before the war they called them......

Mc Cormick Reaper on the hood....cl***ic! What a great photo and story, thank you for sharing and thank your buddy for sharing it with you to share with us!

 

Thanks for my new wallpaper......that pic rules.

 

The Bob Rufi car looked real sharp with the rear fenders and canopy, went 140.00 MPH.

 

Thanx for bringing this up, cuz I didn't want to be the one who did
Yup, this is after Bob wrecked the car. When it had the "Wheel Pants" on the back & had filled up with mud which caused an unstable condition & the car flipped that would be late 1940. Bob was in the hospital for 4 mos. My fellow PRC member & club histroian Eric Loe interviewed Bob @ great length. In 40 would have been the last year that he ran due to that accident.

That car was sold to several owners over the Hot Forties decade of rodding & racing. I believe that it ended up with a Cook/Cyclone 4 port ohv on a B block and ran Winfield carbs. It later set a B/Streamliner record with this set up @ a Russetta meet with then owner Howard Markem in 1948. Sure wish I knew where this one was rat-holed now because in my opinion, this truly was what was to become the modern belly tank of the time. I believe that Bill Burke said they very same thing, Guess I'll have ta ask him.

 

It still exists.......... that is all I know.
Also the Ralph Schenck streamliner still exists.
& the Giovanine-Spurgin '25 roadster also exists and is being restored.

 

Zach do you know what club Bill belonged to?

Also spend a few bucks to buy a plane ticket to go meet Bill, it will be the best money you ever spend!

 

Bill was in the "Flyers" which was the "Night Flyers" which after WWII became the "Pasadena Roadster Club"

bill only ran a little after WWII with a v8 in a roadster though...did 109 or 110 he said...then he didnt have any more hot rods...just a 40 convert wth a carson top skirts and a hopped up merc...sold that when the new 49 mercs came out..
Zach

 

the name McCormick Reaper came to be because he had a shaft driven overhead cam "Harry Miller" head on the B motor and it was so noisy that everyone told him it sounded like a "McCormick Reaper"...i guess it stuck!

zach

 

Great post !!!
I love to read those old stories and the pictures are priceless !
Keep em coming if you got them !

thank you

 

thanxs for the history leson

 

ya got to love it

 

Zach, They may have hade as many as 6 of those heads, ask him who he sold it to, I hnow were one is.

 

i heard 5!!
he doesnt remember who he sold it to...the whole car sold for 200 in '41 and a few more sales throughout WWII

i think the head may have ended up in the hands of Tom Hynes in a roadster and then into his T touring that was on the cover of HOT ROD in March 1950(??)...im thinking Tom's roadster may be Bill's car but changed around a bit...lowered mainly and different hood (photo #24 of the Bob Morton collection on www.AHRF.com)

is the one you know of for sale?? if so...p-m me...i've been hunting for one...

Zach

 

really? where? and who owns it?
dan

 

Awesome thread!

Dig those tires on the back of the Flyers roadster!

 

Too Cool. I love your roadster and the thoughts behind it. We got some old dogs around here. It is always a fun time to sit around and here there stories. Thanks for sharing

 

Ok, Then you know it is the same Miller head the Hynes T Tub was on the March 1950 Hot Rod cover. That car is restored in California but the Miller head is in another collection...and isn't for sale.

 

Zach, Here is something to think about. Bill's car could be on the SHOW FIELD next year at Hershey if you join the club and go through the Do***ented Race Car paperwork. This should be a cake walk since you know the Chairman of the committee from the Showdown. Then you fly Bill out to drive the car onto the show field. Bet the HAMB membership would even help out, could be the oldest/owner/driver combo ever at Hershey. The fact that it's a Hot Rod is even more special.

 

The belly tank behind the tub looks su****iously like a street car!

 

looks kinda like this one?


http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=216170&d=1156380547

 

Zach, Great picture. I'm still trying to get to the source of who coined the term Hot Rod. I've ask every pioneer we interview and have not had a definitive answer yet. Most people think that it was a post war term and the earliest I've seen it in print is November 1945 in Life Magazine so I'm ***uming it was around before then. Anyone have any earlier references where Hot Rod was used?

 

I'm ***uming this is Henry?
anyways, from what Bill was telling me...it was before the war that his group called them "hot rods"
he had been building cars since about 35 or 36 when he started with a '23 touring that his brother and him put a frontenac head on and raced in the alley behind his parents grocery store...then in 38 he built this car. he was 16 at this time...
maybe his gang is where it originated? Pasadena and the Night Flyers and later the Flyers i ***ume were a pretty prominent group when it came to being the origins of these cars?

the way bill said it on the phone made his story convincing, he said. Hot and Rod with a seperation like they called the cars "Rods" and the hot ones were hot rods...i'll have to ask him if "Rod" was short for "roadster" next time i talk to him...plus he said..."some people used the slang GOW JOBS or hop-ups" so i dont know what else he would have used that he may have forgotten?

...also...if this is indeed henry...i got my address returned to me in the e-mail..says your inbox is full?
i can p-m you on here if you'd like

Zach

 

I have to find my photocopies of Throttle that was the Pre WWII version of Hot Rod. There was one feature were the called the cars "IRONS", Irons in the Fire? = Hot Rods?

 

A buddy of mine, my grandpa and I were at the local cruise-in one night. The cops were being friendly that night and there were some big HP cars there doing BIG burn outs. Grandpa said, "Boys, there's some hot iron here tonight..."

My buddy- wihch is a car fanatic too- said, "Man, I love hearing the ole' guy's terminology from back in the day...."

When you said that, it made me think of that night...

 

Terry Baldwin of Ventura owns what's left of it, and intends to restore it (including fabricating a duplicate body from scratch). Terry says that the original body sat abandoned in a vacant lot and was used as a playhouse by some kids, but it disappeared before he was able to track it down.

 

Zach i agree... you should be able to get your 'ducks in a row" by then... I would love to see that car on the field... look into it, I'll talk to ya this weekend

 

My Great Grandfather was a veteran of WW 1, I can remember him telling me about a stripped down T he had that he called a "Doodle Bug". May have been a regional name for gow jobs in the South, I don't know. Sure miss him.

 

Unless I am mistaken, doodlebugs usually refer to stiped down t or A's which were striped down and used as tractors, for folks with small gardens... good enough to pull a spring tooth harrow, or a wagon to market... my 2cents

 

thats what i always thought too....
but possibly a kid hearing the term could have stripped down an abandoned model-T to race around and use the same term
either way its cool to hear about!
i found one of these tractor "doodle bugs" sitting along the road near here and a relative is restoring one made from a 29
i might have to find me one too!!!

Zach

 

dam that is one cool picture, love the "war bird" art on the nose