Alizium Auto Blogs: racing

Показаны сообщения с ярлыком racing. Показать все сообщения

Frank Kurtis’s shops in and around L.A., an incomplete list

While researching Frank Kurtis’s life for an upcoming Hot Rod Hero article in Hemmings Muscle Machines, Donnelly lent me Gordon Eliot White’s book, “Kurtis-Kraft: Masterworks of Speed and Style,” which detailed Kurtis’s life and achievements. Of course, what interested me quite a bit were the various locations mentioned in the book: Kurtis worked out of no less than seven locations when working on his own, and White included the addresses for several of those locations, making it simple to seek those locations out on Google Maps. So let’s begin.

Kurtis’s family moved to Los Angeles in 1921, and he worked for Don Lee Coach Works for his first several years in California, then set up his first shop in 1929, in the alley behind McKenzie’s Garage at 6516 S. San Pedro Street. The map above, which White provided on the endpapers of the book, shows 6516 as the fifth of six lots on that block. From the looks of the area today, it appears the lot that McKenzie’s Garage sat on has been replaced with a giant parking lot, and 66th Street on that side of San Pedro has been eliminated altogether.

That venture lasted only six months, after which Kurtis retreated to the garage attached to his house at 236 73rd Street. Unfortunately, White didn’t indicate whether that was East 73rd or West 73rd. The former is still residential, but the addresses there seem to skip from 234 to 238. The latter is also still residential, with an actual 236 address, and seems to have garages and alleyways behind the houses large enough to support a small repair business.

6215 S. San Pedro St., LA

Don Lee lured Kurtis back later in the 1930s, and Kurtis also worked briefly for Hollywood Trailer Corp., Dutch Darrin and Joel Thorne, but then in 1938, he struck out on his own again, this time setting up shop in a top shop (possibly Pioneer Auto Tops, judging from the photo?) at 6215 S. San Pedro Street (the lead photo was taken inside that location). That location definitely still exists today, though slightly altered, as Mendoza’s Pressing (what’s written on the building) or Mario’s Professional Garments (the business name Google attached to the address).

Kurtis then went back to Thorne’s shop, and then during World War II ran his own shop on Brand Boulevard in Glendale (White gave no street address). He laid out his plans for the post-war midget at the Tam O’Shanter Inn, then toward the end of the war bought a shop at 1107 E. Colorado Boulevard in Glendale.

Whatever building was at that location appears to have since been demolished to make way for a Taco Bell and a gas station.

The post-war midget proved popular enough to warrant a new location in mid-1946, when Kurtis moved to 4625 N. Alger Street, right by the South Pacific railroad tracks. Another map that White provided shows two connected buildings on the east side of Alger between Sequoia and Baywood, and the two buildings currently at that location certainly look to fit the profiles in the map. Rex Dean, the guy behind VukovichAccident.com, also believes those are the same buildings:

The original building is still pretty much intact. Please note that the address on the buildings do not match the original addresses. There are two similar looking buildings. We believe that Kurtis occupied both these buildings. The temporary structure between the buildings has been added since 1955. Originally the “alley” continued until the railroad tracks. The picture of Vuky’s wrecked car being unloaded at the shop was in the wider of the two openings — the one between the two pink buildings. There is work going on in the buildings so please be aware of that and people may not have time or desire to show your through. If you can get in it would be worth it as you can still feel the vibes from the Roadsters being built in there. It is incredibly fragile to think that practically the entire field of the Indianapolis 500 was constructed in this building.

According to Google, Columbia Fabricating Co. and Tajima Corporation USA currently occupy that location.

After the McCullough fiasco in 1956, Kurtis moved to what White only described as “Earl Farrand’s old Indian motorcycle shop on Colorado Boulevard.” Some cursory searching turns up Farrad’s name, but no street address for his shop. Dean reports the address as 525 W. Colorado Boulevard and claims that some of the building still stands, but Google Maps shows the address as either a bridge parallel to the Ventura Freeway or a residential neighborhood.

