Hollywood straight through mufflers were very popular in the East from the 1940s and 1950s. Although, most of them were packed with steel shavings over an open pipe with vented louvers and end piece sound chambers. Every rodder was searching for the perfect exhaust sound. The muffler that I chose for my flat head fords and Mercury were the Steel Packed Smithy which we always called "Smittys". The sound was of a deep mellow tone but a throbbing sound that was almost hypnotic. I have bought and installed the newer Smithy Gl*** Packed mufflers but they are not the same. I decided to build my dream car and started the project in 1980 finally finishing in 2011. This car was built as a 1950s, 1960 Channeled 1932 For Roadster. All parts were pure vintage or manufactured to duplicate vintage. The drive train was modified Packard V-8, with standard 3 speed and overdrive. Naturally I needed a pair of Smithy steel packed mufflers. I started with two Smithy Gl*** packed mufflers, bisected them , removed the fibergl*** and packed the mufflers with copper/nickel shavings in order to remove any chance of shaving rust. The mufflers were welded back together using a TIG process. The sound is fantastic .
Sounds like the "mufflers" I just put together for my FE. just enough to !hey I can't hear you! sound...
Carl, Did you have that car inside up at Goodguys at the Big E a couple of years ago? I seem to remember talking with you for quite a while about it. Pete
Smithy brought out the Gl*** Packed version of the original in 1959. For a couple of years they continued to sell both, but by the early 60's they had dropped the Steel version and were only selling the Gl*** ones - We continue to make those today out of the same tooling from 58 years ago.
bought a lot of NOS mufflers years back.....have put some on that sound good....hopefully the rest will sound good when I put them on........
The Jalopy Journal
