him telling me that.

 

More tractor:

 

Ray: This is me leaving for work during winter on my "Royal Enfield" motorcycle in 1947. I didn't have a car yet!

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" Not me" .I never lived in that state or had a professional shop ---WILD VEHICLES WERE JUST MY THING

 

Ray is responding to the booklet or poster or whatever it was that Little Wing posted. A different Ray Erickson.

 

Wow, I just realized that Ray lived around the corner from my grandparents and aunt & uncle (near Ray South). All those trips from Hickman Mills over to 83rd in the '60s and '70s and if I'd only looked right, I might've seen something way cool...missed opportunities...

 

Seems like we might need another visionary like him since they shut down KCIR.

 

Me three. That's one of the first, more radical, customs I remember seeing in the car mags when I was a kid. Too bad he never got mentioned in the build story, at least a tiny bit. I really enjoyed reading this article. Gary

 

The magazine did print a letter from a reader several issues later that pointed out that Ray was, in fact, the designer and builder of LaJoya. The editors issued an apology; however, like Ray says, a tiny fraction of the folks who saw the original article would have seen the letter. The letter was written by Ray's buddy Al Lawson.

 

Dude's kind of hard to miss in that Packard... especially with the Crossley Tractor on a trailer behind it and all! LOL!

I remember seeing him at Greasarama one year. I saw the Packard, pointed, and actually exclaimed, "Holy shit - it's Radical Ray!" and came on over.

It would be pretty awesome to get Ray on video doing his thing, telling stories, helping on a build, etc. The stories could be YouTubed and put up here every so often. Hell, maybe get enough stuff, and you could slap together a documentary. Even if your footage is crap, you can put the audio over a still picture, Ken Burns style!

~Jason

 

That is an excellent idea. I am not a good candidate for media-creation, but maybe somebody could volunteer. God knows Ray could fill a book.

 

Here's Ray and some of his current car club buddies, The Misfits. Ray is second from left.



And here's Ray holding some sexy trophy:

 

I'm afraid that some of Ray's fantastic hot rod history is being overlooked here, probably mostly due to the fact that I let nearly a year go by with no postings. This thread never reached its potential due to my gross negligence. For that, I am truly sorry.

So, I am going to re-post one or two things that were in Ryan's original Jalopy Journal post. Hope I'm not overstepping my bounds here, I just want as many of you hoodlums as possible to see this.

This is about as cool as it gets . . . Ray is one of the original generation hot rodders and customizers.

Ray’s car club, the KCTA, lent its incorporated name to the new organization set up in 1955 to help organize the local hot rodders and help get the racing off the streets and onto the strip. Ray’s club then changed their name to the Cranktwisters.

Here's a photo of some of their rods from back in the day;

 

This is a great thread !!