I was going through a stack of old magazines recently and came across a LIFE Magazine with a mean looking deuce being flagged by a starter. I absolutely loved the pic so I went on and discovered a pretty interesting article on drag racing in the late 50s. I thought you guys would like to see it so I scanned as many of the images as I could, as well as the article. Take a look. I have bigger versions of the pics if anyone wants them. Chris
That is A must have on my list. just 2 days after my 15th birthday and I remember that bust in the L.A. river.talk about traction impaired. that concrete river bed doesn't have water often and was a fun place to race because a stock flathead powered 50 ford sedan could smoke the tires thru second gear on that water smoothed concrete. in 59 I raced my new Triumph Bonneville down there and left dark black tire marks all thru 4 gears it was like nailing it on wet streets (which was also a favorite of mine) In the fifties burning rubber equaled horsepower. the first time I heard about traction was anouncer at the old San Gabriel drag strip said Tommy Ivo's twin buicks could not pull the speed if he broke traction. It was all about speed. ET's came much later. 200 horsepower and you were a contender at the stoplight drags
That is a good addition to anyones collection. The disassembled '32 three window belonged to Jack Eaton, form Long Island, N.Y. he drove that up until he passed away a few years ago. The car was in several other LIFE features.
Great post!I've seen that cover pictured before but never the article;thanks for sharing it.Seems like they went all over the country for photos. As a side note:The picture of the Deuce 3-window in pieces owned by Jack Eaton brought back some memories.I met him in 1961 when he drove up to Massachusetts(not in the Deuce but a really nice 57 Ranchero)to photograph my friend Ken Frederick's 27 T for Hot Rod Magazine(it appeared in the Nov.63 issue finally)That was the first car I had ever striped to appear in a national magazine.A really nice guy and the brother of Ed Eaton who was a charter member of the Long Island Hot Rod Association that started drag racing on Long Island in the early 50's.Ed eventually became a director for NHRA. Sorry for the rant;just reminiscing.
Safarinut, It is good for all of us that weren't there to read "rants" when something trigers memories from the past, helps keep history alive.
Excellent post, cool LIFE article and great to hear you reminiscing about the old days Safari! Very interesting stuff. Bill
Love the LA River shots. Could have used a closeup of Olivia tho... And I really do miss watching the races sitting on the front end of a car. We did that in the 60's in a lot of places. Cooler full of beer and lunches in the trunk. Try sitting on the front of todays cars. Last time I was at the Mile High Nationals, I had to park a mile or so away and hop on the horse cart. Then it was still a pretty good hike up to the stands. You don't want to know what they charged for food and drink at the track. Where I used to sit on the hill above the starting line is now $100.00 a seat!
Thanks SomethinWicked for the great pictures. You forgot to show us Norm Grabowski's $8,000 roadster pickup. That was a huge amount of money in the 50's.
Thanks for posting the life magazine pictures,,,,, I found this ol' Popular Science,,,,,,,,Heck,,,I bought it for the cover!HRP
I had a feeling this post would bring back some memories for a lot of you. As for Norm's car, the whole page wouldn't fit in my scanner!
The Jalopy Journal
