Jalopy does 110mph

December 7, 1941, "A Date Which Will Live In Infamy"

71 years on, time heals old wounds but never forget the lessons learnt.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana 1863 - 1952

Jot Horne Ranger powered T roadster

Jot Horne was well known for his line of Horne speed equipment, But he was most famous for designing the Cragar S/S mag wheel. But this isn't the reason for this post, Jot was quite an innovator when it came to his cars in 1948 Jot stuffed a Duesenberg DOHC straight 8 under the hood of his '32 roadster. Later on Jot replaced the '32 body with a '27 Model T roadster body, his speeds jumped from 130mph to 143mph. Competing at the first Bonneville Nationals in 1949 Jot set the "D" Roadster class record with a speed of 127.565mph. In 1951 Jot bought a P.T. 19 Trainer at Hawthorne Airport for $100, he and a buddy took the wings off & loaded the wingless plane into a pickup. So this leads us to the article below which has some fantastic info on Jot's Airoadster. Jot sadly passed away April 14, 2012, at the age of 87. 

Gene Hewitt T roadster. Powered by Wayne 12-port Chevy 6

Butler Brothers '26 T roadster. Bob Miller A roadster

#27 Butler Brothers A class modified roadster. Powered by a 176" '28 Chev 4 with Oldsmobile 3-port head.

#548 Bob Miller B class '28 model A roadster powered by a 286" '46 Mercury V8.

Detroit Never Satisfies Them. June 1948

Hottest Hot Rod

R.I.P. Norm Grabowski. 1933-2012

Checking the daily subscribed email from the Jalopy Journal I was saddened to see Norm Grabowski has passed away. I have never met Norm but he was one person I would have really liked to have met. Norm was a man who crammed a lot into his life, Hot Rods, magazine covers, Film Actor, Artist extraordinaire carving the coolest, evilest wood shift knobs anywhere!

Norm's Lightning Bug was/is my favourite T-bucket of all time, it is perfect in black paint & whitewalls. The Chrome laden Cad V8 was no slouch dispatching the competition to the wayside. Norm would rebuild the car into what will forever be known as the Kookie Kar. The October 1955 Hot Rod featured Lightning Bug on the cover & it happens to be the first Hot Rod issue of 50s I owned. I bought it 8-9 years ago at Wintersun Nostalgia Festival, it was a taped together piece of crap but I was stoked to own it. That issue really ignited my passion to collect these old Hot Rod mags.

R.I.P. Norm, Thank You for all you did for Hot Rodding!

Carl Borgh GMC powered 1925 Chevrolet Roadster

I was looking at an image of Carl Borgh's ex-Spurgin/Giovanine roadster and noticed for the first time that the Chuck Spurgin built nose has some damage around the bottom of the grille where it appears to be pushed in, I wonder if this was the catalyst for the rebuild into the mid engine roadster?

Kurtis Sports Car, 1949

Frank Kurtis built Kurtis Sports Car 1949 Wally Parks was the wheel man.

Hallock Injector

S.C.T.A. Program September 21 1947