Hi, Anyone know anything about these? Dont have one , dont want one , just looking to further my knowledge !!!
i see them in ads from the 50s and early 60s after that i dont know .any of you PA members know where they were in Milford and what happened to them ?
I know just a little about it, although I have never seen one or heard of anyone using one. In a story on Ed Almquist in one of the rod magazines several years ago, it was claimed this was the first fiberglass 32 Ford roadster ever offered for sale and probably the first fiberglass hot rod body ever. It was offered at the start of the fiberglass era in the mid 50s. $179 would have been a lot of money then for a one-piece body of dubious accuracy when original bodies were still around.
ive met ed almquist a few times...he seems to be a great guy...if you read his book "HOT ROD PIONEERS" it tells about all the things he has done and also is a who's who of anyone who was anyone....i do beleive he was the first to produce a fiberglass roadster..(been a while since i read it)...when i talked to him he was working on reproducing his 2 into 1 intake peices ..he said they worked well because of the venturi effect that the 2 to 1 set-up created...he also said about the possibility of reproducing his heads and intakes...if anyone remembers spark-o-matic...that was him...his book is well worth checking out...i bought a copy and brought it home and my dad went right away and got himself his own copy... thats all i can think of right now zach
I've got an Almquist catalog from my high school days laying around. Makes for some interesting reading now. Sure wish I could find some of the speed equipment at those prices now.
I've looked at that ad since the fifties--I have lots of old speed catalogs and mags showing it, but I don't think I've ever seen or heard of a car using it! I wouldn't be surprised if there's a million of them sitting untouched in garages and basements right where some 17 year old in 1961 finally gave up trying to figure out what to do with it and went out to buy a '55 Chevy. That thing was probably the first significant hotrod fiberglass part. The car always shown in the ads is, I think, Neumann's 1931 roadster, not even a deuce. N built the car in the midwest, then moved and was editor of R&C for a while. I saw the car recently in a list of "Where are they now?" famous rods. I've got a '62 Sparkomatic catalog hidden under my desk right now...Hmmmm, work is a lot like "Algebra 1" was in '62, yes? Anyway...$161.50, "STRONG-AS-STEEL", 45lbs, "sides are smoothed in"--see, it's a feature, not a bug. Smoothing probably happened when they discovered body #1 wouldn't come out of the mold.
The Jalopy Journal
