Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Rediscovering a Forgotten Pioneer: Benjamin F. Harris III & his Speedster

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Rediscovering a Forgotten Pioneer: Benjamin F. Harris III & his Speedster · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Break Fix's History of Motorsports series is brought to you in part
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by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the
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Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of
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Commerce, and the Arge Singer family.
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In this episode of the log book, John Yako recounts the discovery and historical
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significance of a unique 1935 front wheel drive speedster, created by Benjamin F.
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Harris iii.
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Initially found in a neglected state in 1987, the vehicle's unusual
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design and Harris's innovative contributions to automotive history,
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intrigued John and his brother.
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This led to an extensive pre-internet research endeavor where they discovered
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Ben Harris was an early industrial designer and motorsports architect,
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and was deeply involved in the development of American Road Racing
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and CCAs national organization.
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He collaborated with notable figures like Harley Earl and Jim Kimberly, and
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played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Road America racetrack.
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John presents us with rich historical insights, personal anecdotes, and
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acknowledges the extensive research and supportive collaborations that
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uncovered Harris's legacy, culminating in his posthumous induction into
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the SECA Walk of Fame in 2020.
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My introduction to Ben Harris as a story past occurred in 1987
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while touring a property for purchase in Clarksville, Missouri.
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The property was a time capsule of partially buried pedigree automobiles
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and of their components I was drawn to and later purchased the Harris Front
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wheel drive speed because of its unique appearance and the fact that a tree had
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gone through the center of its cockpit.
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And it just amazed me.
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I began researching the purchase pre-internet with a little more than
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this rendering by my brother Dan Yanko.
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John, what initially intrigued you about Ben Harris and his work in automotive
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design as Ben f Harris III built?
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An anomaly in time in 1935.
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We wanted to just touch upon it because he kind of built what was
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to come in the fifties in race car designs and exotic designs.
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Always wore his hat, usually flight glasses.
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He was a pilot.
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He was a very politically involved person, and he usually had a
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dress code on, or he was dressed in the SCCA efficient material.
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This picture is from an SCCA magazine, Indiana Race, July, August, 1954.
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Can you elaborate on the significance of Harris's association with the AAA in the
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early days, Ben, apparently all the way back when this picture was taken was 1936,
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was highly involved with the a, a AAA.
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You'll notice there's AAA license plate on the back of the speedster.
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That license plate says AAA official card.
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What are some of the design elements of the Harris Speedster that were
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ahead of their time compared to the later race cars of the 1950s?
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Remarkably, in 1935, the speedster was the size of an AC cobra and a D type jaguar.
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The motors was a two cam.
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Two distributor dual rated V eight, built in 1933 and 34.
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We could see that it had friction shock absorbers, which I knew was something
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from the twenties and thirties.
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Ben's car started silk chr, Metallica paint.
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DuPont's first.
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Actually, the color of that is their patent formular.
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For chr, Metallica Paint, duke Lacquer was put onto the Harris Speedster.
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How did GM executives react to Harris's work?
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And was there any notable collaboration between them?
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My favorite picture to illustrate the size of the futuristic exotic
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design, the speedster photo from 52 Chicago Invitational event.
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There are some GM executives in this picture.
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Here we have some other ones.
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GM was participating with Ben in this booth, and we do believe this
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is the one that another friend of Ben's, Chrissy Kaki, put a picture and
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featured Ben's car on the front cover of his magazine for a special edition.
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We believe it was for this showing, but we're truly not sure.
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It mentions Ben's car won an Indianapolis custom car show in 1951.
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The reason for this was Wally Parks, and I can't think of the owner's
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name of Hot Rod Magazine, ran a full page ad looking for Ben and his car.
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They wanted to send him an invitation to the second annual indie rod custom show.
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Ironically, at the end, 17 years of age and design, it won a first place trophy.
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Can you even imagine that?
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It was still state-of-the-art futuristic.
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This picture here is actually clipped from the Hot Rod Magazine
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from 1951 where they were looking for Ben to send him an invitation.
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The car, at this point in time.
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Was still the chrome Metallica as DuPont called it.
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Ben never really named the car that's talked about in auto puzzles, which
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some may enjoy reading that story 'cause it brings back forth many,
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many more facts about Ben and the car.
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This is a speedster stretching out its legs on the racetrack.
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This is a boardwalk.
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The speedster is on, and again, we think this is 46 to 48.
