History Auto racing 1894-1942

A photo of Eddie O'Donnell and his mechanic in a Hudson from Feb. 28, 1925

 

Start of the 300 Mile Wheeler-Schebler Trophy.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway - 1909.

 

I just stumbled across this...

 

The 1906 Maxwell 12 again, probably Vetnor Beach 1908

 

That's interesting because not all road cars had differentials.

 

Can anyone identify this car and driver from the 1936 Vanderbilt Cup Race?

http://www.vanderbiltcupraces.com/i..._local_car_shows_and_automotive_events_myster

Thanks for any assistance,

Howard Kroplick
East Hills, NY

 

really bummed, shot a really cool sculpture last weekend, and was just told the pictures wont be ready until monday.

 

The more of these posts I read the more humbled I am in your presence.
Thanks to 'all' who have shared their knowledge and hold a love of vintage racecars.
Not sure when I will gather the historical buffering % to contribute but in the meantime, there is absolutely nothing to compare to driving one of these open air contraptions at full tilt.

 

Bob,

Last time i saw this it broke.................















Keith

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Another one that had a 'nearly' moment............





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That is Haleys Comet, OFFY powered 1923 Mercedes chassis. Restored in Bob McConellels collection in Ohio.

 

Bob,

As long as i can climb em I'll keep snapping away.........


Happy Birthday for Today................













Keith


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This is the Mercedes that Christian Lautenschlager drove in the 1923 Indy 500 that was bought by Maclure Halley. He later took the car to Zumbach Motor Repair Company in Manhatten where it was fitted with a Miller engine, reportedly supplied from the man himself. It is my understanding that the car was not run in the race due to it's unsuitability of the race course. Halley instead put Dave Evans in a Bugatti T51 that finished 14th.

I have read one article that mentions the Mercedes chassis may have been owned by Palph DePalma before Halley took possession and he had Charles Zumbach and his men completely rebuild the car to his standards which included many polished parts.

Charles Zumbach is also a very interesting character. Born in Switzerland, he apparently served as a mechanic in the famous 1903 Paris - Madrid race. This is info i'm yet to establish as accurate.
After arriving in America he opened his repair shop servicing the exotic makes for the well to do. He also rebuilt a Miller 16 engine, powering two boats that won the Gold Cup. Another car that has a connection with Zumbach is the Bugatti Type 57C Atalante Coupe that was uncovered from the New York garage of millionaire John Straus a few years ago. Straus first spied the car at the Zumbach shop in the 1950s before buying it.

 

That's interesting Kurtis, the driver does look like some pictures Dave Evans. I guessed Mike Caruso because he had the only Mercedes listed as showing up and is almost as famous for fitting a 23 Mercedes blower to an Offy as he is for fitting half a Bugatti 8 to a midget.
It's quite remarkable if there were 2 modified 1923 Mercedes at the 36 Vanderbilt, Mike's car is listed as being Ford powered when it failed to qualify for the 36 Westbury 300 Mile Race ...and then there's the Oakland Powered All American Spl that failed to qualify at Indy 1932

 

I first learned of Mike Caruso through my heavy interest in PreWar motorcycles. In his early life he built a car powered by a 61ci Excelsior V twin engine. Some say it was the same engine that powered Lee Humiston to the first 100mph on a motorcycle at Playa del Rey on December 30 1912. In January 1913 Humiston set a number of world records including a new speed mark. Whether this is the same engine that powered Caruso's homebuilt is up for debate, but, knowing what he owned later in life and what was tucked away in his junkyard, i wouldn't be suprised.

The gentleman in the photo on the Vanderbilt site doesn't look like Caruso but i haven't seen a photo of David Evans to compare. The car though is not one belonging to Caruso as there is just too much polish and chrome that is evident which was a typical Maclure Halley and Zumbach Motors trademark of sorts. However, the Caruso Mercedes in the photo below shows a car that hadn't changed much since it's arrival into the country in 1923.

