Does anyone have pictures of the Tom Beatty Sedan Delivery that he ised as a push truck? I waas ont able to find these two and its only barely visable in the second...Im hoping someone can help
I remember reading many years ago, that that truck pushed some comp cars faster than they ran under power.
I was wondering about that exact car yesterday an old issue of CC i belive talked about it being supercharged, i'll find ya the issue date it is on the top of my stack
Louie ur the man that's a great picture...as far as engines go I believe he had a 296ci flatty in it then it had a blown olds motor....not sure the specs if anyone knows for sure let me know.... I heard a story about his girlfriend driving the s/d and pushing him onto the freeway in the belly tank as a test run
yea Sept '62 has an artical on him and 2 pics of it, one has the louvered hood popped and a jimmy blower peaking out from underneath It said by the time the artical was published his new overdrives for hydromatics were in production, anyone know what ever became of those? Ive never heard of them
I only have the pics you have but you might be interesteed in a couple stories that were previously posted on the HAMB. I talked to Tom quite a few times when he was running the flathead.... First story: 1953.( I think) Tom had run most of the week and used up all of his engines. He was talking to his wife and I was standing there listening..He asks if he can pull the engine out of the push car and run it as it is all that is left in one piece. (It is identical to the ones he runs in the tank except for the blower) She says, how do we get home? He says, we have enough parts to ***emble an engine to get home with. She says, no way. You do that and you find a new wife.... Needless to say he kept the wife. Second story: Tom Beatty story as told to me by himself. Time: 1953 Place: Los Angeles It's 0300 on a Wednesday morning. The garage door swings up. The driver straps on his helmet and climbs in the car. Wife climbs in the 39 panel push car and fires up the 296 flathead. A gentle nudge and the #100 car rolls out to the street. She eases up gently to the push bar. The car rolls easily down the street a half block to the freeway entrance. (Remember this is 1953 and there are numerous single lane freeway on-ramps in LA.) They roll up to the edge of the freeway and ascertain that there are no cars coming or going. They roll off, the flathead in the push car straining to gain maximum speed as rapidly as possible. The engine in the tank lights off and the car screams down the freeway. The tach climbs, the blower whines, the rear end gears whine, the tach touches 7000,(over 150 mph) off the throttle and on the brakes, such as they are, (2 wheel), back down to 40 mph and drop down on the off ramp, sharp right turn at the end of the ramp, run the red light at the intersection, back up the side street to home. Back in the garage, jack the car up, change gears, load up tools,fuel, 4 spare engines and get ready to leave for Bonneville later in the morning.
pete i had heard the second story but the first is cl***ic....must have been aweson to talk to meet and talk to him
Tom ran a blown Olds in it...One story was from a guy who was towing to the lakes at night, saw a pair of headlights behind him, coming up fast. It was Tom with his sedan delivery with the tank on a trailer...p***ed at very high speed and disappeared into the dust...Tom had little fear.
I used to go to Tom's shop, on Glenoaks Blvd, in SoCal to talk about Mustang bikes. The sedan delivery was there, in the shop. It had the blown Olds in it. I suspect he still had it at the time of his death. A friend of mine went by after they cleaned the place out and pulled a teens Indian frame and forks out of the dumpster. He said there was nothing else of any interest there. Tom was a very quiet man. He never bragged or made a big deal of his accomplishments. He could have made a boatload of money with his talents, but he seemed to prefer to stay in the shadows
before he had the olds motor in it he had a 296ci built mercury flathead which id love to see pictures of Id love to see pictures of that Olds motor...the more i read about him the cooler he gets
As the owner of a '40 sedan delivery, I have to ask where they put the spare engines when they went to the salt? 4 engines in the back of a s/d with that old transverse spring blows my mind. However, I remember the original spring under my s/d was all double leafed. Were the engines on the trailer with the tank? I'm ***uming there was a trailer. Did they tow the tank? If there was a trailer, any pics of it? Was it the cl***ic old one axle/2 wheel trailer that you always see the midgets and racing roadsters on?
I just noticed a 60 el camino in a mag in an old unrelated bonneville shot, the back of it had 2 348's or 409's and a big tool box. People did some crazy stuff back then
Is a 348 or 409 the only v-8 heavier than flatheads?! An El Camino started out life as a low rider! That is impressive! Then again, how many of us have seen modern day fools p***ing us with the small spare mounted on their Hondas? I'm not suggesting that Tom Beaty was being unsafe with his practices of towing. The context of it all is that it was a much different time where the roads were a lot less congested and with a recent war concluded, Americans were less prone to pointing blame on happenstance type of events, should they occur. So, back to my original questions. Did he tow the tank on its wheels or did he have a trailer? Inquiring minds in Texas want to know, at least one does.
Trailer, probably 2-wheel. Tom never drag-raced the tank, as far as I know, but he did drag race his Mustang motorcycle, won lots of trophies at San Fernando. He was a quiet guy, but a motor genius...did a lot to develop top-mounted blowers, sort of took over from Barney Navarro....set up "Tom Beatty Automotive" to market his multi-pulley blower drives, but the gilmer belt drives apparently put him out of business.
The Jalopy Journal
