29 Drag Roadster with DeSoto power....old pics.

great thread lots of nice cars

 

KILLER,I love the pics!!!

 

That Roadster is Amazing!!! Kev thanks for the pic's that is my favorite style of car/hot rod.
Jimmy white

 

Great photos and great thread. It would have been great fun to see those cars run in the day. What do you think is the history of the roadster after these photos?-Jim

 

Jimmy.... Me too. I was actually collecting parts to build a street car along these lines when I found my 34 coupe body and my plan got diverted.
jimdillon......I have no idea what became of the roadster. If I see Jim again I'll ask him who got it after him.

 

I gotta show these to my ol' pal Terry. He doesn't believe that we wore white pants in the pits back then.

 

Wow! Some amazing pics in that lot.

Looks like you were a bit of a fiend for the Willyses, Kev!

 

Kev,

This may be my favorite thread ever! You may not realize it, but your history in the garage gives it just as much soul as it had before.

I'm partial to the Mopar, as my wagon has the same rake, dog dish hubcaps, and similar tires. It's almost eerie! (except that I have trim rings) ----> http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a274/46Tbird/lowered.jpg

But what America really wants to know is,


is it pronouned "Will-iss" or "Will-eez"?

 

Many thanks Kev.
A nice trip down memory lane.

The 4th pic with three guys shows Frank Floyd in the middle.
He built some killer flatheads in high school and after.

In the pic of the Desoto agency, the Texaco gas station/boat shop where I worked was on the left right next to San Clemente St.
Was most cool to see Jim come in with the five window for gas.
Some Sundays his pals would bring their cars along and gas up for the caravan to Santa Maria or San Fernando.
I hope Jim has some pics of those.

Got to see the roadster a few times when he had it sitting in a rear area of the agency showroom, another room you had to walk to a short way if you wanted to see the roadster.

I'm still in contact with the young lady in the color photo of the coupe.

Sure wish I'd had these photos when I did the book.
I lost a lot of mine in the 1978 Fillmore flood.

The black 56 Plymouth two door was purchased by Jim for use as a daily runner as well as a tow car for the coupe that was slowly getting away from street use and being more of a dedicated drag race car.

Wasn't too much longer until the roadster came to be and the coupe was sold sans engine, trans, quickchange, but with a stock banjo rear.
$400.
I heard about that one way too late.

Last time I saw it, it was in the Dwarfs clubhouse out by Mill School and getting an Olds engine installed.

Seems fair I guess, the car came into town with an Olds engine, got swapped to the first Desoto engine and turned into a thing of mechanical beauty.

Last car I heard that Jim was running - this about circa 1985-86 or so was a classic resto.
I was sitting next to him at a class reunion dinner down at the Harbor Restaurant and we talked cars for awhile.
His wife and my wife were in the same class.

Jim's an interesting guy and I saw him fairly often in the 80's when he came in to the power station where I worked to see how the water de-ionization plant was running.
(We used de-ionized water to hot wash power lines.)

Anyway, I talked in the book about how he started the blackwall and Moon disc craze, the real ones mounted with screws.
I saw the look, liked it and not long after my 50 Ford sedan sported blackwalls and Moon discs.
Pretty sure I was the 2nd guy in town to do that.

Jim's Plymouth started a small fad as well.
It had a pair of nice sounding duals, was dropped in front and the little factory hubcaps remained.
Wasn't long until several cars in town were running the little Plymouth caps.

I moved away from town about three years after the roadster came to be and often wondered what happened to it and if Jim kept racing.

 

One last little bit and I'll shut up.

The young lady in the photo's with the coupe and the Plymouth was Jim's high school girl friend who was in the same class I was.
She slapped the snot out of me once - by mistake, honest - and lived up the street from me a ways.

Interesting part was, her dad was a CHP officer.
I often wondered what he thought about Jim dating his daughter.

Jim was a pretty calm guy most of the time, but every once in a while he'd unleash all the horsepower in the coupe.
Was spectacular to see.

The young lady's dad seemed to dislike hot rods.
At least he did mine, but I was guilty - for the most part - of association.
There were four black primered Shoebox coupes running the town, three of their owners lived close to the CHP officers house - including me - and the 4th one came to the neighborhood often.
I was a pretty calm driver, but the other three were kinda crazy at times.

I was always getting pulled over and lectured and most times it was cuz the policeman figured it was me when it was my pals.
Guilt by association for sure.

I often wondered if the young lady's dad ever pulled Jim over....

 

killer thread
Thanks for the pics and the stories.

 

C-9, I am from Ventura also but I was a little after you, grautated in 61. The black 57 I'm sure came to live next to me on the avenue and was owned by Darrell Aldrich. I can still see it now, backed into his driveway, he would start it up and warm it for 10 minutes. I remember looking at the instlation of the Desoto and it looked like it came that way. I had a 30 coupe with an Alexander banger. I had bought the engine from Tom Floyed before he was killed. The pictures sure bring back old menories.--TV

 

When I was in high school---around 1970--1971, a couple of buddies and I used a shop on the back of Ron William's machine shop.We used to go thru the rear door into the machine shop to borrow tools from Ron and we had to crawl over that roadster all the time---nobody gave a damn about an "old race car" back then--Ron used to say the thing was in the way,but it wasn't worth anything to anybody but him.Sometimes we'd sit in it and couldn't believe anybody would drive something that flimsy 100-125 mph!
Kiwi Kev and I know the guy that has the Dave Marquez / Motor Monarchs Ardun motor--I want that thing SO bad!!
I got real lucky---Dave was a good friend--I was his mechanic for his off-road buggy team in the 70's and 80's---he knew I was into hot rods, so just before he died--he came to my house and GAVE me his personal Motor Monarch plaque---told me to run it on my car someday---I cherish that thing like nothing else.
Hey Kev--looked for you at work today---you hiding???
by the way---Kev did all the sheet metal on my roadster--great work!

