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Mopar Masterpiece: The Legendary 1970 Plymouth Superbird with Troy Hawkes · In Wheel Time Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: This is the world's favorite place to go for automotive fun, intrigue and informative car talk.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Intrigue, intrigue.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, Because you don't know what's coming up next.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: It's always a surprise and a surprise to us as well.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: It's the In Wheel Time Car Talk.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Show you a Mopar fan?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so is Troy Hawks.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and we're going to talk to him.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Jeff has the racing calendar, mars has this week in auto history and I'll get you caught up on some of the stories making automotive news headlines this week.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Howdy Along with Mike out of this world, mars.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: We always need more, jeff Zekin.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I'm Don Armstrong.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Well, at this moment I am.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Usually I'll come up with something else, some alias.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Alias Uh-huh, smith and Jones, aka, also known as Alias.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Still in the break Tater, tater, tater salad, my brother Tater salad, tater salad, brother Darrell and my other brother Darrell.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Alright, we're now going to talk to Mr Troy Hawks from the Hawks Mopar Nest.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Troy, we can hear you just fine.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you that we do like the Hawks Mopar Nest, so where are you nesting?
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: And I have to tell you that we do like the Hawks Mopar nest, so where are you nesting?
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: I'm outside of Waller, just west of Houston, moved out here with my wife to build our new nest right there.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: There it is.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Well, I see that the garage door is tall enough to get a great big, huge spoiler underneath it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Yep, two of them.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I got my Daytona 2 to get here.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: You guys had me on the air a couple years ago with the Daytona, Okay Well today it's the Plymouth.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Yep, I have to tell you I sure do like that black and white look of that car.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the big, you know.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I had the 65 Corvvair and I painted it that color, uh, white, but uh, you know black stripes on it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I I just think that you just don't see that many of them like that and it really stands out, yep so you want me to talk about?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: You got some questions, well, uh no, I, I would like for you to just give us the uh, give us the rundown on the car.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: How long have you had this car?
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: I've had the car since about 2022.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: I bought it from a friend of mine.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: He had it restored on the OEM, so basically the Plymouth decal and a quarter, you know just stock looking straight out of the factory.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: And then I slowly uncovered, when I got to actually meet the Lindsley's family, about the car's pedigree.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Um, jim lindsley is kind of like the richard petty of of the scta road racing, if you guys have heard of bonneville and el mirage.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Of course he helped start the gear grinders.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: In 1970 he bought this thing brand spanking new from a dealership there in in california and it immediately took on racing responsibilities.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: It decked out I've got pictures of the car from back in 70, 71.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: And as a typical race car it went through many different paint schemes.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: The big thing about it it's a world record holder, the 200 mile an hour club, which is very significant.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: So this is kind of you could.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: If you have a NASCAR metaphor, it would be a Richard Petty Superbird.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Except this started off as a factory car that bought at a dealership.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: And 1971, it had a fuel-injected Hemi Actually the one that's still in it.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: They raced it for two years and somehow the original motor survived and they yanked it, put it in the back of the shop and then they put various other kind of key black hemi's in it and um, I wanted to go and and replicate the paint scheme of what it was in 1970, 71, when jim and his son larry drove the car car to its record running passes at Bonneville on Elge Mirage, because I didn't want to have to paint it because most of the people remember it as a copper color from like 74 on through the 80s and when he made the 200 mile an hour club.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: It's pretty cool about the car that they get a sticker 200 mile a car and that sticker has been sitting on that wing window since 1971.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: So I was fortunate the people who restored the car didn't take that history off of the car.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Um, it's an original hemi automatic, column automatic and it still retains the original motor in it what?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: what cubic inch is that?