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The vehicle did do some racing.
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Very limited, but it did.
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The more I learned about the car, the more I became intrigued
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about the man behind the car.
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Harris's interest in performance.
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Cars wasn't limited to industrial design.
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He was also an enthusiast who raced in and officiated numerous
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AAA SCCA and FI events in three.
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Countries.
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Yes.
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Three countries at Cuba, Nassau, Bahama, and 12 states that we have him at with
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pictures and magazine articles and stuff.
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Harris needs to say, was very active in the SCZA as it transitional lies
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into a unified national organization.
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Benjamin F. Harris was among the vanguards of industrial designers,
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engineers, and Motorsport architects as early as the 1930s.
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A small sampling of his associates include Gordon Bing, Harley Earl,
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ed Cole, Zora Doff, James Kimberly, wacky Arno, and many, many others.
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You'll see pictures of Ben talking with Carol Shelby and his Maserati.
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You'll see a lot of different pictures coming up, uh, including
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with Wacky and everybody else.
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He was good friends with Fred Dusenberg, August son, Fritz.
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He was Best man at Gordon Bings wedding in Auburn, Indiana to Betty Whitten.
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Can you describe the significance of Harris' relationship with automotive
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icons like Harley Earl and Zora Donoff?
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Uh, knowing Harley Earl when he first went to GM 56 Harley, and I guess
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Zora built him a special car vet and delivered it to him right out of the
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styling building at General Motors.
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Ben took his plate, flew there, picked it up, and while I was there, they
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also had a real nice luncheon for him.
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With most of the GM hierarchy.
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They're at the meeting Ben brings in Harley Earl, which
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is a lot to be said there.
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I have talked to Richard Earl.
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We've coordinated just a little bit.
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I gave him some documents that he'd never seen before.
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There's another way that Ben Harris found together with his friends, Harley Earl.
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And others, um, concept CARNA Harris Speech for Marketing Techniques.
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Benjamin Harris used to draw crowds at many racing events throughout the us.
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1952 to 60 we'll mention, we also talked about the loss history
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of the car, John Hendricks that owns, uh, discovery channels and
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a lot the 30 year loss history.
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And I told him what I thought, how that happened, but at the
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same point in time, he showed me that he'd done a YouTube on that.
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That's a whole nother story.
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There's a lot of sub stories off this.
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We moved out past that.
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We run into the name Teeter.
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Teeter is the one that actually was Perfect Circle Corporation, and also he's
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the one that sued pretty much everybody for stealing his cruise control patent.
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Yeah.
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He's the one that designed it and made it.
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He brings in his friendships with Pop Meyers, Jimmy Snyder, Peter
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Collins, Rodriguez Brothers, Phil Hill, Alfred Momo, Alex
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Allman, and the great gentleman.
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Start your engines, Wil Shaw, Wil Behar another.
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A few others are pitching in a film that Ben did at one of the races, many races.
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That he was associated with in officiating and sanctioning.
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We have not ran into anybody that contributed more to building the
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national level in rules, books and presentations than Ben Harris.
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That's a bold statement, but yet we've been at this for 35 years.
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Then he talks about Colonel Harrington of the contest board, the AA and
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American representative of FIA.
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I wonder if that's perhaps why Ben was thrown an international
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flag at Nassau Bahamas.
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Speedway talks about him holding SCCA Senior Competition license, AAA license,
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and FIA licenses, having served as an SCCA regional executive member of the National
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Activities Committee in a former national Vice president and publications director.
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Driven to different tracks.
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Stockholder of Road America.
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What role did Ben play in the early development of Road America?
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David Biggs's son told me he has records of them driving around and
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David Biggs's, uh, Mercedes 500 cab filming the Road America before.
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It had any surface put onto it.
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They were making sure the track was just as they wanted it.
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And this same book also has rules and regulations that they
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were talking about adding in.
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This was 52 or 53 when this is filmed.
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I've tried to get that 'cause it would be great to go with this, especially
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for Road America, to show the real beginnings of shaking the track down
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at the inaugural race at Road America.
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Preston Tucker did have one of his tuckers at that too, promoting the
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concept car and everything else.
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And by the way.
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I find this entertaining and not to take away from anybody, but this is 52.
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Ben's car is 17 years old.
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It seems like it's still drawing lots of people around it, and right
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in front of it is the four lac.
