History FOUND- Nick Arias Jr.'s '37 Chevy Coupe

Hi all,

First time poster here. My name is Justin Arias, grandson of the late Nick Arias Jr. and wanted to share quite a wild story and amazing discovery for the Arias family. If you are familiar with the name, then you may know about his record setting yellow '37 Chevy that was raced throughout the 1950's, mostly at the dry lakes and Bonneville. He was partnered with his pal Bob Toros in this car, building it in tribute to their late high school buddy Kenny Bigelow, who was unfortunately killed in a wreck in his '37 Chevy at El Mirage on October 21, 1951. Bob and my grandfather were both serving in the Korean war at the time, so they sent money home to purchase the car from Kenny's mom and once they returned home, the salvageable parts were saved and the rest of the car was scrapped. They came home in '52 and I believe this car was built in '53 (first photos I have of it are at Saugus, '54) and last recorded to run in '56.

It was sold in 1957 to a local guy named John Lee Crockett of Hollydale, Ca. and was last registered in 1962. It is virtually untouched since then other than being mostly disassembled. It was then sold to a guy named Bruce Longson of Long Beach, Ca in the early 70's and has sat in his backyard ever since. I just dragged it out of Bruce's backyard a couple weeks ago, and it's now sitting in my garage.

My good friend Christian Pogue is 100% responsible for all of this, as he discovered it by accident about 20 years ago through a friend of his. He was at Bruce's house, and being the walking Chevy/GMC encyclopedia that he is, he instantly recognized the racecar as Nick Arias' Bonneville car. He shot 3 photos of it on film, had them developed and drove them to the piston shop to show my grandpa. The first words out of my grandpa's mouth were, "That's my car". It still had a GMC in it, stock head on this one, but was dressed with Wayne accessories all over, Howard 5 pot manifold, and his signature ignition setup, a modified Nash Twin 6 with dual coils & SW tach drive. Nothing came out of that deal however, as the owner Bruce was quite a character to say the least and had zero interest in selling the car. Christian lost touch with Bruce, forgot where he lived, and that was the end of it. Fast forward to 2021, I met Christian at Bonneville (ironically) and we hit it off, finally meeting in person after years of back and forth on social media. He told me this story in brief years before, but to be honest, I doubted the possibility of it being the ACTUAL car, my grandpa had already passed at that point so I couldn't ask him, and I really just didn't know who Christian was. Well, he was right this entire time. I executed a search for this car just a few months ago and actually found the damn thing. I met Bruce and his family, explained my interest in the car, and next thing I know, the car is reunited with all our photos, trophies, parts and other memorabilia that has been in the family since it left nearly 70 years ago. My current plan is to just clean, clean and clean. The entire car is in remarkably good condition though, and many of his original parts are still there- B-17 bomber seats, belts, hand fuel pump, fabbed fuel tanks, custom jet assortments, nerf bars, the list goes on.

Filmmaker Ben Kahan of Four Speed Films shot a documentary on the entire finding process and dragging it out of its resting place for the past 50 years and bringing it home, so I'll let the movie do the rest of the talking. It'll be out within the next few weeks or so, so stay tuned. I will be posting more as I continue working on it and will post the link to the documentary once it comes out!

Here's the link to the documentary-

I've attached a few photos of the car then and now, and I hope you all enjoy.



Thanks for reading,
Justin

 

OUTSTANDING!! More pictures please!

 

Fantastic and congratulations, it’s terrific that’s it’s back in the family again.

 

That is awesome!! Congrats on reclaiming a piece of family history.

 

Holy time warp Batman! Incredible story ( stupendous that is) glad you found it and got it back in the family. Me likey. As for all that cleaning you have to do just make sure you disinfect the more problematic areas ( seats that is, steering wheel, etc)

 

Wow.... great story better car excellent heritage

 

Very cool. Looks to be in pretty good shape yet too

 

Wow, the stuff a that car guy's dreams are made of!! Have Fun Cleaning.

 

Congratulations !!!

Just too very cool. Need more pictures

 

The planets must have lined up for this to happen. Congratulations on getting the family heirloom back. Can’t wait for the film.

 

Wow , The true pot of gold at the end of the rainbow .

 

Heck yeah!

 

And ALL was right with the world...
You are one lucky Dude!!! Congratulations!!!

 

That's a helluva 1st post on the HAMB!!!

Wild how much originality survived and how complete it is! Thanks for sharing!

 

Welcome from E. Tennessee. Congratulations on your find

 

Wow, too much. Very cool.

 

That is quite the story! Congratulations on the find!

 

Wow, congratulations on finding and being able to acquire it

 

That is soooo awesome!!! Congratulations on getting the car back to its rightful family and if it could talk the stories it would tell…….

 

Holy crap!!

 

Thany you so, so much for bringing this to the HAMB!

 

Cool find. Looking forward to seeing pictures as you bring it back.

 

Cool one !

 

Nice….

 

As a bit of a GMC enthusiast I'm excited for your find and the history behind it. Thank you for sharing such a rich story.

 

This is fantastic, congrats on getting it back home!! It was suppose to happen. What a great thing for you and your family!!!! Lippy

 

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

 

This is such a fantastic story and great outcome to have the coupe back in the family, congrats!!

 

Way ta go, Justin!
I have a set of Nick's pistons in my Buick.

Ben