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Uh, the 426 Hemi, the 426 Hemi.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, look at that, it's stuffed in there.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: So it's the big block, hemi, and it's got one four-barrel on it, two, no, the dual quad Dual quads, it's two AFBs sitting on top of it, uh-huh.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: And like I said, the car, most of its history, was at Bonneville, from 1970 to I think they stopped racing, probably about 87, 88, somewhere there around.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: So there's a whole bunch of history about the car.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: I discovered when I engaged with Gary Linsley, the brother of Larry, who's a son of Jim, the original owner.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: You know, like, take, for instance, this little hole right here.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: It's not supposed to be there.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: You know, like take, for instance, this little hole right here, it's not supposed to be there.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: You know, I've owned many wing cars.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: I've owned Mopars my whole life and I was like what the heck is that there for?
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: And he sent me pictures of they put a fuel cell in the nose to just do some experimenting.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: And I've got pictures of the cap and the fuel inlet going to that hole and of them pouring fuel into it back in 71 or 73.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Where was the tank?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Inside the nose oh up in the very, very front Trying to get the weight balance different, yeah well.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine that would pass any set of safety today to have the fuel tank hanging out there in front.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Well, what blows my mind on this is that it's a column shifter, automatic.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: A column shifter, yeah.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Automatic.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Because Mr Lindsley his wife.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: He wanted to be able to sit next to his wife when they're going down the road for the short time that it was on the street, so he didn't want to afford gear, he wanted a bench seat so mrs lindsley could slide next to him so they didn't have, they didn't offer a bench seat with a four on the floor.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they did it, just if he didn't want the stick shift to get in the way of her legs, duh yeah you're not that old, or?
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Or that's all that they had, because you know the Hemi Superbird, they're very limited production.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: They only made about 130-135 of them Of the 1920 Superbirds that they had to make To satisfy NASCAR rules back in the day.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they got banned Because of the big wing and they just walked off and left the entire rest of the field.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: So like here's a thing called this is a picture of the car brand new, at El Mirage.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, he just drove it.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: It's brand new, still got the rally wheels on it, and then, here's a picture of the car running down Bonneville.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it zoomed in on it.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you can see it.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we see it.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: And then here's some other pictures of this is what most people remember it as the copper color and everybody thinks of the Linsleys Superbird.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: I took it to Speed Week at Bonneville last summer and some of the old timers.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: And here's the original window sticker of the car.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: What was the?
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: window sticker on what was the price $5,379.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: You can even buy the motor for that.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: That's the price I would have guessed.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, and it still has the original license plate.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: That's the original license plate to the car from 1970.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: And that's the dealership that he bought it from and they did some sponsoring.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: So now they're down the graphics.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: I found a lot of pictures at the peterson photo archive in california that they archive a lot of photos from hot rod magazine, car craft.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: You know all the magazines back in the day, whether it be nascar, seta, road racing, what have you.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Um, so the car's got a lot of pedigree.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: Um, world record holder, the highest speed that it got to was about 220 miles an hour.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Um, it broke the record at 214 because it land speed records.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: It's not just to get to 200 miles an hour, you have to break the existing record so, for example yeah, right, so this was one one way straight, yeah, and you got to back it up, as I say.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: So maybe the record was 213 miles an hour at the time and they went 214, so that's when they broke the first world record that the car had.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Well, Troy.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: If Don came to you with a suitcase full of unmarked bills, what would it take to buy that car?
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Unmarked bills, a few million probably, really yeah, yeah, that that the paint scheme that's on it.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's that, that's kind of what was on it in the pictures you were showing us.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: So that's back to what they were racing at one point yeah, yeah, I mean, it was just another, it was just a race car and I've got real close high-resolution photos of the car back in 70, 71.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: And I took the scale.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: And then there's a local you know all these vinyl shops where you can put vinyl in your car and everything.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: So I took the pictures and I went to the vinyl and we went over and we did measurements based on the images, you know, based to scale, and then that's when I put the 16 and the bp.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: That's the class that he ran.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: And then I've seen pictures of 70.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: He didn't have the stp in a quarter.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: So I know the pictures that I see are 1970 because the stp isn't there, and then 71.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: He had the sticker there.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: So I know that the pictures that I see with the stp is 71 okay, you know the lindley's.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: You know they put their name on it, just like petty plymouth, you know he did for his super birds and um and and and that's.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: You know that's a cool car was the car ever wrecked uh, no, I do have pictures of larry spinning out at high speed at bonneville, so that has to be very scary, where you're close to 200 miles an hour and you go into a spin.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can only imagine.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: But no, the car it's.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: I got pictures of it brand new with the roll bar.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: You know I got pictures when I met the family.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: I just the pedigree and the history, just it was like Niagara Falls.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: It just came flowing out, wow.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: And I got original time slips that the family has given me.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: They've been so awesome and they love the fact that.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: You know I'm keeping the car alive in the name of you know, jim and Larry and the whole family.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Now does it have mufflers on it today?
