11.50 at 120mph Money-back Performance Guarantee

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Who was Joel Rosen? Ever heard of Baldwin-Motion? Or maybe just, “Motion Performance”?

Back in the late 50’s and early 60’s, a young Joel Rosen finished high school at only 17 to begin college, but then joined the Air Force to get some more hands on experience. It was at Shepards Air Force Base where Rosen fine tuned his engine tuning and mechanical skills that he later used to hot rod his first car, a 1955 Olds 88 that ended up with a 4 barrel  and a McCullough supercharger. From there, Rosen bought his high school dream car, a fuelie 58 ‘vette, and used tune-up work and brake jobs to fund his real passion:  Build Motion Performance Super Cars.

This new book by Motorbooks publishing, Motion Performance: Tales of a Muscle Car Builder by Martyn L. Schorr, a man who obviously was THERE, says:

Mr. Motion was responsible for building, racing and selling the most outrageous low-volume-production, high-performance, new-car-dealer-delivered Chevrolets you could buy during those freewheeling decades. Baldwin-Motion Chevys have since become highly prized mega-priced collectibles that best define the Decade of Extreme Performance.

This book is recommended by MyRideisMe.com.  Here’s why:

• Pictures of a fun loving Rosen doing wheels-up launches in the streets with his “Phase III”
• “Money-back guaranteed” 427 big block super cars with the history included
• It made me long for the days when baby Pikesan wasn’t even a slight twinkle in my boy-father’s eye
• Back then, “Green” was just the color between yellow and blue in the rainbow.

Money-back? Yea, they guaranteed their 427 Camaro would run 11.50 and 120 mph or they’d give you your money back!  And… believe it or not, it’d behave on the street all day long!  The secret? It wasn’t! They simply, “Raced what we built.” They also broke records all over the place and made a name for themselves.  It’s simple “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” at it’s finest.

It surprised me, and maybe just from never looking into it, that dyno tuning engines has been around a long time.  Now-a-days, there’s a chassis dyno in every town and for not much money, you can run your ride to get the true, rear-wheel horsepower. You know the factory stated BS-power number’s usually 25% or more over what’s actually moving your ride down the road. This picture shows Rosen tuning the Weber carbed small block Ford Cobra called, “Dragginsnake” on the dyno.  Header length, injector stack length and of course, timing and fuel mix make the engine run right and win or shoot ducks and lose at the track. Rosen’s tune frequently hit the mark as evidence by all the trophies surrounding them on the wall.

Back to the “Win on Sunday” theme, check this out.  Imagine cruising into the Detroit or LA Auto Shows, two of the biggest new car shows now-a-days, or the New York Auto Show (back in 1967 -1968) and seeing then buying a 69 Phase III 427 Camaro like this one.  As Rosen’s sign says, “Don’t be a performance dropout!”  Shown below, Rosen’s on the left shaking hands and taking an order for another 11 second street beast.  I hope this kind of performance (but not the skinny ties) make their way back to future some day.

Fast-forwarding through several chapters of this 176 page book… You’ll find the Cobras and Corvettes that started it all, Camaro’s, more ‘vettes, Biscaynes and Chevelles, then later, “Motion Super Vegas” and even VW Bugs.  Those Chevy’s sported RPO numbers that by themselves make the Chevy faithful drool like L-88 and L-89.  Tying it all together, there’s more great pictures and info about the venerable SS 427’s built by Rosen, how they tuned it and won.

I won’t give away the sad ending. Suffice to say, the 70’s weren’t a great time for performance cars and suddenly Motion Super Cars were only available for “export and off-road use only.” Damn!

Still, this book’s a great addition to your Chevy nostalgia book collection and fits well into the, “Those guys were building some crazy rides!” library.  Get the book at discount from Amazon here.

Any great stories about Motion-Performance cars or other street racing legends like “The Real Silver Bullet” GTX from Woodward Ave please let us know. I’ll get that story online! Comment below.

Don Garlits Back Racing the

Story Submitted by John C. Hill or MoparMagic
Don Garlits to compete in 2009!

Don Garlits has planned a comeback to drag racing for 2009, his 60th anniversary competing on the nation’s drag strips. Is he going to run a new Top Fuel car? The answer is no. Neither his doctor nor his wife will ever let him run an NHRA competitive Top Fuel car again. After countless thousands of parachute stops at the end of 300mph runs, the retinas in Don’s eyes had become detached. Further racing of this type could have caused permanent blindness.

So, what is Don going to run this year? Well, as a long time Mopar representative, Mopar stepped up and has allowed Don to purchase the first Dodge Challenger equipped with the Drag Pak. For those of you thinking a factory backed “Drag Pak” was a dream, it ain’t! Based on the 6.1L equipped hot rod SRT8, the drag pak Challenger will be eligible to run in NHRA’s Super Stock, Stock, and Comp Eliminator.