We can go on for many pages talking about Caruso and his cars including the many iterations of his Bugatti midgets. The same can be said of Maclure Halley and the Bugatti he entered in the 1936 Vanderbilt Cup with Evans behind the wheel. This car, which still exists, has a wonderful history and has been restored to the configuration when Zumbach Motors weilded their magic over it. It went through a number of owners after Halley which included the fitment of a DOHC Frontenac at some stage.

 

My Dad, Joe Gertler Sr. (Raceway Garage, in the Bronx) was building a lot of midgets. sprints & special customs for shows like the World Motor Sports Shows etc, "back in the day." Of course he knew Mike Caruso and all the other builders, shops, drivers, involved in the immediate pre-war, and then the post-war Hey Day of Northeastern midget racing. They sometimes ran eight races a week, seven days a week, within driving distance of NYC.He bitched fo 50 years! about getting the FRONT half of the half-Bugatti engine from Mike, because, compared to Mike's rear-half, it was a nightmare to hook up in the midget my Dad had. He tried everthing fom Carlheims, J.A.P.s, Van Blercks, Daimlers, and of course the V-6/60s with ALL kinds of mods.
Got out of building race cars in the late 60s (after his last batches of TQ midget roadsters, that he built a dozen at a time)after stock cars kinda killed the midgets. The fans were too impatient to wait for all the midgets to be push-started...And my Dad laid a lot of blame on the Kurtis Kraft too. As great as they were, they were SO dominant that EVERYbody wanted or needed one to win or be competitive. But he always said, you could go to the races, and if you took the paint off the cars, every car looked the same (All KKs). He prided himself in trying all kinds of innovations,as did many other builders, After KKs dominance, he needed to keep building KK copies, to sell midgets. He built full cars, or kits called 'Raceway Specials" I still have the price list pages somewhere around here. Then he went more into the exotic customs, then went to used aircraft & salvage aircraft parts. Got back into "vintage" race cars, starting as a hobby, around 1973 and did some restorations and even scratch built some 30's type racers, exactly the way he built them in the old days, with NO upgrades, using original parts, engines tools etc. Another 38 racers went through the shop.
We FOUND his half a Bugatti engine and bought it again!. After a bit, and remembering that it "sucked" he decided NOT to put it back in a midget again. We resold it back in the early 80s? I think to Bob Swanson, in Ct. He can weigh in here, as he is on the H.A.M.B

 

Your dad comes from the same mould as some of the gentlemen named above. Great story. Please share some more.

A couple of questions if you don't mind.
First, where did you find the Bugatti engine and whatever happened to the periscope car your dad built for a Sheik?

 

Joe, GREAT to read your post about your Dad! I miss him, he was one colorful speaker, and would have been a great HAMB member. Post the link to your website. The 1/2 Bugatti engine I bought from your Dad went to Ben Bragg, ( Atomicturd on the HAMB) but rearly posts. The engine was a type 38 or 35A with 3 mains, only 2 mains as a cutdown 4. The fireing order was odd for a 4, and it was parted out by Ben. Who got the MILLER 8 that was cut in half shortly after the Bug engine came home with me?

 

*I Don't want to hijack this GREAT thread of the EARLY stuff.
Since he built some great midgets, sprints, customs, worked on a couple of Indy cars, World land speed cars, early exotic racing boats, Carrera Panamericana Ferrari, Custom accessory kits for early Hoffmann Motors sports cars (especially early Porche racers)for Hoffmann, worked on the cooling problem of the early ARDUN engines., Raymond Loewy projects, pre-war German Grand Prix car, stretched Aubrun boattails with an extra foot of Deusenberg engine, full exotic customs of U.S. & Euro sports racing cars. Its hard to find a thread that "fits" them all. If it wouldn't be pretentious (just to share the smiles we all get when we see "wild" stuff-PLUS.. pass on some of the more amusing stories of the Old days he told me when we worked side-by-side for 20 years) any suggestions as to starting a Raceway cars & history thread & WHERE? I have hundreds of photos (old cars/old days & old cars/NEW days) already scanned into my computer. Just put a batch of building early Eltos & Japs posts on the Midget Car Panorama website.
*Back to
question 1-I don't REALLY remember. I think he found the half-Bugatti, in New England, through one of the constant phone calls that came in all the time from his racing friends fom the "old" days. But it COULD have been from a contact learned at a Fall Hershey meet. We went for 26 years, and usually had a lot of vintage race stuff, sometimes with show midgets or sprints. One of our "lesser" restorations for a customer, got National Ist Place in Hershey race car division judging.
question 2- I have no idea what happened to that car in my avatar. That is ME in that photo... about 60 years ago!