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Yes.
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Ben was also good friends with the Granite Teles.
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This is ones that they actually built for him.
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Cut the body.
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Put in the different rear end knock off wheels.
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He used it as a tool.
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Ben had just driven it two weeks prior to a big Indy race where ironically, many,
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many of the people that were there were gonna be president coming at the Chino
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race that had almost 80,000 people there.
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But the point is, is Ben used every tool that he could get.
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There's also rally events, which involves sometimes 30 mile drives, but he wanted
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to draw as many as possible, and I'm sure.
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Everybody around him agreed and they all participated in their
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plot that they were unleashing.
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Harris recognized the cart racing, provided an incubator for tomorrow's
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motor sports champions, which it did.
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This is from the collection of the Henry Ford Museum archives.
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There's a lot more to be said about this picture, too.
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If you look in the background, you'll see all the stands are full of people.
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He must have been bouncing everywhere over that whole 10 days for this event.
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Road America Big Bo event is what it was turned Harris could be spotted
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wearing a signature English flat cap and an SCCA official shirt
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with a hands-on car number one 19.
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This photo is one of many SCCA events officiated by Harris.
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This number 60 Jag.
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I think this is the 60 Jag that won the inaugural race at Road America.
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Sorry to learn that.
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The one archivist that I'd spoken with, really a nice guy, passed away.
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Looking forward to working with him, to giving him a bunch of information that
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they don't have about the beginnings of Road America and how it all happened.
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Finn Harris was a pilot.
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He owned an airport and he was constantly flying.
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People like Harley Earl, wacky Arnold James, Kimberly around to the different
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tracks, and in the meetings they were having in making the national
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SCC and also Building Road America.
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How did Harris's involvement in SCCA and other organizations
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influence Motorsport regulations?
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Now we're getting into the actual racing part.
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We did wanna bring in some about the speedster.
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Is the 65-year-old mystery of CCAs early development solved.
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The question was initially posed in this edition of SCCA
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magazine by executive director.
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Uh, last name was Bird of the SCCA.
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This is the front cover.
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Ironically, I'm not sure what model or makeup vehicle it
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is going over the tracks.
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There's a picture of Ben going over the same tracks, airborne in one of his mgs.
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That erased this SCCA article written by the executive director
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acknowledges that SCCA records were sketchy and very incomplete.
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Unfortunately, this voids severely limited the ability to identify and
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recognize the individuals who made certificate contributions to the
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transformation of the SCA from a regional to a national organization.
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This was published in SCCA publication 1959.
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I do believe it was.
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February and what the executive director says is, when after the war, the ARCA
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was not reactivated to any great extent.
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A group of enthusiasts in Boston founded a Sports Card Club of
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America in February of 1944.
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This is in direct contradiction to California, claiming it in 1948.
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The club's growth from then on is a matter of pride and common
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knowledge to the membership.
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This account, it is well realized is sketchy and very incomplete, and
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through inadvertence of poor memory, many names having been omitted,
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that should have been set down.
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The records have almost without exception, disappeared, are been destroyed and this
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brief fragmentary switch has set down.
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But to hope that it may prove of some interest to present day enthusiasts
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despite its very incomplete nature.
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So if the thought from little acorns, et cetera, we set the time
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machine back to the present, take our somewhat creaking departure.
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Jim Kimberly and Ben Harris, they were recognized in the first edition of
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Sports Illustrated in August, 1954.
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How did they ever get that done?
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Why wasn't Pebble Beach Indy or Watkins Glen use and why were Jim,
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Kimberly and Ben Harris featured?
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Could it be because of the title, new Herty?
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Bringing in new vision, dress codes, racing rules and regulations, safety
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aspects and formulas for drivers and race teams to follow, which ironically,
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it seems like all the teams to this very day were inspired that still going on
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with team colors and team wardrobes.
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There was a wealthy that was really into this and of some of the other
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common people as is today, which mostly constitutes the SCCA membership.
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Records were lost unfortunately, when they removed from back east.
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I think to Indiana, maybe one or two dumpster loads were thrown away.
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Not doing any fault of the person doing it, you just didn't have enough help.
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It was something that happened that made life very difficult for us.
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I did go to Indy one time, AAA early.
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They concentrated more so on.
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Indy, researched a lot of their races.
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Harris served is A-S-E-C-A National VP, public, and other leadership positions for
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the national SEC, which we have discussed.
