when did hairpins start showing up?

when did hairpins start showing up? would they be "era correct" on an early 50s, nicely finished av8, i understand that it was not common at the time, but was anyone running hairpins in the late 40s early 50s? wasnt the doane spencer roadster built back then w/ hairpins? thanks

 

Probably the best way to get it right the first time is to invest in a few rod magazines from the proper era that you are shooting for. Then it is no guessing because you can see what they did in the photos.
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">

 

yeah,ill do that. i have a couple Don Montgomery books, but i hardly see any cars with hairpins, maybe one or two, im guessing it was due to cost. i seem to recall old speedsters having hairpins as well.

 

They were there in teh mid 50's if thats any help

 

I've seen them on late 40's Indy cars. Lots of Indy stuff found its way on to hot rods.

 

They were common on sprint cars by the 50's

1948 Kurtis, 1947 Hisso, 1946 Hisso

 

If you know terminology this type of hairpin is refered to as "Curtis style". Even Speedy Bill's catalog uses the term. Study a few and you'll see many different "interpretations".

Frank

 

I'd like to see close ups of the mounts to attach them to the axle.

 

The DRAG ROADSTERS thread has a TON of good shots..FYI...you can kinda measure when the pics were taken, and most pics do have the year, or close to it

 

The original was done in 1947. There are a few similar chromed bars but without the cl***ic U shape at the frame end in the first 12 issues of Hotrod ...1948 The U shape is what gave them the nick name hairpin.

They were all hand made back then so obviously they varied in design. My 1961 Honest Charlie catalog lists a "hotrod helper" which is the "batwing" made to accept the clevises. That was the hard part to fabricate. The rest is pretty easy to fabricate. It was a few years later when they started selling the complete chromed system. I want to say Cal automotive and possibly MAS made the complete kits but don't quote me on that.

 

nice, thanks all

 

About the same time as powdered wigs. ohhh you didnt mean those kinda hairpins.

 

As I remember it back then,roughly two reasons existed for split wishbones and hairpins. One was if you used a Model A frame, you had to cut out the center cross member to put in any V-8 setup, hence no place to mount the standard A wishbone, On a '32 frame you only needed to split the existing wishbone setup if you were installing an engine/trans combo that didn't use the existing flat head trans.
If you had to, split wishbones were the low buck way to go for most guys but a few metal smiths who could turn their own clevises, fab bat wings and bend up hairpins (Usually some race car shop) would go the extra mile just to give their rod that extra race car look.
Split wishbones were common, hairpins were rare (except on midgets and Indy cars). My opinion!

 

Hairpins were around in the 30s

 

this pic is too cool!!!

 

I've been reading a book the last couple of days called OFFENHAUSER the legendary racing engine and the men who built it, and one of the things that struck me was mid thirties midgets with hairpins. So the were definitely around in the era that your talking about. I know that kurtis Kraft went to torsion bar suspension on they're race cars right after WW2, and if I'm not mistaken, Spencer had something to do with that company.And that is when hair pins started showing up on big cars.

 

i have the chance to run split 32 wish bones or a hair pin set up and thanks again to all the good info on here i think i stick with the hair pins, on my sedan what about running them on the rear or fab up a lader bar set up.