Speedy Bill Smith’s early speedway sedan. He worked out that he was a better car owner than driver and dad, so he had drivers race his cars for him - naturally using his parts, which he was happy to sell to other racers. I get the impression some of you aren't big fans of the ubiquitous SBC, but here's one V-16 that was made up out of a number of damaged blocks - just imagine what a boat-anchor this would make!!! Of course, for those who love SBCs, I can't imagine what this thing sounds like (though I'm told there's another one in the Petersen Museum, which they run from time to time). Built for show rather than go - I'm sure the extra length would bring its own unique problems to the venerable SBC design, but as a show piece, it's awesome and a tribute to the skills of guys who can weld cast-iron with precision.
Probably of a bit more interest is this Ardun OHV Conversion on a Flathead Ford, with another one sitting behind. (They're not joined, just sitting beside each other (just in case anyone was wondering)) Nearby, a flathead powered track roadster
By happy accident, I tried joining into one of the tour groups who were already being ******ed through the museum. (Lots of Aussies that day - we outnumbered the locals by a pretty fair factor). One of the group noted to one of the guides that I had missed a large part of the tour, and another of the guides, who just happened to be wandering past at the time, took me around on a personal guided tour. Jarrid is one of the Exhibit Designers and has a clear connection to hot rodding, but a very strong historical p***ion, as a museum curator might. Jarrid gave much of the background to the exhibits and brought the museum to life. We discussed quite a number of the exhibits and rather than slide by many of them as I would have alone, Jarrid gave me some of the history. I very much appreciated Jarrid's p***ion for his job. One observation of the Museum is that it has a little bit of a lot of things. Many many historical engines, cars and memorabilia. It's not as pure as the Don Garlits Museum in Ocala Fla, or the Indy Museum at the Raceway or some others I have seen, but the quality of the cars and parts and the importance of some of the items is of the highest order. The whole of the museum (or rather its exhibits) is unlikely to appeal to everyone but the quality and the high standard of presentation should be appreciated by everyone - even the closed off (but glazed) room with significant engines waiting for their turn at re-birthing (race engines from Indy, F1, drags, speedway, dry and salt lakes, etc) is stacked full, but in an arrangement that shows care and purpose. The museum is large - over 3 floors, and takes a long time to see everything. I would suggest you might even consider two days if you want to get deep into everything. Anyway, a lot of words, how about some more pictures? Early Race Car and Transporter Set-Up – Original Condition, As Found. This didn't even look like it had a huge number of hand-prints on it!
Board Track Car in front and Dirt Track Car behind, showing the more lightweight nature of the board track car compared to the dirt track car which might have expected to have to handle some more 'bump and grind'. A Fronty Ford race car in a workshop scene reminiscent of an Indy garage from the period. Compare this to today's surgical standard in modern race teams and you might see how far we have come. A 1912 Ford engineering 'exercise' which is believed to have been Edsel Ford's own hot rod. 6 cyl motor. Beautiful car. I could have looked at this for hours alone.
32 Roadster, the Spruce Deuce - not traditional, but interesting all the same. Bonneville Streamliner - Coventry Climax 1.5 litre powered from the early 60's Pate Bros / Bill Chrisman Bell 303 Special – Santa Ana Raceway, Cal
60s T-Roadster Show Car – 6 cyl Jaguar Power. Sitting next to an 80's or early 90's AMBR winner - I didn't take a pic of that because it was a loooooooong way from traditional. Not that this Bucciali Special is any closer, but the proportion on this thing are out of this world. It is the size of a truck, just like the Deusenberg sitting next to it. Yep, and that's a Tucker (with a spare crate engine sitting beside) just in the background.
The Red Baron from every kid's dreams who grew up in the 60's Ed Roth’s Outlaw T-Bucket Show Car and the Boothill Express - all cars that showed how wild the 60's were in car culture. It's a period that still influences cars today.