 

More on topic..
Here are a couple more shots of the Miller Golden submarine. Alec Ulmann had given me about 60 negatives of old Miller stuff. including cars & engine parts, people etc. (He also gave me his glass slide set that he used in his lecture on the history of Mercedes Benz. But those found a good new home..)The Miller negs are in a box around here somewhere! But I had a FEW copied and scanned about ten years ago. I think Alec got these from either Briggs Cunningham or John Burgess, MANY years ago. Alec & I were good friends. We had an oddball friendship, in that I was in my forties when he was in his 80s. But he loved to talk old aviation (where he started) history with me. He lived not far from our shop on eastern Long Island (after we moved out from the Bronx) and would often drive his old Hisso over and bring me some auto or aero gift. When he passed on, I helped his wife Mary with his "stuff," getting it into good homes/museums. She offered me a gift of all his folders in the bottom library shelves, that had all the history of Sebring with photos, correspondence records etc for all the years since he started it. I passed on it and suggested sending it to auction. I was Shocked to see them go at the Hershey auction, soon after, many of them for $5000 per folder! But she DID give me some his old Sebring posters & programs, and some of my favorite very early aviation catalogues & brochures. She had them in a box propping the library door open. I asked her what was in the box. She said that was just garbage, going to the dump...I DID buy some of his auto library books, including some 16 leather bound volumes of "The Automobile" for the WWI years, as they had numerous tech reports of the WWI aero engines. The best part of those early "The Automobile" periodicals is that they had very extensive and detialed reports on auto races all over the country. often detailing whose car was in which position on EACH LAP, and if it wnet out or crashed, and what broke . All the who, what, when where in details you rarely find. Some of his lrare ibrary stuff was in partnership with Henry Austin Clark. who also lived nearby. Clark had arranged a pretty unusual donation deal wth Ford. One day, I was rooting around the muddy dirt floor of one of Clark's outer museum storage sheds, with five foot high piles of rusty stuff and came out with a nice CLEAN set of hubs and knockoffs marked as coming from one of Jimmy Murphy's racers.

 

Will do..
Meanwhile, here is another ON-topic post.
Just sold this beautiful original 1934 AAA racing poster a couple of weeks ago. It had sat here in a file cabinet for a LOOONG time. Great bright colors. The Los Angeles track is otherwise known as Mines Field, I believe.
*Most Notable! is that this is an eight section poster that combines to a joined size of 7 feet wide by 8 1/2 feet high!
Not to mention the mind-boggling purse of $10,000 in the depths of the Great Depression!, and the cool race car graphics...

 

One from todays Shelsley...........58hp Daimler





sadly had some 'chain' issues............







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you sir, are the weakest link.

 

Lordy, those chains are massive... Mack truck massive. How on earth could you break them both at the same time? All's well? Gary

 

It looked like both chains came off the drive sprockets as he changed down for the hill, put them back on but immediatly spat one off again !.

managed to return down the hill with one only in place.........never saw the car run again.........apparently it's unique and the only one of it's type running.





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Another couple from Shelsley...............


nothing like using ALL the available track !


Vauxhall A type






Jenks Special..................Lagonda Rapier







1913 Daimler Mercedes GP








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Keith-
Thanks for all the GREAT pictures!
Notice that the Damiler has a third transverse spring, with shackles, on the rear. Probably hard cornering allowed the rear axle to shift sideways, causing sprocket misalignment.


Herb Kephart

 

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I wouldn't say Joe is hijacking this thread but merely adding another dimension to it.

Great stories Joe. Keep them coming and by all means, start another thread. I'm sure it will be accepted with open arms.
Thanks for your response of the half Bugatti and the periscope car BTW.

 

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