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Ben was a rally official at this.
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He was already digging in to statuses of the SCCA at the regional levels and such.
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He is wearing his rally event official jacket.
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This is one of the three mgs that Ben raced through the 12 years.
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Always had white walls on it and always had BFH on his license plate.
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Ben was wealthy and he also had.
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On all of his cars.
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This kind of neat silver mascot for opening up the hood of the speedster
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and on the radiator of this MG of a character called Adolf, and it
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was a Jacques Cartier original.
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That's kind of way he was.
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It's noted that Watkins Glen is a turning point for Motorsport
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safety, but what role did Ben play in rebuilding after the tragedy?
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In 1952, Harris worked closely with Wacky Anot, Jim, Kimberly, Harley
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Earl, amongst others to rebuild.
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After the tragedy at Watkins Glen, Ben was on the front row of the one race.
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But it wasn't a race in which Fred Wacker slid and unfortunately hit the one child.
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Together.
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They tackled design and construction of Road America advocating the
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use of airports for future events, and an emphasis on safety measures
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for both drivers and spectators.
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Let's talk about Ben's advocacy for safety measures such as seat belts and roll bars,
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and how these innovations changed racing.
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I know that Ben, which they're in his car's seat belts.
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And a built-in rule bar, Ben was constantly pushing that, that to
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become the law in SCCA racing and in hopes that even Formula One would pick
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it up for the safety of the drivers.
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Few things that people didn't realize.
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But yeah, Ben had seat belts in his car, quite amazing.
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Everything had to change at this time.
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Racing in Europe, it changed Mercedes, it just had a horrible wreck and I
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think 40 or 50 people were killed and they actually pulled out a
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racing in entirety for decades.
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It went to future events.
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Ended up being a Boeing SCCA trophy and officiated at SCCA
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base racing for racing planes.
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This has been 1954 Chino Air Force Base event.
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Our estimated attendance was 80,000 over the three day event, race car
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bill and legend, wacky on Noll as a whimsical point, and his wife were
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film checking race cars into the event.
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If you can imagine.
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Even back then a multimillionaire, even owning one of the towers at Sebring, where
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the crews and Ben and everybody else would get to go on top and watch the races.
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All of this, the two years that they held, this was all in the plot, let's
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say, of what they were doing in building.
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Road America and to take it further was throwing the international flag at the
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first cart, SCCA competition in the world.
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I think we have about 95 SCCA Sports Car America, um, magazines shows Ben
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as the SCCA publications director.
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I think Ben moved around through the groups here, more or less, to accomplish
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things that they wanted to get done.
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His association with Kimberly was really not known that well, but at the
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same point in time was very strong, along with other, let's say, powerful
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known individuals have, I think five of the different proposed rules,
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changes and formula changes and stuff.
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As I mentioned, some of these rules were probably being written up, either
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driving on Road Road America while it was still in dirt, shaking the track down.
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Does show Ben Harris down here as a director of publication and these
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other names that come up through here.
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We have pictures of Ben with them.
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So many more documents we had to limit ourselves.
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There's a lot to this.
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Let's just say that it changes things from the way many people thought it was.
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How did Harris's work influence the trajectory of SECA and
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International Motorsport standards?
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Ben was, I guess, nominated again, or, or maybe because there's probably
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shortages of people that were allowed to throw the FIA flag that were FIA
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licensed here in the United States.
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I pose that as a question to historians.
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This race 59 was being covered by NBC.
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I truly would like to find someone that can get into the NBC archives
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'cause we're sure it's gonna show Ben all over the place.
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'cause he flagged, I mentioned the first cart competition and uh,
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a speed week and showing Ben as the flagman of the whole thing.
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This brings forth that Ben, I guess, had enough power where he stopped wide
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broadcast and it caused a heated debate between Team Roosevelt and the A Bars.
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Uh, they were not allowed back on the track, but think of the power he carried
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to stop the whole international race.
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In here, you see a lot of the names of the people, the Scare Up Cars.
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You see Paps in there, you see Donald Healy in there, you
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see Duncan, see Shelby's name.
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All of these people are the ones that Ben ran with.
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I guess they all wanted to be friends with Ben too, when you think about it.
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But this is the televised event.
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We know Ben was there in 1958 too.
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You would've thought that the kidnapping of Juan Fangio would've
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maybe scared the person off for 1959 for other possible events.