 

I realized today that I had a brain fart yesterday when i said the Ron Williams roadster was a 30-31. Why did I say that? I know it's a 29. Anyway it's not this one. This one is center steering with a 32 Chassis.

Thanks for the replys guys! I was counting on you C9 to fill in the gaps.

Hey Gotgas, I like your wagon. I tried to buy one like it about ten years ago.

TV. Do you have any pictures of your old 31 roadster with the Alexander overhead? How about a story or 2 of when you were hot rodding around Ventura?

 

The name Darrell Aldrich sure rings a bell, but I can't quite place him.

ChryCo supplied Hemi engines in the 57 pickups from what I've heard.
Special order deal from the factory.

I would not be surprised to learn that Jim's 57 Plymouth was a special order deal.
He would have had an advantage with his dad owning the dealership.

Then again, coulda been a repaired/warranteed engine or even a crate motor and Jim stuck it in the Plymouth.
They had some smart parts guys at the dealership - you had to be smart to be a ChryCo parts guy at the time, Chrysler would overbore blocks in the cylinders as well as lifter bores so they could save a block if it was out of tolerance or had some scratches etc.
Made life a nightmare for the parts guys as well as the parts chasers.

Anyway, more than likely - if- the Desoto was a swap it was probably accomlished with stock parts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kevin, ask Jim about the time a bunch of hard running Santa Barbara cars came to town one night so they could race the faster Venura cars and decide who had the fastest car in two counties.

I heard about it too late to go, probably a good thing.

They got busted out on Mills Road.
Hard to believe today since it's all built up, but at the time it was a two laner through the lemon orchards and one of the places of choice for runnin' a couple of cars.

A lot of arrests fr both the Santa Barbara and Ventura guys.
I would probably have ended up running my 50 Shoebox sedan through the muddy lemon orchards, probably would have gotten stuck and then busted.

Or at the least, in for a long walk home for a shovel or two along with some rope and a tow car....

 

I'll do a little reprise of a Ventura drag racing story I wrote a couple years back.

Maybe the new guys will enjoy it.

Title: "Frosty Shop Blues."

It'll be up in a bit.

 

Hey Willie, must have just missed you at work, I was around. Found a few old pics of your roadster as it was when you dropped it off. See ya Tuesday.
Gotgas.......Post a couple of pics of your wagon here and tell us your plans with it. 57 fans would love to see it!
C9....Thanks, looking forward to it!

 

Now that's funny

 

Make that Santa Barbara-Ventura street race on Hill Rd instead of Mills.
Hill Rd. was pretty quiet most times, it's the one where Mound School is.

Mills had the radio station on it and that was about it 'cept for the orchards.

Thanks again for the pics.

 

these are probably the coolest pics/story ive seen on the hamb yet. in my opinion anyways. thanks for the contribution.

 

.......right click, save as

 

the sedan below looks a lot like squeaks, no? same time frame if i recall.

kiwi kev - i got your message a looong time ago.. thanks for the call, im back in LA for awhile... ill contact you this coming week. cya

 

Damn....What great shots! Thanks for posting them. Mike

 

I was born way too late, it seems. Born in Port Hueneme, raised in Oxnard, and did a lot of cruising on Main St. in Ventura and street racing in Camarillo in the '80s, until they closed Main down and we went to go cruise with the lowriders and minitrucks in Oxnard on Saviers Rd.

Bitchen pics. About this same time, my dad was racing all around Ventura, but on water:





Okay - hijack over.

Somebody may have pics of the old Oxnard raceway too... it was at the end of Ventura Rd... before Ventura went from Port Hueneme much past Oxnard airport out toward Ventura Blvd./Hwy 101. My dad and his buddies raced a lot of jalopies around that track - only had a short woodedn fence around the outside... many cars went sailing out over the berm into the ornage groves before they closed the place down. One of the organaizers of that track, Paul Lang, is still alive and kickin' in Oxnard somewhere... my mom still talks with his wife every now and then.

 

gowjobs..... I remember coming down to cruise main st Ventura in the early 80's. That was quite a scene. I lived in Santa Barbara at the time and had a 56 Chevy with tunnel rammed 327 and 4-spd. Here is a picture of it with my wife to be inside, taken on Thompson blvd on one of our trips down to Ventura for a little cruising. I remember doing a loop through the pizza place parking lot and it would be full of people all lined up checking out the engine as we cruised through before making another lap on Main. I now live only one block from that parking lot. Also, I would love to see pics of the old Oxnard Speedway. I heard it only lasted one or two years. Great boat pics!