Kurtis spent his remaining active years at that location and handed off the shop to his son, Arlen, who in 1977 moved the company to 3951 S. H Street in Bakersfield, where Arlen continues to operate the shop, building limited runs of midgets and Kurtis sports cars and restoring older Kurtis products.

Show-Me superstars

Kansas City’s famous for steaks, the Royals upending St. Louis in the 1985 World Series thanks to George Brett and Bret Saberhagen, and for short-track auto racing. Some of the participants at old K.C. bullrings went on to achieve influence in the sport far beyond your local roots. For example, if you have Weld wheels on your car, or a set of performance heads that were CNC-ported, both those stories begin right here, in “Up on the Wheel,” Bud Hunnicutt’s admirable hardcover history of early racing in Kansas City.

wheel 1.jpg

Hunnicutt raced successfully himself in cut-down Supermodifieds at Olympic Stadium. In 156 well-illustrated pages, he tells an entertaining story that tracks its way from the 1950s to the present day. The stars here are the Weld family, of driving fame and boundless innovation, but there’s considerably more, too. Terry Bivins came from Kansas City to be a NASCAR Winston Cup rookie of the year in the mid-1970s. He’s back home, still racing. The book is $50, including postage, from Bud Hunnicutt, 102 North Darrowby Drive, Raymore, Missouri 64083.

Raging Bulls: Super Trofeo Series at Adria Raceway!

There’s no narration on this clip, but if you’re anything like me, you won’t care. The shots of these weapons-grade Lambos battling at Italy’s Adria Raceway—and the sound of their engines!—is more than enough for me. Thanks to Lamborghini München for uploading this uber-sexy footage, and congrats on the hat trick finish! Viva la Super Trofeo Series!

Innovations In LeMons Penalties: McCain's Uphill Slog, Obama's Change We Can Believe In [24 Hours Of Lemons]

We thought of a bunch of new penalties for the 24 Hours Of LeMons Texas, and the zero-tolerance attitude of the black-flag crew meant that we needed every one of them. Because we're in election season, it seemed like our patriotic duty to provide punishments based on the presidential candidates. Hey, we even included Hillary Clinton, so her supporters wouldn't feel left out! Make the jump to see how the McCain, Obama, and Clinton penalties worked out in practice.

First up was the McCain Uphill Slog Penalty. John McCain has done plenty of struggling in his life, and trudging to the top of the very tall mountain that is the United States Presidency is tough enough under any circumstances… but what about when you're dragging the dead weight of an unpopular lame-duck administration, during tough economic times, and most of your own party hates you? What's that like? Well, we figure it probably feels similar to donning a rubber McCain mask and pushing a Ford Taurus SHO with seven burly guys sitting on it the length of the pit road in the muggy petro-enhanced Houston air… so that's what we had this miscreant do after he did Badness on the track. Bet he thinks twice before trading paint with a CRX at the next race!

The jeering crowds liked that so much that we figured we'd McCain-ize the next driver black-flagged in for too much aggro on the track. It's a lot easier when the car is a BMW 2002 and your team only has four members, so we had the Loverman add his weight to the load. Man, that McCain mask gets sweaty fast!

Then there's Barack Obama, who promises change and plenty of it. You know what, though- change can often be painful, hard work, and it can force you to throw away a lot of sweat you've already invested! That's why we figured the Obama Change You Can Believe In Penalty had to be hard mental and physical work that undid a lot of the team's previous efforts. The way it works goes like this: we give the team members spray paint, tagger-grade fat permanent markers, colored tape, etc., and the team needs to completely change their car's theme before we'll let them continue racing. Not only that, we have to believe in the change, so half-assed efforts get sent back to the penalty box for more work.

By far the most impressive Change We Can Believe In victims were the guys on the Svedish Slaabs Saab 900 Turbo team. Their original theme was a sort of IKEA-meatball-style mishmash of Swedish Chef and ABBA iconography, but they managed to change their car to the Exxon Valdez in about six minutes flat.