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, it does have mufflers.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: I want to.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: Actually you guys were talking, here was a segment from hmp at the houston track here, local nascar track.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Yep, um, I was.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I used the super bird as the official pace car.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: That was kind of surreal.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: I was the official pace car for one of their races.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: No, it was cool.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna try to get back and do it.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: The fans really loved it to see the super bird out there, you know, especially with the numbers and everything.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and with the NASCAR history.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Now with you out west, like you are.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Do you know John Hovis out at the Hemi Hideout?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know John very well, very good.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Well, we just had a remote broadcast out there recently and good friends with John and his family.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It's always good to see him and of course, you know that he's got a super bird in his collection out there.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And uh, I, I find the cars amazing.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with the beep, beep, how, and one is the nose and the other, of course, is the wing, and the nose is is a very special part of that car and it typically from the factory.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't fit to today's standards of fit and finish and I assume that yours is like that too oh yeah, you got.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: You got the gaps here.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: You know they, unlike the daytonas where they just grabbed charger rts and went to creative industries and built them on the fly at an off-site, remote location, the Superbirds were another animal because NASCAR changed the rule from running satisfying the rules of 500 units to satisfy in 69.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: That's why there was about 503 production Daytonas built, but the NASCAR changed the rules so you had to have like one unit for every two dealerships.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: So the Superbird volume went up to about 1920 units that needed to satisfy.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: And that was the lure.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Richard Petty back in the NASCAR because, as you know, he defected to Ford in 69 and Plymouth said if he's gonna come back and drive a wing car, this needs to be a.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Plymouth said, if he's going to come back and drive a wing car, it needs to be a Plymouth, because otherwise he could have drove a Daytona, because the rules, that body style was good for five years he didn't care.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: But Plymouth was adamant it needed to be a.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Richard Petty needed to be in behind the wheel of a Plymouth.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: So they're like, okay, well then you need to build an aero winged Plymouth.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: So hence you know, the creation of the Superbird.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: There you are.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: They had to make so many of them.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: So they built the assembly cars on the assembly plant, except the wing and the nose, and they were put together with the running whole car at the clear point, a sub-assembly facility there at Lynch Road.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: So creative industry makes the nose.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: They made the wing just like they did for the daytona and then they put the cars together.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: So that's why sometimes you'll see survivor super birds that the nose and the body paint don't particularly match because they took the car they went to another location that had the nose and a wing.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: They painted the nose on the fly to match the color of the car and sometimes it just didn't match perfectly.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: But they didn't care, they just threw them together and sent them off to the dealership so you know the the other thing that was uh interesting to me about that car and I did not realize this, but that rear wing was adjustable, oh yeah, yeah, and you got a, and, I would imagine, did they put it into a wind tunnel to get it just right for whatever track they were racing and the speed they were racing at?