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But needless to say, Ben stood up.
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He took it and it all turned out well.
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Ben is throwing a flag.
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We believe this was the 59 Nassau Bahamas Speedway in his group of cars, or the
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most famous legend and race drivers ever recorded in the history books.
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This image raises a question.
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How many FIF race officials were active in the US in 1959?
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As I mentioned prior, I'd sure like to find that out.
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And again, Ben, his cap on cigarette, he always had cigarettes and his
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official shirt always wanting to be efficient and put on a show and
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have all the drivers and teams.
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Do the same.
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And you'll notice too, he has his SCCA stopwatch on his belt that comes into
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a lot of pictures that we have of him.
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Shelby was driving his Maserati Bird Cage Works card note.
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The Harris front wheel drive speedster Bird Cage design was produced
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24 years prior to the Maserati.
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We have pictures of Ben with Gurney, Juan Fangio Moss, the Generals, and
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we have donated money to use the pictures from the Henry Ford Museum
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for the purpose of student and historic knowledge for records and such.
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It ends here is to work.
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Needed to create a national and united SCCA.
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Was finished.
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Tracy Bird, executive Director, SCCA 1959.
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There's several articles, but what it all boils down to is the fact that there were
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five different racing organizations trying to rule the race, which was not working.
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They all had different formulas.
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They had this, they had that.
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And it wasn't working anymore.
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Names like Jack McAfee never cut.
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Jim Kimberly and even Ken Miles come up in this where they're all arguing over.
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Apparently there was a lot of arguing when it all settled down.
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The SCCA was the national organization that they were gonna be racing under.
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From then on, they had their other races, but they were not sanctioned, nor could
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they use the SCCA logoing for anything.
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Tracy Bird seemed to think at the end of it all, that this was
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the big merger that came out of a desert deal between four people.
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It was a good one for SCCA and yes, it was.
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We could go on with Ben in the racing, but the last picture we have, was it a
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Michigan race track and he was looking at the gas cap of an AC Cobra doing
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a post race inspection of a winning car that won the race, the AC Cobra.
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What's the significance of the induction of Ben Harris into the walk of fame
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and how does it preserve his legacy?
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Benjamin F. Harris, I third National International Race Organization,
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track official and original stockholder in Road America.
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Three author of National SCCA positions 1952 Front Roof, the
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Glen's Last Queen Catherine Cup Race.
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This was used for Ben's induction into the walk of fame.
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Thank you again, Mr. Bill Green for helping me out.
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There again in ceremony, Ben and Jim Kimberly World Award Special Metal
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Lifetime, SCCA membership cards.
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I have yet to find anything of a ceremony whenever they retired after 10
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and 12 years of building the national level at their own expenses too.
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The first 10 years of Road America, Harris was active in the development
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of racing throughout the thirties through the fifties, Harris was
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nominated and selected as a track official for the inaugural event.
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Harris was an original stockholder and designer of the track,
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as we previously mentioned.
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The records of this are at the Chicago SCCA archival department where it
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shows they took a vote and they nominated Van to be, I guess the track
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official and the official flagman.
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That is a picture of, I believe it's Phil Hill and Sherwood Johnson.
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Gone past Ben at 130 miles an hour.
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Benjamin F. Harris third is inducted in the DSCC walk of Fame September, 2020.
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The recognition was accepted on behalf of Harris by John Yanko.
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A sincere thank you to Mr. Bill Green.
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Again, this is on the courthouse steps at Watkins Glen.
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Bill was very kind and let us put on a nice display of posters,
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which people really seem to enjoy.
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Which was part of Ben's racing history and organization.
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I'd like to point out that, uh, for additional information on Ben,
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there's a site called Auto Puzzles.
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I believe it is the largest site for archival automobiles
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from around the world.
26:37
Last year I looked ahead over 9 million.
26:40
Reads and getting back to the Harris Speedster, can you tell us
26:43
more about the significance of the fire in 1964 and the impact that
26:47
it had on the Harris collection?
26:48
Remember, this car was built in 1935.
26:52
This pencil sketch here from my brother Dan.
26:55
This is when we first found the car and brought it in.
26:59
And we were trying to make sense of what we found owned by David Biggs II
27:03
and owner, proprietor of a selected museum for automobiles of pedigree
27:07
in Louisiana, Missouri, a fire in 1964 damaged 13 to 18 vehicles.