Got to admit, we were freakin' awed by their accomplishment (which stood in stark contrast to their typical LeMons Saab on-track performance, which generally involves completing less than 20 laps and then nuking the engine). "Dancing Queen" became "Leaky Queen," for starters.

The Swedish Chef doll became Captain Hazelwood, complete with beer cans ziptied to his body. We liked this accomplishment so much that we gave the Slaabs our created-on-the-spot Judges' Choice Award (12-pack of Shiner Bock) after the race.

Other teams didn't quite measure up to the incredibly high bar set by the Svedish Slaabs; the Enginerds went for a "We're Sorry" theme, apparently figuring we'd stop punishing them if they showed remorse.

When they beat the shit out of their formerly-dent-free car with hammers, their new theme became "Sorry Piece Of Crap," and we let them back on the track.

Then we had the über-recidivist Unintended Acceleration Audi team. The kind of Audi you can get for 500 bucks is almost invariably gonna be one evil-handling beast in a LeMons race, and this one was no exception; we hit these guys with every penalty we had (though they successfully pleaded their way out of the metal-shavings-in-the-crankcase one), but every time we turned around they'd be back in the penalty area with sheepish looks on their faces after spinning out and/or hitting something… again.

By that time we'd used up most of the spray paint turning Neons into Civics and Mustangs into Camaros, so these guys were limited to white appliance paint and red duct tape for their Change We Can Believe In penalty. They opted to make the move from "Unintended Acceleration" to "Peace And Love," complete with hearts and peace signs in white and red. Even though they were spending most of their time in the Crime Scene impound yard by this point in the race, they were still driven mad by race fever and threw on the new theme in record time; they managed a very respectable 25th place and a pretty good 1:21.105 best lap time.

We also had a Hillary Clinton mask and a couple of genuine Hillary signs picked up by a friend who was on the floor at the Democratic National Convention, so we figured we'd do a Hillary punishment as well. To symbolize the broken dreams of Clinton supporters, we taped the posters to the car and had the miscreant (in this case, one of the Punisher Racing Caprice drivers) put on the Hillary mask and sit, disrespected and forgotten, at the judges' table for 30 minutes.

Hillary haters- no shortage of them in Texas- got a big kick out of the "Hillary: To Enslave And Torture" logos on the Punisher's new/improved door emblems.

SIA Flashback - Mopar’s Winged Wonders

cominatcha!

While it seems perfectly normal for a collector car magazine to feature the Daytona and Superbird nowadays, it must have seemed a little jarring to readers to crack open SIA #45, May-June 1978, and find an article by Richard Langworth discussing eight- and nine-year-old cars. It’d be akin to putting a 2000 model year vehicle in HCC. Yet a club had already formed (the Daytona and Superbird Owners Association), and all of the people involved in producing and racing the cars were still alive and available for Langworth to interview, thus an article that un-self-consciously looked at a relatively late model car as a collectible.

The Top 70 Lemons Of The 24 Hours Of LeMons Texas [24 Hours Of Lemons]

The Yeehaw It's Texas 24 Hours Of LeMons was a roaring success, with high speeds on the track, heroics in the pits, and Texas justice in the penalty area. We had everything from a Baja Bug to a Lexus LS400 on the track, and you'll see 'em all here; even the Supra that blew its engine 10 seconds before the green flag dropped makes this comprehensive list of the Top Lemons Of LeMons Texas! Make the jump to see this fine collection of racing machinery; if this isn't enough LeMons for you, check out the top cars from Toledo '08, New England '08, South '08, Altamont '08, Thunderhill '07, and Altamont '07.

We'll have more LeMons Texas posts for you during the week, including an in-depth look at some of the new punishments we've devised for on-track miscreants (e.g., the John McCain Uphill Battle Penalty and the Barack Obama Change We Can Believe In Penalty, among many others). Once we've gathered sufficient team-provided photos and videos, we'll put up the Yeehaw It's Texas LeMons Über Gallery.