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean luckily, the Superbird, the technology and the science was already there with the year before the Daytona, but the aerodynamics in the wind tunnel, the wind would come down and it would come back down in here in the wind tunnel.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: The wind would come down and it would come back down in here, so they had to get the wing, which is basically an airplane wing, upside down, so it's pulling down instead of lift and it's into what you would call the clean air, so it's above that roof line of the wind tunnel and that adjustment screw.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: you just showed it there on the side.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: So this wing, you know it's tight but if you lift it up it puts more down pressure on the tires.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and there's braces that go from the wing down to the frame rails on the inside and they work.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: Because I have stories of back in the day in the 80s, growing up in South Florida, where a guy bought a Superbird and he was all excited and he forgot to put the wing braces in.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: When he put the wing back on because apparently he didn't have it on it and he was hauling the butt down I-95, and the wing pushed the quarter panel, buckled the quarter panel.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: He didn't have the braces in there.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you get up to speed in that thing.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: That's he didn't have the braces in there.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you get up to speed in that thing.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of downforce on the back end of that car.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, it is the Daytona I did Texas Motor Speedway.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Motor Turn Magazine did a photo shoot of my car and I got up to probably about 125, 130.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: And about 100, I could feel the car squatting.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: I could feel it getting pushed down with the nose and the front spoiler and the wing it works.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And they're sturdy because they, when the advertising, used to have models sitting on top of the wing to show the sturdiness of it, and remember that oh yeah, I've, I've sat on my wings, I've had kids sit on the wings and stuff like that.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: So yeah, there it's.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: It's a.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: It's a poured, you know, aluminum alloy.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: It's a cast wing and uh, it's rigid, it's.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: It's.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: I mean it's a poured aluminum alloy, it's a cast wing and it's rigid.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: I mean it's strong.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Are you going to be?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: showing that car anytime soon around town.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, I take it to the local coffee and cars all the time, waller, it's a little further than I used to do, but I've taken it to the post downtown.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: I've taken it to the Fairfield Baptist Church.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: I've taken it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I drive it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: I take it to the post downtown.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: I've taken it to the Fairfield Baptist Church.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: I've taken it.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I drive it.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: I take it to church on a day like today.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: I drive the heck out of the car.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: What kind of gear is in the rear end?
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: All automatic Superbirds came with a 355, 8 3⁄4 sure grip, and all four speeds would have come with a 354 sure grip, dana, so it is drivable.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: I mean as far as oh yes, you know, freeway type thing, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, can you imagine that coming by on 10?
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: I can?
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: yeah, when I had the daytona.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: It was an original 410 dana car and I had to put a gear vendor overdrive unit in it because it just it's sad when you're in a right-hand lane and everybody and their mother's blowing by you because your motor's screaming with the 410.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt, troy, you're in a wing car troy, it's great to talk to you, my friend, and to learn about, uh, the wonderful 70 super birds you got there at hawks mopar nest.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I love it great, it's awesome and, uh, it's great to talk to you and hopefully we'll talk again.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe we get to see each other again.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: That sounds good.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Looking forward to it.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Take care and thank you for the opportunity to chat.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: You bet.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you Tony, bye-bye.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Nice Nice guy, it is Nice car, nice interview, nice interview, yeah Good.
• 18:11
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  Speaker 1: Oh, you'll get cold Pro-Am Auto and Gulf Coast Auto Shield where we will be next Saturday.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Woo-hoo, our usual time, 10 to noon.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: And if you don't know where Gulf Coast Auto Shield, it's really easy to get to.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: It's just to the south of 59, the Southwest Freeway on the West Sam Houston Tollway.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And he broke breaking news last week that he's got a new facility coming online very soon down in richmond rosenberg or something.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: No, no, we're over here.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Sugarland, sure we're here.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not far good all right, um time now for the racing calendar.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, I was going to go to mike's, but well, it doesn't make any difference.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Racing is, uh, pretty much.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: As we talked to rodney or earlier in the in the by the way, this is sponsored by the te Muscle Car Club Challenge.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Formula One.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: They've got a race coming up.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: It's going to be well.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: They've got the one going on right now, the Cutter Airways Cutter Grand Prix, and then they've got one more coming up, and then that's it for.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Formula One we used to pronounce that Qatar.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Qatar Cutter whatever, the case, it's Cutter.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Cutter.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: So Formula One's going to be ending here in the next few weeks, so bye-bye and then.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Oh and then, whoo-hoo, guess what?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Cadillac?
