Ryan submitted a new blog post: Bob Rufi & The Pursuit of Speed Continue reading the Original Blog Post
Wonder what happened to the car and if there are any more pictures of it somewhere? Rufi sounds like someone I would have liked to have known. Thanks, Ryan.
I had these images in my archive... guessing from the HAMB... I went and looked for crash photos of the car and couldn't find any at all online.
I may have read about Bob Rufi's crash at one point but didn't recall many details until I read this. His narrative about what happened, especially the mouthful of mud, is a real eye opener. Thanks for a great bit of history and insight.
Nicely written Ryan, thank you I needed a good read. A couple points to add Rufi had debuted the car in 1939 with a slightly different canopy car ran around 124mph. He returned in 1940 with improvements he was running much faster, the little Chevy would rev to 5500rpm. Rufi (pronounced Roo-Fi) set the record at the May 1940 SCTA meet, 143.54 on first run, return run he was going as fast or faster somehow with a mixup the SCTA clocks only recorded 137mph hence 140mph record. When he added the Eddie Miller built rear wheel pants car actually went slower this would also later contribute to the crash. The course was muddy and the Albata club mates advised against it, the run went ahead anyway the wheel pants filled with mud weighed down the rear at 100-120mph car lifted and rolled numerous times, coming to rest. After he was discharged from hospital Rufi enlisted in the Army, he was stationed near Pearl Harbor building barracks when Pearl Harbor attack happened. The streamliner was rebuilt by the Beck bros. Rufi had built the body in a way that resembled that of a Tuna, when the Becks rebuilt it the car resembled the shape of a cigar or later belly tanks, this maybe why it never went as fast, I think 132mph in rebuilt form. Car survived until early mid 50s at which time was cut up. Though Rufi's driving days were over he did participate at the lakes post war crewing with the team of Spurgin/Giovanine, Duke Hallock was the other key member of their crew. Rufi towed the Spurgin/Giovanine '25 Chev roadster to the lakes behind his WW2 WC-54 Dodge ambulance. sorry to ramble on. A couple engine shots Below this is the Beck bros rebuilt Rufi streamliner in their backyard Eddie Miller Jnr would marry Becks sister Patricia. These were sent to me by the son of one of the Beck bros, Charlie (?) I will have dig up the email.
Good story, as always. I love reading and hearing stories of men of the pre WW2 and WW2 era they did and experienced things that would make more modern generations pee their pants like little school boys! Dan
Ryan......great story. Keep this kind of stuff coming. Jimmy B.......great addition to the original story....great pictures and great work connecting all the dots. Now having second thoughts about getting rid of all my 4cyl Chev engines and ch***is stuff late last summer......oh well. Have fun
Dan Iandola, mover and shaker in the 4 ever 4 club, owned the car for quite a while. I believe he sent me a pic of the car from that time with a copy of his old speed parts catalog. He cast so many parts back in the day his nickname was Aluminum Dan. Where the hell did I put that stuff?
Jimmy B that is hardly rambling on, and thanks Ryan for both of your imput on some amazing hot rod history. What a great informative post!
Somewhere in my mountain of magazines, I've got an early '50s article about this car that claimed it had an ungodly amount of compression, like 16 or 17:1. With eight head bolts, I can't imagine keeping a head gasket intact!
Seems in one of the early Medley/Tex History of Hot Rodding books, Rufi himself shared picks of that little liner on a tuning run on the HIGHWAY behind the tow car! That would've been a neat little bullet to fly past you! What was it's color?
I had in my notes... I think from the So-Cal book that Alex Xydias did? I collected this **** early and didn't do a great job sourcing my data. Regardless, most of the pre-moon wheel covers came off aircraft...
Just so that everybody can have a point of reference, the top picture is what the wheel covers look like from a Curtiss JN-4D aircraft. The early ones were made of fabric, as you can see the sun shining through that reveal the spokes of the wheel, later styles were potentially fabricated of metal. The bottom picture is an actual Bendix Air Wheel cover that is made out of metal, the difference is obvious. Thanks for posting this @Ryan.
Best source of information on Bob Rufi is Tex Smith's "Hot Rod History Book 2" by Tom Medley. I have had that since 1998, bought when I was 16. That pretty much sparked my interest and learnt what I could about Rufi and all the Albata members and how a little Chev engine could beat anything running on the lakes. "The Complete Chevrolet Book" 3rd edition has a great writeup on more technical aspects of Hopping Up Chev banger. With Rufi's engine he ran 15:1 compression, on one particular run he actually split the Olds 3-port at front left after detonation that would have been a 150mph run. Since 2006 I have been collecting the bits to build a similar engine, finally have located all the major components, mine will be detuned in comparison & have around 10:1 compression. As a comparison the Giovanine engine in the Spurgin/Giovanine roadster ran 13:1 up to 16:1 compression depending on atmospheric pressure Duke Hallock would take the reading and calculate what was needed a large part of why they were successful in 1948. This article from HRM July 1955
1948 L-R: Bob Rufi, Stu Hilborn, Chuck Rostusha (in back K.I.A. in Korea), Bill Fugle (sitting), Chuck Spurgin, Bob Giovanine, and **** Fugle Bob Giovanine, Chuck Spurgin & Bob Rufi From 1st Hot Rod Exposition when owned by Howard Markham (from HOT ROD)
I believe this to be Ralph Schenck's engine but was the same as Rufi's, Ford counterbalanced crank. Ralph had taught Rufi the ins and out, Rufi p***ed that knowledge onto Bob Giovanine.
Was it Rufi or Giovanine that said making power from a Chevy four was like making power from a tissue box? Also many don't know that the roadster on the SCTA logo in the S&G '25 Chevy. Thanks Ryan & Jimmy!
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