Speedy Bill's Highboy Roadster kit - just add motor and stir (the gears). It's probably not every guys dream car, but it's a bolt-together for those who don't have the time or skills to fab everything from scratch. It looks like a good car - a bit more expensive than their T-Bucket kits, but a deuce is a bit more car too. A stock 32 5-Window Coupe - mouth-watering, huh? Speedy Bill's early speedway cars, showing the progress as cars developed over time. After spending most of the afternoon, we headed off to Omaha for the night.
Day 32 - Omaha NE to Mt Pleasant IA We started by having a better look around Omaha during the daytime. It seems like quite a nice place - not as big as some, but it seems to have 'something', and I wouldn't mind heading back there one day. We crossed over into Council Bluffs and then headed east along the US-6, winding our way through the rolling countryside beside fields full of corn. One change that was apparent was the lack of irrigation systems, which were mandatory west of the Missouri to help grow any crop. Obviously, Iowa is blessed with a bit more and more reliable rain than the plains to the west. As we motored along, a sign indicated a covered bridge off to the south. Roseman Bridge – it was one of the Covered Bridges of Madison County (as in the famous Clint Eastwood movie of the same name). It is closed to vehicle traffic now, but is still sturdy enough to walk through without concern. Our plan was to visit Winterset, the birthplace of John Wayne. He wasn't really a hero of mine, but I respected his purity of heart when it came to America and I am sure he enjoyed the hero status afforded him by his country. He was a good honest actor who endured from the dawn of talkies to his death and had a 'thing about him' - a presence that came through in his movies.
Downtown in Winterset is the County Court / City Hall (??? dunno) Apparently, this was used in the same movie also. From there, we headed into Des Moines, the capital of Iowa. In keeping with our previous pics of most of the capitol buildings, here's Iowa's This is one of the more impressive capitol buildings - the gold dome and size of the building belies Iowa's humble stature around 30th in terms of size, population, etc. A most impressive display of capitol building, if ever there was one. In keeping with our theme of visiting some of the more off-the-beaten-track places, Mrs BD wanted to visit Ottumwa - supposed birthplace of Walter (Radar) O'Reilly from the MASH fame. We know that Radar is a fictional character, but MASH has been running almost continuously in Australia since it first aired almost 40 years ago - it's a favourite and still rates well enough to play during early evening time. Unfortunately, Ottumwa haven't caught up with the benefits that can come from enshrining one of your favoured sons - even if he is fictional. We couldn't find any evidence of Ottumwa's recognition of Radar - ah well, their loss. Continuing our drive through the countryside, we ended up at Mt Pleasant for the evening.
Day 33 - Mt Pleasant IA to Chicago, IL After the disappointment of the previous day, we visited Riverside, IA. Riverside has embraced its geek and celebrates its claim as the 'Future Birthplace of Capt James T Kirk' with its tongue firmly planted in its collective cheek. This plaque and a suitable bench for reflecting on the gravity of future events in this location are located behind a small hairdressing salon on Main St. They have held a yearly 'Trek' event, which draws fans from all over the place, including visits over the years by many of the members for the cast of the Trek franchise, including the mythical Bill Shatner himself (as evidenced by many photos in the full-on kitsch Trek Museum. Just outside is a sizeable model (sitting on its Earth-landing station) of a ship that holds a similarity, but not enough too incur any wrath of being a copy, of the spaceship that the future favourite son of Riverside might command. This is the kind of fun we were hoping to see in Ottumwa the day before - bad on them. In Riverside, there is even a Seniors Cafe, where they invite you in to eat with the 'Ancestors of Capt Kirk'. We left Riverside with a happy smile - they 'get it'!
