I do not remember hearing his name before. He must have been a well-kept secret on the west coast. In 1958 I started getting my Hot Rod subscription. Then I bought Honk, Car Craft and most any car magazine the news stand carried. I bought my first 32 five window coupe when I was 13. I thought I knew most of the car guys back then. Must be my old memory might not be so good these days. Sure, have been enjoying your articles though. Must be a hoot to go through this stuff you brought home. Looking forward to more.
Thank you @Ryan! These pics are absolute treasures. It's been mentioned by several others: Somewhere down the road we would love to see a well-curated printed volume make an appearance. What say you?
"We Did it for Love" (to borrow a phrase from that drag history website) is all of could think of as I looked through the pictures. No big trailers, sponsorships, and adulating crowds just the raw pursuit of speed for the pure exhilaration!
While the magazines chased chrome and the spotlight fawned over bark louder than bite, Tom Cobbs was deep in the trenches, building real horsepower in the shadows. He wasn’t just bolting blowers onto flatheads and hoping for the best… he was decoding them, dissecting how they breathed, how they lived, and how to push them harder without snapping the whole mess in half. On top of that, He also teamed up with Stu Hilborn in the primordial soup of fuel injection, long before it became a buzzword or a decal on a valve cover. Publicity? Branding? Tom never really messed with any of that. But dig beneath the surface and his fingerprints are everywhere… on the motors that mattered and the ones that rewrote what we thought was possible in the late ‘40s and ‘50s. If you study hot rodding casually, his name flickers in the margins… he lost to Vic & Fran in the first organized drag race, he wrenched for Alex Xydias, he made the Pierson Brothers Coupe scream, etc… But if you dig, really dig, through the fossil record of American speed, you’ll start to see it: Tom Cobbs was, without question, one of the top 5 most important people in the history of hot rodding.
The mission’s simple - get the photos out into the world. No gatekeeping, no golden keys, no smug bastards hoarding history for clout. I don’t want to “own” these images any more than I want someone owning the sound of a flathead at full tilt. History’s meant to be studied, shared, devoured. And education? That ought to come cheap or not cost a damned thing at all. So I’m unpacking this archive in real time, frame by frame. You see the shots a day after I do. No watermarks, no flexing, no ego. Just raw history… Rough. Unedited. As for a book… I don’t know. Maybe, if I could find a way to let the images speak without my words stepping all over them. But that’s always the trick… my writing tends to barrel in and muddy the water. And sometimes, the photos don’t need narration. They just need light. And doing a photo book doesn’t sound interesting to me really. At least not right now.
Even if a photo book never happens, being able to easily find all of these post in one place would be a cool way to look back through the complete archive once they are all posted. I was talking with a friend this past weekend about the first Bonneville post with Mickey Thompson and Challenger I and forgot it's just titled "Trip No. 3" when trying to just search Tom Cobbs. I'd rather dig for these photos than never have seen them, but just throwing out ideas. Keep the archive coming Ryan, it doesn't go unappreciated.
I’m glad to see your comments on Tom Cobbs, @Ryan , I’ve been wondering just what the man looked like. IDK if I’ve even seen a photo including him and also I keep looking at this photo- Is the gentleman on the right Don Francisco one of the great former tech editors in the early days of HRM?
I have plans to build a database that essentially makes all the archives I host available in hires… for free… so long as they aren’t used commercially.
I think it is… but hell, I’m the last guy you wanna ask. I’ve got a busted radar when it comes to faces… some kind of low-grade facial amnesia. Everyone looks familiar, and no one does.
Good god man… I just cracked open the next directory in preparation for Wednesday’s feature. Tom borrowed the So-Cal coupe in 1953 for Bonneville and smashed the C-Class record. Three years later, he took the Pierson Brothers coupe (now his) to Bonneville and smashed more records. He took a roll of film of each… and apparently, stored them together.
There are some 1958 cars in the photos. I'm wagering El Mirage for the lakes shots and the back straight drag strip at Riverside Raceway - opened 1957. No runways have berms beside them and the area around March is very flat. article on the runs: https://www.hotrod.com/features/world-record-for-rodders-april-1958-982-524-16-1
Umm, wow! Tell us how you really feel only reason I slapped watermarks on images was because when I first started sharing photos without watermarks other people started offering prints of those images on ebay. Definitely should have built a '32 instead of wasting money on photos and period literature. That out of the way Thank You for sharing the treasure trove of photos that is the Tom Cobbs Archive, they are amazing! So again Thank you! Great to see so many photos of the Freudiger Spl. T roadster Guy with Tom in the Dyno photos is Don Francisco, Don wrote one of the first 'How To' books on the SBC "HOW TO MODIFY CHEVY V8 ENGINES" I recently purchased a copy and just waiting to receive 425D is the Summer Bros. record setting T rear modified roadster, another car where very few good photos exists. So is awesome to see it & in colour
Tom had a lot of help from big names in racing. Stu Hilborn was one of the main contributors to the fuel distribution dept. Jack Engle was responsible for designing Tom’s blower cams. Claude Hampson was the sheet metal guru from Kurtis Kraft. The nose on the Freudiger Special is from the Kurtis Novi buck. Tom made everything. I have boxes of his manuals, tool catalogs, spring supply companies from all over so he could get the size and tension for his blow off plates. Tom needs to be studied and examined by all of us. Tom was part of the So Cal Speed Division. Fox - Cobbs - Sturdy - Batchelor - Xydias
That’s exactly where I land... Slapping a watermark on a photo I didn’t shoot feels like straight-up bullshit. Doesn’t mean I’m out here judging folks who do it. At the end of the day, it’s their call and their business. But for me, the only photos I own are the ones I took with my own eyes, hands, and camera. Everything else? I’m just passing along the history, not branding it. What I’m really crossing my fingers for is that this archive eventually drags us into the early days with Stu. I’ve got a hunch that the dyno we’ve already seen in a few shots - the one bolted down in that no-nonsense corner of the shop was originally Stu’s. I’ve been told that Tom bought it in 1950 or ‘51. And hell, we haven’t even caught a glimpse of cars like the ’36 that Buddy Fox and Tom pieced together. That’s gotta be in here somewhere, right? You’ve seen this archive… don’t ruin it for me. Let the chaos unfold on its own.
The missing pieces of So Cal Speed Shop. The Pierson Coupe and So Cal double duty coupe. The archive is mind blowing! Thanks again Ryan!
I know, been somewhat sarcastic . The irony is I agree with what you say but perspective and experience have us on opposite poles, I wish I hadn't had to watermark the photos, negatives, slides in my possession but for a few fuckwits it became necessary, it sucks balls, these days I quite frankly don't give a fuck, a large part why I am no longer actively seeking out vintage photos. Mate, if you don't do a book on Tom I will be fk'n pissed, you have the ability and Tom's story should be celebrated and TOLD! I want to be able to grab that book off my bookcase like Isky, Chrisman, Harry Miller, So-Cal, Kurtis, Harrell, Riley books, don't doubt, it has an audience. These images are a large part of the story and you are right don't need explanation, just basic where, when.
The Jalopy Journal