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's not for another year.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Well, they're going to start doing their thing in 25.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: But GM's making the motors.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, cadillac's making the motor, whatever Cadillac.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Cadillac, yeah Say it Cadillac, Cadillac.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, say it.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Cadillac, cadillac, cadillac.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I'll be good.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Anyways, that's going on, all right, thank you.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Mr Mars has this Week in Auto History.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, dude.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: So this Week in Auto History November the 28th 1895, us first automobile race at speeds of 7 miles per hour.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: This race was sponsored by the publisher of the Times Herald newspaper, who was wanting to promote American automobiles because he believed they would surpass the horse and carriage travel.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: But it just so happened to be the 50th anniversary of the newspaper as well.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: So the night before the big race it snowed Six inches of snow.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: So of the 83 registered drivers, six cars made the starting line.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: Four of the cars were gasoline-powered, three of them manufactured by Carl Benz, german namesake of Mercedes-Benz, then the fourth was made by Drury Motor Wagon Company of Springfield, massachusetts.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: The other two vehicles were electric.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: They weren't really racing because they thought they could win, but they were trying to show off what electric cars could do back in 1895.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: They were doing it then and they're still trying to do it today.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: That's when they first originally invented donkey hauling.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: The thing about it.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: Each car had to make room for the driver, but it had to have a race umpire along with them to ensure they stayed on the course.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: Wait a minute a race, umpire, umpire.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: Now, according to the chicago chronicle of the time, the durier lost one of its rubber tires so they had to stop and they tied the tire back on with ropes and they continued on.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: The one horse was one wrecked.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: One vehicle was wrecked by a frightened horse, throwing the driver and the umpire out in the snow, and another driver lost control of his vehicle, was crushed in the rear of a street car.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: He was ejected.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: He was ejected, didn't have his seat belts on.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: So only two cars actually finished the race after 10 hours on the road and the durier vehicle garnered first place.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Second place went to the ben's car, so that was kind of helped.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: What promoted the idea of American cars and American automotive at the time?
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: Now, november the 30th 1954, the first Chevrolet Corvette with a V8 engine debuted at Dawn.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: This one's for you.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: The first Chevrolet Corvette equipped with V8 engines came out for a 55 model year.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Sure that's a 53 there.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, looks like it.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: Not according to my notes, but whatever, being the aficionado, I would think you would know.
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: Originally it was launched in 53 with an inline six Did not really get the excitement of the sports car crowd until Zora Arkus how do you say it?
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Duntoff?
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: Duntoff was responsible for it.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: He's the one that came up with the idea of putting the V8 in there with a three-speed manual transmission.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: Therefore, it kind of kept it up with the Ford Thunderbird, studebaker, speedster and the larger Chrysler 300, and people actually started taking an interest in it.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: That's what started the whole Corvette craze that we have these days.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: That's what started the whole Corvette craze that we have these days.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: Now, moving on to another event, on November 30, 1982, the last checker cab rolled off the assembly line in Kalamazoo, michigan.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: This made it the end of one of America's most iconic vehicles.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: The Checker Motors Company had been producing the rugged, boxy cabs since the early 1920s and they were built to endure the rigor use of taxi operators, to make it comfortable for passengers.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, you got to think about these cars.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: Built to go 200 000 miles, but they do it at half a mile at a time because they just don't get out and travel on the road.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: It was a body-on-frame construction.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: The wheelbase some of them was a little bit longer to get more space inside.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: It was boxy because they got more room out of it, you could get more room, and because you could get to the interior, you had more room in it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: It had steel panels that were really thick and they were interchangeable so that if you had one that got wrecked it was easy to take it off and put it on.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: It had bench seats just because it was easier for people to get in and out, and it had a flat floor in the rear seat for the same reason.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: People with luggage made it easier to get in and out.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Heavy-duty suspension.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: They were built to last 200,000 miles and they had a lot of built-in things that were specific for a taxi cab, such as the light on top and the built-in meters, and then they added some other things that they got on for more security.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: But the last one rolled off the assembly line in 1982, and you still see some out and about in certain cities.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: They still use them.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Pardon me just a moment.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I've got a little something special for you.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: Stand by.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: I have to get up and around.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: Uh-oh, uh-, uh oh, he's on the move.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: It's not dirty pictures or anything.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: Well, I didn't know if we had to turn off the live feed.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to See if I can do.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Can I do this with my headset on, sure?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it will reach or not.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Hold on, okay.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Which camera do you want me to use, jeff?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Sure, I don't know if it'll reach or not.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Hold on, okay.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Which camera do you want me to use, jeff?