A bit further north, is the communities of Amana - made up of Amana, Upper Amana, West Amana, South Amana, etc. German immigrants who left Germany in the 1840's to avoid the persecution they were feeling at the time - a bit like the Amish, who they get mixed up with, but the Amana inhabitants haven't resisted modern amenities, they just live a community lifestyle. The villages are beautiful - reminding us of some of the nicer villages through England, etc. After looking through the villages, we headed east along I-80, p***ing by Iowa 80 - claiming to be the World's Largest Truckstop So large, they even have a Truck-O-Mat - whatever that is From there, we endured lots of roadworks, lots and lots of trucks and quite a drive into Chicago.
"Truckomat/ Laundromat??? Truck wash, maybe?. I've been following this thread for days, and have enjoyed every pic and every word here!!!!!!!!!!
Day 34 - Chicago, IL We headed into Chicago, deciding to take public transport to avoid traffic gridlock and trying to find an affordable parking space. We jumped onto the L after leaving our renter at the station and got off right in the middle of town. We wandered around the streets enjoying the architecture of the older ins***utional buildings compared to the modern extra-tall skys****ers. Most of the larger earlier 1900's buildings have highly decorated facades which were the standard of the day. They are much more expensive than today's simple, sheer exteriors, so it's little surprise that these sort of decorations do not appear on today's buildings.
We visited Millenium Park which has lots of separate areas for people to find things to look at, get involved with or just relax. The big shiny thing is kinda cool and attracted lots of people - many trying to take selfies (without killing themselves, as seems to be a big hazard of selfies these days - WTF!?) After walking around, we jumped onto one of the Hop-On/Hop-Off Bus tours. They use double decker open top buses to give a birds eye view at street level and no roof means easy viewing of things above you. We have used them all round the world to get a quick, easy orientation of whichever new town we are visiting and they have either a pre-recorded commentary or, as in Chicago, real live people who tell you about the history of the city with particular attention to each building, block or area as you p*** by. They may be a bit 'spendy' compared to just walking around, but we have found them excellent and do recommend them for the bigger cities. View of the gl***-floored sky-decks at the top of the 1450' tall Willis Building (was the Sears Building for most of its life). I've tried walking on gl*** at the top of the Sky-Tower in Auckland, NZ and it is a terrifying feeling - you know the gl*** will not break but it doesn't make your brain tell you not to step on the gl*** - definitely a weird feeling.
The city includes modern art in the streets. As well as art of an older, more cl***ic nature OK, maybe it isn't art, but it sure is pretty
After a day of walking and riding around Chicago, it was time to get some dinner. A**** Chicago's many claimed dishes, we had previously tried most of them, but a 'proper' deep-dish pizza was going to be something new. I'm not one to take photos of food and post them on FB or any other media, and I realise how juvenile it is, but the pizza was spectacular. A medium sized pie was way more than we could manage, but it was so good. I'm feeling a little Man vs Food, but was not willing to take the challenge - in the words of that great philosopher, (Dirty) Harry Callahan, "A man's gotta know his limitations". After dinner, we hopped back on the bus for a night-time trip around the city The city was pretty at night but most of our pics didn't turn out so good as we were moving a lot and there were lots of dark areas. After our second tour on the bus, we finally got back on the L to head back to our car. Late evening public transport in a big US city presents its own unique opportunity to look at 'others in humanity', which is always interesting ........................... or some other adjective you might choose. We got back to the renter - it still had all its wheels and windows, so we considered ourselves lucky considering it had out-of-state plates and it was quite late when we finally got back to it, so all in all, a good day.
