Dear Mary,

 

Here are some notes about the second car I owned when I was a Teenager.

It was a 1933 Five Window Ford Coupe with a V 8 Motor and three speed manual transmission. It Moved!

Below are several pictures of '33 Five Window Ford Coupes that are similar to the one I owned. The red one has a blower on the motor, and my car did not have one. Instead, mine had a Stromberg 97 Carburetor. Like the red one, my car had no hood. But, instead of headers, my car had twin exhaust pipes. My car also had regular stock wheels instead of the mag wheels shown on the red Hot Rod. My car was painted black, like the one in the second picture. The car had five windows plus a windshield, thus the "Five Window" designation. 

 

 

 

 

With this car, I entered into the world of Hot Rods and became very interested in racing. At that time -- 1953 -- street racing was a major problem in Los Angeles, seriously frowned upon by local law enforcement, and many serious accidents were taking place due to racing on the city streets. The Culver City Police Department, together with a Journalist/Reporter by the name of Wally Parks, called a meeting for all the local car clubs at the Culver City Police Station. I, together with members of a car club I had joined, attended that meeting and collectively we thought that Wally Parks was putting out a lot of good ideas: Take the racing to a Quarter Mile Race Track, abandon the dangerous street racing, and get some formal recognition for racing successes at the officially recognized tracks. Wally Parks got some very good press from that meeting, and considerable thanks from the Police for being able to bring most of the Car Clubs in the area together for some rational thought. Wally Parks went on to found the National Hot Rod Association --NHRA -- and Hot Rod Magazine. By the way, a First Cousin of mine by the nickname of "Cooky" became the Culver City Chief of Police at a later date, to be known at Chief Cook. He was the Chief of Police for many, many years. He was the son of my Aunt Babe, one of my Father's Sisters. The Car Club I belonged to was the "Santa Monica Spooks", and the Logo on our jackets looked like Casper the Ghost with two wheels, smoking headers, an angry face, and lots of wheel spinning! The Logo would be frowned upon today...Lol!

It was one of my more likeable pieces of Art!

The Quarter Mile Track where we congregated for our racing efforts was the abandoned airfield at Saugus, just Northeast of Los Angeles (the Pasadena Drag Strip wasn't yet developed). On race days -- Sundays -- we

would drive or tow our cars to the Saugus strip, get them safety inspected, and line up for racing: usually two at a time, with lights and timers on the strip. Fast times in the various categories of race cars (motorcycles too!) and Hot Rods got good press for their efforts, and all the Car Clubs agreed that it was a good thing. Wally Parks prospered, and so did the Car Clubs.

On one of these Sundays, my Hot Rod was being towed to the races because it had been stripped of extra weight, and the tow bar came loose and rammed through the radiator on Highway 99, which is now I 5, just North of San Fernando Valley. We were almost at Saugus, so we decided to continue our trip and see if we could fix the car sufficiently to enable it to race. I inspected the radiator and determined it was a total loss. However, the radiator hoses were in good shape, and on that particular V 8 motor the hoses could be run from the outlet of the motor directly to the inlet, bypassing the radiator. Configured this way, the motor could race for a quarter mile and then be turned off before overheating or blowing the hoses off. The car raced well that day, and we saw many other racers doing the same thing on subsequent race days with their radiators removed to cut down on wind resistance.

On several occasions I missed a speed shift with that Ford 3 speed tranny, and when that happened the transmission cluster gear would disintegrate. 

That called for a trip to the local wrecking yard, where a good used three speed Ford transmission could be had for $10. The broken tranny would be taken out and thrown away, the "New" one put in during Sunday night, and the Hot Rod would be ready for School Monday morning. It was important to "Promenade" the cars back and forth in front of the school on Monday morning, so some of those Sunday nights were very late ones with lots of coffee.

I eventually ran out of money with which to keep the Hot Rod running.

It needed new tires, the seats were broken and shot, the suspension was very loose and needed replacing, and the motor was just about done for. I let the wrecking yard have it. I was without a car for a while, and then a friend borrowed an almost new Cashmere Sweater from me, and accidentally burned a big hole in the front of it with a cigarette. His Bad! He had a brother that was a car salesman, and he also had several cars -- one of which was a 1933 white Ford Victoria that he no longer wanted. He offered to give me this car in lieu of replacing the Cashmere Sweater he had ruined. I thought it was a pretty good deal, even if the Vicky was long in the tooth and had a lot of rattles. That's how I got my third car while I was a Teenager.