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Let's just use your camera.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: No which.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Bottom.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: This one right here.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Let's do this one, okay.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Can you find him, jeff?
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Do you see that man right there?
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Right there, yep, that's Duntoff, that's Zora, and you know who?
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: This is over here.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Howdy doody.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: It's me and he signed this.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Are you kidding?
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: It's right up there.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: It says To Don Love Zora Z Arcus Duntoff, right there at the top of Corvettes of Houston.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Let me see that Right there.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: There you go, so don't give me any grief anymore.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: There was a lesson behind that, mike.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: There was a lesson, huh.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: There's Bill Insurance.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: I recognize Bill yeah.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: That's his wife right next to him.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: That was back in the day, my friend.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: Dang, you had brown hair.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Well, there was a time.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, at least I still have hair, that's true.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: I can't say I have hair.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: I just thought I'd bring that up.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: That's pretty cool.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know whether you'd ever seen that or not.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: No, I did.
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: I looked at the picture, but I didn't realize that.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: That was at the Oklahoma Corvette Expo.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: There's a story behind that that I don't have time to tell you about today.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's it.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: So, yes, I had my picture and autograph taken with zora and his wife ursi.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, ursi duntoff, yeah, the father of the corvette.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Well, she would be the mother I guess she would.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, by default the madam, something like that.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Well, this has been a fun show today, our easter, easter, we've been Easter.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Easter.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: We've been into.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: We've been into the eggnog.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I need to get me some eggnog they got it for sale at the H-E-B-N-O-G.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you a story about eggnog.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Do you drink eggnog?
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: No, you don't.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: No, I like eggnog.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: You gotta thin it down a little bit.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: It's a little thick.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: What vodka and milk.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, that's always a good combination.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Yuck yeah and eat oysters.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: And eat oysters.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Huh, I haven't thought about that.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Vodka, milk and oysters, hoo-hoo, that's a Christmas dinner there.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Well, the one you'll remember.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: We're going to end the show with that, that's for sure.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Well, that's all for this, for this week's In Wheel Time Car Talk Show.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Be sure and check us out online at inwheeltimecom.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Love and or hate mail can be addressed to Mars.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: At inwheeltimecom, we like car pics, so send us some of your car with a description and any info you want to include, and we'll feature it on a future show.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Hey, when you're looking for award-winning car talk, you can find the In Wheel Time Car Talk Show 24-7 on the In Wheel Time app.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Download it today if you haven't already.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Grab a podcast anytime from your favorite podcast provider and look for us on the Odyssey radio app.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: You can also find us on Facebook, youtube and InWheelTimecom.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: The In Wheel Time video technical director is we always need more jazzy Jeff Zekin, the booking agent, video editor and people finder, mike out of this world bars and chief engineer, david Ainsley.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: I'm Don Armstrong.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: We hope you'll join us again next week for our live show coming to you from the Car Social at Gulf Coast Auto Shield.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Regular time, 10 to noon Central Time on all of our In Wheel Time Car Talk outlets.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Be safe out there and have a good week, despite the fact that we all got to go back to work on Monday.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: That's it for this podcast episode of the In Wheel Time Car Show.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I'm Don Armstrong, inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning on Facebook, youtube, twitch and our InWheelTimecom website.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, spotify Stitcher, iheart Podcast Podcast Addict TuneIn, pandora and Amazon Music.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Keep listening and we'll see you soon.