Novel-T in March '67 R&C?

Does anyone have a March '67 R&C? Is Dick Knutson's Novel-T featured? Can someone scan the article and post it? Thanks.

 

gonna give this a bump.

 

Sorry can't help with the R&C article. I bought the Novel T at the 1966 Winternationals car show. Redid the car a couple of times and showed and drove it alot.

It was named as one of the 10 best rods of 1967 by Car Craft magazine and showed Dick as still the owner. It was featured in several magzines after I had redone the car as well.

I think I sold it in 1973 to guy who immediately wrecked the car and I have heard that a dentist in S.L.C. has had it since buying it in the mid 70's.

If I can help with anything else let me know.

Mick

 

Do you have any photos I may not have seen?

 

hey i found this in the pile of old mags i have. its from Car Craft, january of 1968.

 

^^Thanks Joe! Any more photos? Anyone? Lurker Mike, do you remember what the wheelbase was? Cant see in the above photos, was it coil-over, coil spring, or transverse leaf in back? Interesting to know the car was built from a steel body.

 

George, i would have to do some digging but, i swear i have another full article on this car some where in my pile of old shit! being a mid to late 60s t bucket freak i bought every mag that had cool cars in them from swap meets. I think the car had a coil spring rear setup from what i remember reading about it, kind of reminded me of how my car is setup with coil springs on top the housing and canted shocks out back. i could be totally wrong and be thinking of a different car..... if i find the article i will post it for you.

 

Ha, yes, you, me and Chip (needslouvers) are members of a pretty exclusive club.

 

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, trying to get my coupe ready for the CHRR.

Don't believe everything you read in the magazines, the Novel-T was a fiberglass body set on a double tube chassis, suicide front, four bar setup, transverse rear spring and short tube shocks. The glass gas tank took what little pickup bed there was and was formed around the rear crossmember and T spring.

The engine was a 292 c.i. small block, and the blower was fake with a 2-barrel inside the hollowed out case, trans was a 4-speed and the rear was a 57 chevrolet.

the first picture is the day I bought it at the show, and the next is the way it looked just before I sold it. The last is a picture of the one-wheel trailer I built so we could drive it to the first "Sun, Sin & Tin" run in Las Vegas in 1970. Remember Hot Pants suits and Go-Go boots?

Mick

 

Thanks for the follow up Mick. I see you put the ram log back on. Neat background info on one of my favorite T buckets from that era.

 

Sent you a PM

 

well i was off base in thinking it was a coil spring rear! must be a different car i read about in a old mag. So mick my above pic post was from jan of 68 car craft, at that point you owned the car. I also have a rod and custom from 67 that has a bunch of hot rods on the cover that were owned by members of the early time car club, and the Novel-t was in the lower left side in front. was it you in the drivers seat? ill have to try to scan the cover when i get home later...

 

george! cool thead you started here, i have often wondered what the story was behind this car.... thanks!

 

Paramount, CA



That was shot on Minnesota Ave., just off of Alondra. One of the Early Times members owned the building to the right. That's where they held the weekly meetings after they left Dana Chevrolet's offices in need of more space.
Way in the back is the blue Vicky owned by the late Don Thelan...Lincoln powered.
Up front, the red t-bucket is Dan Woods, of "Milk Truck" fame...powered by an all aluminum F-85 V-8,...one of the few t-buckets that were actually legal in California to run without fenders.
Bob Darrah's red, deuce, front row...Bob was the club President. That car was on the cover of Popular Hot Rodding a few years earlier.
On the far right, front row, is Roger Brinkley's deuce sedan.
Third row on the far left is Bob Witt's t-bucket. Bob had everything brass plated instead of chromed. He got a Model A roadster shortly after this photo was taken and crashed it when we were all in Eugene, Oregon in October, 1967 to put our cars in a three day show. He was banged up and the car was trailered home.
In the second row, dead center is Tom Booth's gold t-bucket, a real piece of jewelry. His brother, Bill, is on the far right in the red sedan.
Top row, on the far right is Dick Rundell's touring car wit the black top...a Hot Rod Magazine cover car...ran Hilborns on the street.
In the middle is the orange Fiat powered by a Cadillac owned by Leroy Smith. The car vanished years later and in 1998, he built a clone of it. His son, Mike Smith, owns California Hot Rods in Sonora.
I had a lot of fun with these guys. Drank my first beer with them when I was 17.
Great folks. Jim "Jake" Jacobs and Dan Woods had worked with Ed Roth a few years earlier.
After each meeting, there would be a leader selected to lead the cruise to some drive-in restaurant somewhere. The unwritten rule was that you "had" to follow the leader. If he decided to drive down the siewalk, everybody drove down the sidewalk.
There's a story for another day about a bunch of people waiting at an all-night fried chicken joint that were all waiting on the sidewalk for their orders to be done.
And here we came...right down the sidewalk...about 12 hot rods....man, there were people running everywhere.
And there were many other "episodes".....too many to list....someday I'll write it all down...