Day 35 - Chicago IL to Springfield IL We headed out of Chicago and saw a sign indicating where the old Route 66 roadway ran off beside I-55. We have previously 'done' Route 66 from Oklahoma City to LA and aren't devotees of the whole 'I just gotta do the Rte 66' thing. So many old guys, riding Harley's, livin' the dream or else RV's towing their runabouts, are hell-bent on soaking up as much nostalgia as possible. Illinois is trying to cater to their desires by trying every trick in the kitsch book. Statues of the Blues Brothers, Elvis or Betty Boop aren't what the original Route 66 was about. It was the biggest / best / (almost) only route to SoCal from the northern Mid-West. It seems that every town has its own genuine, original, authentic museum or diner or whatever. That said, I have read numerous books on the subject and seen The G****s of Wrath, etc, so there is a lingering interest, so we figured, why not spend a bit of time looking along the early parts of the Old Mother Road. It's a bit hard to follow in parts, while in others, it splits and runs multiple routes through towns. There's large sections where the road had previously been duplicated, probably before I-55 took over the function of interstate transport after the 1950's/60's. These old sections have been left, their bridges have mostly deteriorated to the point they aren't safe any more, but for those nostalgia nuts, you can actually drive on good old Rte 66
Well, for a part of a mile anyway. In spite of my cynicism of those trying to leverage off the past for their present day advantage, there are numerous true pieces of history - old service stations and the like do help record all of our history, and are therefore of some importance. The couple of examples along Rte 66 show what early day service stations started out looking like. Times were definitely quieter then, and people had a bit of time, so today's self-serve stations have little in common with them, but there's a heck of a lot more cars today than back then (and they're not all Model T or A Fords). Anyway, we followed along for a few hours, until we were advised by a sign that Rte 66 was closed and we had to use I-55, so we headed into Springfield a bit quicker. Along the way, we came upon a couple of HAMB-friendly cars travelling together. A beautiful 59 Cadillac and mid-50's Buick (I'm no expert) were cruising along at about 65 - they drew a crowd, including us.
Arriving in Springfield, we checked into our motel and then headed out for dinner. BBQ ribs and brisket - you gotta love succulent, slow cooked meats. Parked outside Walmart was a very nice little early Vette 61 or 62 from my understanding - didn't look close enough to see if it was a 99.9 point car, but I doubt it, being parked in Walmart, as it was. We planned to have a quick run into town to find the Capitol Building, to continue with our posting a pic of most of the Capitol Buildings (why? dunno) As we neared the centre of town, we noticed a street full of cars. Quickly finding a parking spot, we went to look at the street expecting it might be like the small gathering in Dalton NE. Immediately, it was obvious there were many more cars than just one street full, many, many more. A few of the cars Restored 59 Metropolitan, non-stock paint, but really clean little car (stock powered). Another early 60's Vette - I do like these. This one was really really nice.
The Route 66 Mother Road Festival had begun - it is an annual event, running its 14th version. There were bands, plenty of food and goods stalls. There were supposedly around 1000 cars there. Most of them were pony cars and OT muscle cars, but a handful of HAMB friendly cars were there. Some a bit ratty, some a bit billetty but some were excellent. This early 50's Pontiac was one of the cars that really caught my eye, along with this 32 Highboy This looked like a really good car - well built, nice finishing touches and all around, just right. I know there are plenty on here who do not like SBCs like this car had, but I'd be very happy to have it in my garage. We wandered around for a couple of hours, checking out most of the cars, and decided to come back again the next day. We jumped back in the car and finally found the Capitol Building - here is a pic OK, 35 days into our trip, we have now travelled more than 10,000 miles in the renter, and we have another 3 weeks to go.
Really great pictures and narration. That Pizza looks great! Nice Chicago pictures with no bodies. Both Vettes are '61s.
Day 36 - Springfield IL to St Louis MO Next day we headed back to spend some more time looking around the Event. The Capitol Building looked fine in the daytime Then it was into the cars This 36 Coupe was really clean and neat (other than the primer on the bonnet suggesting it was being resprayed). It was flathead powered and just looked great.
This 1962 Olds Starfire has been owned since 1966 by the same fella. He has done a really nice resto on it after it being his everyday car for much of the earlier days he owned it. Beautiful car. I'm not a real big fan of the T-Buckets - I think they're a bit 'cartoony', but this one was well done and looked like a lot of fun. This 55 Chevy 210 2 door sedan was a reasonably low mileage car that has been tidied up very nicely. Everything about it looked really good.
The Jalopy Journal