27:13
In his collection, the Harris Front Wheel Drive speedster in a
27:17
newspaper article was considered the most valuable of these vehicles.
27:22
Other vintage cars damage included a 58 Ferrari tester.
27:27
Known well through the Ferrari people is big red.
27:31
A factory alloy bodied going with knockoffs, which he raced a pre-war
27:36
Mercedes 500 Clee, a horse Clee.
27:41
It was a really rare alpha Roadster, which actually Ralph Lauren owns one of
27:46
the four, I believe it was four or five cars that was built that was special.
27:50
What's next for the Harris Beat Reservation?
27:52
John, how do you hope to contribute to automotive history?
27:55
We figured everybody would wanna know.
27:57
Uh, I'm always asked, what condition is the car in right now?
28:01
We're blatantly showing you the picture of it sitting there.
28:04
It is real as the day is long.
28:06
There are panels right now being restored and the motor is
28:09
being finished off right now.
28:11
And also, if you wanna get in and look at this, the American Pickers came
28:15
here to History Channel and filmed an episode, gave 'em about maybe.
28:19
30 seconds, 40 seconds on the car.
28:23
It was their focus and my focus, the episode is called Tough Texas.
28:28
I guess it turned into a favorite there.
28:30
Unfortunately, they still make it pay to watch the episode even though
28:34
it's seven years old and they wanna come back and do an update on the
28:38
car in the story in the future.
28:40
This whole story and the documents that are shown to you are actual documents.
28:45
That are backed up.
28:46
A lot of the things that we've read about race tracks and this person
28:50
and that person, we've never seen an ounce of documentation to back it up.
28:55
We, on the other hand, have become totally overwhelmed with what we have.
28:59
We actually maybe can see a few of the posters here.
29:02
We have 48 posters made.
29:05
The story got to be so unbelievable that it was hard to even rationalize
29:11
what had went on that got missed all through the decades.
29:15
All right, John.
29:15
Well, we've reached that part of the episode where we'd like to invite
29:18
our guests to share any shout outs, thank yous, promotions, or anything
29:21
else we haven't covered thus far.
29:23
Uh, again, we have to thank the ER symposium, the Society
29:29
of Automotive Historians.
29:32
I am RRC, Mr. Robert Barr, Ruben Verde, my brother Dan Yankel, my son John Yankel,
29:41
and probably hundreds more that will come out later in another presentation
29:46
when we do one more so on Ben himself and really lay down the documents on the
29:52
Harris Fester and the other 25 documents.
29:56
On his racing, which were being held back, we just can't give it all away.
30:00
Not 35 years of work is deserving of a book.
30:03
I want to thank everyone again for their time, and I hope that this, um,
30:08
this knowledge that we've passed on is beneficial to some in their research
30:13
and in their museums and archives.
30:16
One other thing, Richard Taylor, thank you so much.
30:20
Richard Taylor did this for almost nothing and he also made
30:23
blueprints of the car while making this computer generated image.
30:27
Uh, so we can turn it into the Library of Congress and some other
30:31
halls of fame as we go along.
30:33
If anybody finds anything on Ben, I'd sure like to know about it.
30:38
An email address to contact me is is capital B, capital
30:42
J, capital H, capital S.
30:45
P-E-E-D-S-T-E r@outlook.com.
30:49
Feel free to send.
30:50
It's truly appreciated.
30:52
Thank you so much.
30:53
This episode is brought to you in part by the International
30:57
Motor Racing Research Center.
30:59
Its charter is to collect, share, and preserve the history
31:03
of motor sports spanning continents, eras, and race series.
31:08
The Center's collection embodies the speed, drama and camaraderie
31:13
of amateur and professional motor racing throughout the world.
31:18
The center welcomes serious researchers and casual fans alike to share stories
31:23
of race drivers race series, and race cars captured on their shelves and walls,
31:29
and brought to life through a regular calendar of public lectures and special
31:33
events to learn more about the center.
31:37
Visit www.racing archives.org.
31:41
This episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians.
31:47
They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history.
31:51
The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of
31:56
papers, organizational records.
31:58
Print ephemera and images to safeguard, as well as to broaden and deepen
32:03
the understanding of motorized wheeled land transportation through
32:08
the modern age and into the future.
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For more information about the SAH, visit www.auto history.org.
32:23
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