 

Joe, yes I owned the car in 1968 so those were not current photos. Magazine lead time I suppose. That is Dick in the Early Times photos.

If there is any interest i could scan a couple of the magazine articles after I owned and redid the car.

Mick

 

mazooma, yes thats the cover!

Mick, yeah i would like to see what ever you wish to share, i just love learning the history of these old rods.

 

Gotta be one of the best covers of all time. I remember when it first hit the newstands, I was just a kid, but I sure had a thing for T-buckets. Some real famous cars in that shot. Always loved the Model A RP and '27 T roadster in the second row as well. Dig the black tudor with the cobwebbed gold fenders as well. I bet theres a higher percentage of Hot Rod/R&C feature cars in one place than any other group photo in the history of hot rodding.

 

I just added some remembered "background" of these cars in my original post...#14....if anyone is interested in the other cars, go back to #14

I shot this photo when I was 15...1966 at the "Great Western Exhibit Center" in East L.A.-Huntington Park. The "Early Times" cars were all displayed with a funeral sort of scene. The cars had the "funeral" sign in the windshields and the "show cards" were made up to look like tombstones...

 

Mazooma, I must have been off a year on when I purchased the car. If you are sure you shot that photo in 1966, then It must have been at the 67 Winternationals when I bought it. Man, the memory is the second thing that goes!

Mick

 

Hold the phone....I just looked at some old pics and the "funeral theme" was carried over two years....so that means that photo of the T in question could either be 1966 or 1967...
I have a photo of my 1930 Ford panel delivery lined up with the "Early Times" club in that same show in April of 1967.
But, in 1966, the ET club did have the funeral theme, too.
OK...I'm going downstairs...I have the car show program from 1967...let me see if it says anything in there about the T.
Stand by..........

 

Oh...and remember the NHRA has held the drag races and car show known as the "Winternationals" since 1961, but the car show only remained through 1966. The term "show and go" referred to the races and the show.
Sadly, the car show "Winternationals" event didn't happen in 1967.

 

The top with the Maltese Cross is the 2nd top. The original was lost coming back from the Portland Rdtsr Show. I was in the same class with Dick ( Poopsie ) in Eugene, Or and helped him with a few things on the car during the build. I left for Wa and he moved to Cal. That would have been in the early part of 66 ................ I think ....... lol. I tried to track him down a few yrs back and as near as I can tell, he's a goner. He was down as "missing" at the '62 reunion this yr.
If anyone knows what happened to him, I'd sure like to know.

 

Well, I wish the 60's weren't such a blurr, or I had a better memory.

I guess it really doesn't matter, and I've completely hi-jacked Falcongeorges thread, but I really did own the car......Honest, I did.....

Mick

 

Here's the program of the show in 1967.






that my panel...second photo from the top...



two months later was when I took the trip to St. Lois that was featured in the Jalopy Journal book released a few months ago in a story titled "Broken Tailbone".
And four months later, in October of '67, I went with the "Early Times" for a show in Oregon.
That was my senior year in high school.

 

I remember Tom Booths "Torsion T" being on the cover of Car Craft one month, and getting a feature the following month. Very trick car, very nicely detailed.
Brinkleys sedan got a 1 pg B&W in Hot Rod in IIRC, '67? I also have the Hot Rod with Rundells touring on the cover, and the issue where the Fiat was featured. I grew up looking at these cars in magazines. Doug, if you write a book, I'm calling dibs on an autographed copy now.
lurker mick, thats fine, keep it coming, it all relates. Man, when I gave this bump, I kinda thought this was gonna just drop to the bottom without anyone even taking notice, and its already on the second page! Lotsa good stuff here.

 

Doug, thanks for posting that program. Thats only the second photo I have seen of the Truman Jensen PU, the cover shot being the first.

 

The Fiat was built, not far from where I lived with my parents. Leroy's folks and my family were both in Arcadia, CA. Leroy was dating the girl next door and everytime I was in our backyard working on stuff, he's come over to help.
It didn't go over real well with Donna, who either woldn't get her boyfriend back for an hour or he'd take her out with grease all over his dress shirt.
I had a stock Anglia and a Crosley powered "dragster" and he'd always come over instead of being with her.
He was building the Fiat at that time and he's drag me around when he was running errands because I couldn't drive yet.
Yeah....I was there when it first hit the road. I was right behind him when he got into a crash in it when he turned left in front of a car on Pacific Coast Highway. And I was there when we drove the rebuilt Fiat to Oregon with the Early Times when I just turned 17.
He's still a close friend. Now he's maintaining steam locomotives in Nevada.

Here we were at a club reunion in 2004

 

^^Last night, I was looking at this and my 4 yr old daughter climbed in my lap. She likes hot rods, and is wild with enthusiasm about our Model T project. She took one look at the Fiat, and said "scary, daddy". Cracked me up.

 

Hey Zooma! Nice lookin '30 panel as we call 'em.

 

Very cool thread!