Hot Rods Dry Lakes Coupes

Do any of you have pictures of Model T or Model A coupes racing at the lakes? All you ever see are roadsters, and if you do find a coupe, it’s always a ’33-’34. The only A or T coupe I’ve seen racing at the lakes was in the September 1952 issue of Hop Up Magazine. Were coupes undesirable and rejected? I have heard that coupes were thought of as family transportation and weren’t considered real hot rods back then. It seems that now though, coupes are just as popular as roadsters. Photos would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

im with ya were are the pics at?

 

In the early days it was roadsters(SCTA) then the Rusetta timing assoc. kicked in.

 

Not all dry lakes allowed for coupe competition in the early days. Wait for cuznbrucie to check in with better info...

FWIW I hear convertibles were always popular with rodders, which is probably why there are so few left in comparison to coupes and sedans. Not to mention thier obvious disadvantage at standing up to time...

 

Funny story, If you were the owner of a coupe or sedan back in the 40s or 50s you got teased. Remarks of borrowing your dads car to being a pretender were common. Even more funny was when a roadster owner had his doors blown off by a supposed family car. That too was common.

 

I would post a picture of my '32 five window lakes racer, but you ony want Ts and As. There arn't a lot of them.There is an A running a Banger in V4F/GC. and one with a Buick inline eight. (Long hood) Gene Winfield with his "Thing" T coup.

 

Great pictures Kurtis. I really like the second and third one. Thank you for sharing. I would love to see your Deuce RichFox if it's built like a lakes racer. Anybody else have any photos?

 

From what the oldtimers told me was that sissies drove coupes cause it had a hard top and they made fun of guys that put roll bars in their roadsters. another thing is that the roadsters are lighter you take the windsheild off and snap some leather over the passanger side and haul well you know. if that helps any I dont know if its true just what i heard. Oh and nice pics by the way

 

It's not built like a Dry lake racer. It is a Dry Lake race car. I will through in another some what better known Lake racer

 

Here's a couple. The first is Chet Herbert's & Jim DuBont's Model T Sedan "The Beast". It ran 135.33 mph at Russetta in July 1951.



Gene Winfield ran this T Coupe named "The Thing" with the Valley Timing Association and at Bonneville in 1951 running 135.542mph.




Les Harvey's T Coupe only ran once at Russetta in 1951 and was timed at 143.42 mph. There are more Model A sedans and coupes. I will have a look for them.

 

Wow, great! Thank you guys! Does anybody else have any?

 

I believe that coupes and sedans were allowed to run in the formative years of the SCTA before it became roadsters only. Closed cars started running again at the Russetta Timing Assoc meets in 1948, then with the SCTA in 1950. This sport coupe ran at Muroc in 1938 at an SCTA meeting, the picture is taken from "When The Hot Rods Ran".

 

Thanks!

 

I was re-reading the So Cal/Pierson Coupe article in TRJ the other day and I thought it was interesting how before they became the cars that we know them today they really had to prove themselves to be accepted.

The roadster guys really despised the coupes in the late 40's early 50's. They dismissed their times and claimed that the Rusetta Timing equipment was faulty. They refuse to recognize the times that they were putting up until the very first SCTA coupe class when they had their feet in their mouths after the coupes started backing up their runs.

I think the Chrisman will be the best example of an A running at the lakes. If you look at the boxy style of T's and A's you can see why so many rodders scrambled to get thier hands on a '33-'34.

Take a look at Luck Burton's A coupe from the Old Crow Speed shop being built today. Those dude have a knack for building cars as they would have back then. His A has a 2 40 ford front ends to create the nose. Also Kevin Lee is building a pretty Rad "A".

 

Wow, thanks for leading me to those posts Jeffrey. Great stuff.

 

I was just gifted a photo album by my grandpa of some of his dads cars theres deff. some coupes in there. They raced at bonneville, lyons, saugas, santa ana, pomona etc..... One of them being the coupe owned previously by the chrismans. According to my grandpa his pops was not the one to hock it to barris. Pheww dodged a bullet there.He sold it to someone who then let it go. Theres some other cool ones in there and fast ones at that, ill work on some pix.