History L.A. Hot Rods at the beginning

To Angry Frenchman; Hmmm...are you talking about a specific time period? I might suggest that all the photos posted on this thread are representative of the movement that became the "Hot Rod" explosion. The experience of creating and building radical cars has been ongoing throughout the past 80 years in various parts on the U.S. and the world.

 

Nice photo set. glad to see them for sure! Lost history found again.
Jay

 

I believe Angry Frenchman was asking if you had any photos from the SCTA Hot Rod Exposition in 1948 & 1949.

 

wow awesome! Thanks for sharing!!

 

To Jimmy B; I see. I am just starting to go through the mother lode of memories that my brother just brought me from my Uncle Jim's shop on Jefferson. Hopefully there will be pics from that event. I'll post 'em if I find 'em.

 

I know I have posted this before, but I found a framed photo of this "wicked" car in a box my Uncle Jim had along with shots of his other cars. I just think it is very "cool".

 

I am familiar with this car. Interestingly the owner, Bob Berkshire, moved to Dallas from California sometime before 1951. There are local photos from 1951. It was said in a newspaper article from 1951 that the car cost $5000 to build. It was not seen after that. I wonder if your dad may have built it or helped build it?? Thanks for posting the photos. The pictures I have seen of the roadster including this one are jaw dropping. Keep the photos coming!!

 

Let's play; "Name that Legend. Here are some photos of some of the "boys" in their later years. Can you name any?

This one was taken at my Dad's house at his 80th birthday in 2004;




This one was taken in about 2003 (?)




Here is one from during WWII in 1943 taken at a place called Earl Carrolls. My Dad, Don Nairn is on the right side, 3rd from the front;





This one taken at one of Dad's lunch spots in Culver City about 2003.




This one is a changing of the guard. My Dad giving the reins of Speedway Pattern to my brother Scott Nairn in the shop office along Thunder Alley back in 2003.

 

To KKrod; You may be correct. I have wondered about why my Uncle Jim kept a framed photo of this car which looks to be in front of a house that could very well be my grandparents in west L.A. It is possible that my Uncle Jim and or my Dad did at least assist with the build. I'm going to ask my brother Scott if he knows more of the the history.

 

Incredible stuff, appreciated.

 

Great thread thank you for showing these wonderful photos! I have not seen this thread before but have now subscribed so I can get on with work and have a proper read later. many thanks for posting.

David

 

I was going through a large stack of business cards among my Dad's things and thought I would post them. The last one is of another dry lakes icon (his wife was Vida Orr I believe) and his business card fold open to present his price list. Wow! Wouldn't we like prices like these now!

 

Do you have any idea of when Karl Orr's prices were published? Thanks for sharing this history .... I'm looking forward to more.

 

Does anyone know the story behind this pic? Who is the sailor and what's the story on that amazing 32?

 

this is awesome, thanks so much!

 

To Billsill45; I know that Karl Orr (and Vida) opened their speed shop in Culver City in 1940 and closed it before the mid 1950's. My "guess" is that the price list I posted above was probably from between 1949 and 1952.

 

Here they are on the cover of CT News April 1949

 

I have seen this car (If not this car/ a dead ringer for it) It was at a swapmeet in gadsden Alabama maybe 15-18 years ago. there was a guy from Denton TX (Or something like that) there with a whole collection of cars for sale. I remember it, Because it sat next to a 34 five window that my uncle was dealing on at the time with the guy who had those cars there.........Man where have you been? You have only 43 post and they are some of the coolest stuff I have ever seen. Your Dad and uncle are some really cool guys. Please keep posting and keep digging through their stuff.....I have said for along time There is a ton of good pics out there just sitting in someones basement or attic waiting for someone to discover it. I can only imagine what early reel to reel film is out there. Message to all hamb members, Call you dads, grampa's and ask them if you can dig in their closets and attics......LOL

 

To Cowtown Speed Shop; Thanks for your posting. I wonder if the car you saw might actually be the Bob Bershire roadster? Berkshire did go to Texas for engineering school. It would be awesome to track it down!

