Ryan submitted a new blog post: The Novi Mobil Special... Again... Continue reading the Original Blog Post
Yes, Wow! Those are phenomenal shots, so much to drink in! Love the "I'm so cool I wrench on my racecar in my Fedora shot".
more more infoooo Please... Some of these amazing pictures are at some dry lake test/photo op session. I don't recognize the high banks to be El Mirage ?? I'm sure there were more Dry Lake available in 47/48-ish. Anybody know where this took place,
Such an incredible time in go fast indeed...they all were really but it just highlights why it's worth reaching back to celebrate it. Thank you for the mention and its truly a big picture to get our hands and minds around... Some big names involved in this Novi Racer. It was like a aircraft with 4 wheels from one corner to the other. Coming off the Art Deco era the look was stunning too. There wasn't anything that lacked craftsmanship in these beasts. No surprise as the Builders / Fabricators were at the top of their game, not that there wasn't room for higher ground...they never stopped... Thanks for sharing the Art of Go Fast @Ryan 179 mph back then was no doubt exilerating and no surprise things were tweaked as the pilots were just messaging those that provided the rockets they propelled.
That is quite the beast of an engine too!! What did they run on?, aviation Fuel...I know there was a diesel racer...not a Novi...but it looks like propeller material...
...thanks to Stogy and a mysterious woman named Jessica. I would like to hazard a guess that the mysterious woman is the one in the*****pit with dad? Anyway absolutely cool story and get them young un's interested at an early age!!!
Wow, what a beauty. The suspension is breathtaking and... great engineering, I bow to you. Regards, Harald
I love this shot! High quality, and technologically advanced race car meets low tech rudimentary loading process...
I catch myself staring at cars like this and thinking I was born seventy or eighty years too late... wishing I could’ve been there when machines like this still roamed the earth like wild animals. But then I notice the crew...*****oned up like bankers, sweating through wool pants and*****on up shirts while wrestling greasy machinery... and I remember, no, I was born right on time. I can’t stand wool, and every time I put on a necktie it feels like some tiny********’s on my back trying to choke the life out of me. No thanks, man.
Thanks for another great post of historical nature, there are some great construction shots of the Novi car that I hadn’t seen before. Ab’s son Marvin had history with the car when it was under construction. Here’s a photo taken in Bud Winfield’s garage in 1941, left to right are Tony Morosco, Marv, Bud Winfield, Lew Welch (the financial backer) and Pete Clark. Marv would have been about 21 when the photo was taken.
As I understand it, Lew Welch financed this car after hearing about the exotic V8 build that was the brain child of Bud Winfield's. The "Novi" comes from Lew's hometown... Novi, Michigan. The Novi engine was a beautiful kind of madness... a one-off V8 crankcase mated to a pair of Offy cylinder blocks and four cam****emblies bolted together... A shaft-driven supercharger spun up to 25,000 RPM, howling like a banshee caught in a hurricane. It didn’t just make noise, it made music... a shrieking, metallic hymn unlike anything else at indy or on the lakes. The crowd didn’t just hear it, they felt it, deep in the bones, like thunder from another world. The front transfer case is just as gorgeous... That was fabricated by Frank Curtis. Anyway, the motor... and the car really... was hard to handle. One of the first drivers was Cliff Bergere. He was scared*****less of the car and Welch was having none of it. Fired him at the track and replaced him with Ralph Hepburn. Hepburn balled the thing up in testing and died as a result. Shortly after, Chet Miller just flat out quit. So think about that... Ab Jenkins put his son in this thing!
@mgtstumpy shared a post of a fella driving a later one and I don’t care if a dog was barking it did sound fierce. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-special-at-bonneville.1105520/#post-12697629
Front Wheel Drive! I guess that's why it burned up tires. (see article below) An excellent article I found on HRM about how the Novi V8 was designed and****embled. https://www.hotrod.com/features/an-...de-the-fabulous-novi-august-1954-982-962-30-1
You might be right and you're Dad. I'm just wondering...if you are that would be epic and if not welcome to the Hamb regardless...great Thread to start the ball rolling on... I'm wrong, you're not a newbie but I'm still curious.
Just a Wild Guess! But waaayyy kool if it that was Jessica at a very young age! I'm old but not that old...least I don't feel like that but every now and then, the aches and pains from doing everything I did catches up with me!
In 1958 I was a 10 year old kid and my dad took me to Indy for pole day time trials. I had heard dozens of stories about the Novi's but never saw them in person. We were sitting on the exit of turn 4, late in pole day qualifying and no Novi's had been out yet. Since no one was in kine to qualify, the track was opened for practice. I heard the usual throaty growl of the Offies passing by. All of a sudden I this screaming coming down the back stretch. The infield was open in those days and you could look across the track and see cars about to enter turn 3. This unearthly screaming cracked the air and we saw two cawith tail fins entering turn 3. They were the Novis of Paul Russo and Tony Bettenhausen. What a marvelous noise that I that I can close my eyes and still see and hear all these years later! A thrilling experience long ago! It was something hard to explain and had to be experienced to fully appreciate!
I loved reading this all over again... To add to the mix, my father in law BUD HOWSEMAN was LEW WELCHS son in law. Growing up in and around Glendale Ca. I got to see where some of racing royalty came from. Lew owned NOVI components that was purchased from FORD Motor Co. This gave him the financial well being to give this racing a try. When most teams were hauling their race cars with a station wagon and a single axle trailer, Lew was flying his cars around the US using flying tigers to do the transportation. Way ahead of the curve at that time! As my father in law explained Lew hired the most talented at that time which included Bud Winfield- La Crescenta, Frank Curtis car builder - Glendale, Frenchie the car chief/lead mechanic ? And many others. My Mother in Laws family owned the business directly across the street from Curtis' race shop on Colorado Blvd in Glendale. He explained to me that the NOVI cars were built like a tank to handle the extreme power they were making so it could go the distance without falling apart. Unfortunately, with that amount of power and front wheel drive if the car got down on the apron in the grass at that time it became an impossible vehicle to control which Killed I believe three of its drivers. Poor tire technology, NO seatbelts... it was thought to be thrown from the crash was a better option then being tied into the car and burn to death. It was known as the BEAST because of its exhaust note that could be heard all the way around Indy and its violent tendencies with that front wheel drive. Love to here from others with any input to the NOVIS history!!!
That's Ab Jenkins at the front and his son Marvin at the right front wheel. Ab was always well dressed and I bet his son was Marvin too. I think Windfield is at the wheel with that big grin.
One of the NOVI'S pitfalls was the constant blown head gaskets... This was something that took years to overcome, looking at that picture from 1941 the engine had MANY head bolts trying to control the head gaskets. My Father in law BUD was serving in the South Pacific during WW2 but when he got out, Indy racing and the NOVI was his world for the next 10 years or so. After alot of head scratching he came up with the idea that made the Novi able to finish races again. The cylinder heads and block was cast as one... so no more worry about blown head gaskets! Weird but true-
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