As for my posting, I've been trying to space them out and there ARE many more to come, plus the book my brother and I are putting together. Stay tuned.

 

Bob Berkshire roadster. Several old photos from Dallas area.

Karl

 

To KKrod; Wow! Thanks for posting these. "Cowtown Speed Shop" posted that he thought he might have seen the car in Alabama about 18 years ago? Maybe so. Anyway, I sure would like to get my hands on it to complete the circle.

 

Back to Thunder Alley, If it did survive, it could be identified by the dip in the driver's side door. That and about everything else about the car is unique.

 

Here are more pics from the dry lakes days showing the variety of creative racers;

 

Thanks for the tip. It's a longshot, but one never knows what the "grapevine" might reveal.

 

Richard Fugle (Dick Fugle) 1949, V8-60 class A lakester.


Don Waite rear engine modified Lakes roadster (in 1949 it was classed as a lakester).


1948, Xydias/Batchelor belly tank class A lakester.


Funny story. Wally Parks used to tell Alex that Bob Giovanine and Chuck Spurgin were building a lakester to run their class A Chev 4 in, that had Alex worried as Giovanine/Spurgin were only a few MPH slower in their class A roadster.


Harvey Haller AV8



Bill Warth streamliner prewar before Stu Hillborn bought it.


So-Cal lakester 1948, panels were used on the 2nd So-Cal lakester

 

It's a shame this car is "missing" Hopefully it's tucked away in a garage somewhere waiting to come back out. What unique work done to the whole car. I love it more every time I look at it.

 

To: k5hart; Thanks for your post and for identifying some of the cars from the dry lakes. Little by little maybe we can get names for all the photos.

 

Here are some J.Nairn machine shop pics showing my Uncle Jim Nairn working in his shop. There is one on the brothers Nairn (probably taken in the 1970's)

 

This car is being started with a rope, common way to start dirt track cars before push bars were added. Bob

 

OMG. I just joined today and found this thread and am blown away. I don't mean to hijack this thread, so if the mods want to move it that's fine. While I'm a little too young to have known most of these guys, I have been in the crucible of hot-rodding most of my life. My first shop was on the other side of the fence from Jumbo Jamora, now with Isky (I believe). Simpsons Gasoline Alley is right down the street, Hot Rod City, the home of Wilcap was just a mile or two down Sepulveda. So Cal Racing Fuel was around the corner on Carson & Figueroa. Halibrand was just down 228th street between Normandie & Western. For a few years my shop was 150 yards from Donovan, Joe Hunt was on Crenshaw just south of Carson. Edelbrock, Iskenderian, and many more are based in this area. Now I’m in a different part of Torrance and I meet this guy with a machine shop a couple doors down called Roto-Faze. I’ve been getting to know the owner Joe Panek, better recently (I’ve been here 5 years) and he took me into a back room in his shop and showed me a stack of old pictures and proceeded to tell me a story about every one of them. He’s 82 years old and I asked him to allow me to scan his pictures so they could be preserved and so that he could caption them. The first part is done and I’m going to work on him to write down what he remembers about them, so I’ll post a magazine article about his car from December 1964 for now and post the rest later with his permission. The really weird thing is I grew up in Inglewood, about a mile from Joe’s first shop. Joe’s nephew is working on digging the car out from the back of the lot and restoring it so that Joe can go to Bonneville, and I plan on helping as much as I can. Joe is having a hard time selling his distributors because the officials at the nostalgia drags say his stuff is too high tech. He’s been making these distributors for over 35 years! He also makes blower manifolds for early hemis with individual pop off valves for each port and he’s working on new stuff for old engines all the time. He has a web site, but it’s very limited. Please support Joe and his efforts to get back on the salt.
http://www.roto-faze.com








OK, These pics already have captions.



Note the Roto-Faze distributor



Ed & myself on 3/13/2013