Garlits will run his Drag Pak Challenger in NHRA Division 2, but right now, it is uncertain which class. Don’s excited to challenge some of the nations best sportsman drivers and is looking forward to tuming a car like this to become competitive against other muscle cars and specialty drag race vehicles.

Garlits ran the first promotional vehicle at Bandimere Speedway near Denver and recorded an 11.24 quarter mile which is quick considering Bandimere’s mile high track. At sea level tracks in Division 2, the car could dip into the 10’s right out of the box! Garlits also plans to attend and run at the U.S. Nationals this year to commemorate his 60th year in active drag racing.

I for one will follow this story very closely in the Division 2 race results pages of National Dragster. Can Garlits work his old magic? First, I will admit that I am a big Don Garlits fan. But, there will be a huge difference between running the unlimited class of Top Fuel versus the very restrictive class rules of Super Stock, Stock and Comp Eliminator. In Top Fuel, tuning knowledge is king and the almighty dollar can bring absolute victory. Garlits was fantastic at tuning and driving, but he didn’t always have the almighty dollar. It was his tuning skill and driving that made him stand out, so much so, that his Top Fueler is the ONLY drag race vehicle of any type enshrined at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

What really interests me is how well Garlits will do against the Southern Divisional racers who have raced their cars day in and day out for decades. Its going to be a tall order and it will be the ultimate test of Garlits as a tuner and driver. I mean, can a man in his mid-70’s still pull off .000 reaction times when needed? Can he win races without “bombing his index” or “breaking out”? After all this is class racing not Top Fuel! I’ll keep you posted as I find results from the races.

Can you ID these V8 Engines?

Brandon over at AmericanTorque.com sent over some info about a fun game that tests your knowledge of American V8 Engines. Here’s how the idea got started:
One night when I was a kid my Dad and I were at a dirt track watching the Sprint Cars racing, and he pointed out which cars had Chevy engines and which had Fords. How could he tell from the bleachers? He explained that you could tell by the spacing of the header tubes. The Fords were evenly spaced and the Chevys were not (the middle two exhaust ports are right next to each other on the Chevy small-block).

Years later, I’m thinking of ideas for an automotive trivia game, and it hits me – make a game where you identify an engine from a photo. Soon after my first engine ID game was born. After hearing feedback from players of that game I made another engine ID game, and more games are on the way. You can check them out at:

http://www.americantorque.com/game/

This one pictured’s too easy. AmericanTorque.com’s get tougher… much tougher! If you can’t figure this one out, don’t bother!

Please join MyRideisMe.com and get your own Custom Garage Space (that one’s mine!) to put pictures of your car, project or whatever you’re driving!

King Richard’s Drag Race days…

Story Submitted by John C. Hill or MoparMagic

Virtually everyone who has an interest in automobiles knows who Richard Petty is. “The King” is considered the very best NASCAR driver fomr the early era, about the early 60s through the late 70s. Richard went on to win hundreds of NASCAR races, and multiple NASCAR Championships until his retirement from active driving in the early 90s. But, did you know for a very brief period in the mid-60’s, King Richard was a drag racer?

It’s true, and not only was he a drag racer, but Petty Enterprises created and built one of the earliest “F/X” cars, which could arguably be considered the first Hemi powered funny car. It’s also quite possible that without this particular car, the Chrysler 426 Hemi as we know it may have been eliminated from production in early 1965, never to be produced again! If this doesn’t peak your interest, nothing will! So read on about “43 jr” and find out how a Plymouth Barracuda with Richard Petty at the wheel, saved the 426 Hemi from extinction.

On February 23, 1964 the Chrysler 426 Hemi made its first appearance at the Daytona 500. The engine was light years ahead of the rest in terms of technological advancement, and the Mopars finished 1st, 2nd, and 3rd with Richard Petty winning the race. By this time, Chevrolet had already opted out of NASCAR racing. Ford on the other hand was upset that the overhead cam 427 engine was rejected by Bill France since absolutely no street cars with this engine were sold.

After the Daytona race, Ford lobbied France heavily to outlaw the Hemi as well. Since Bill France was “NASCAR” and it was essentially a monopoly, what he ruled was law. Perhaps his motivation was to even out the field and get Chevy back into racing. Whatever the motive, NASCAR decided to outlaw the 426 Hemi on October 19, 1964. By that time, Richard had accumulated enough points behind the wheel of his Hemi powered Plymouth to win his first NASCAR Championship. Petty Enterprises of Randleman, North Carolina had been in the Plymouth camp for several years. Plymouth had decided to stick with the Pettys and go up against Bill France. They told NASCAR that they didn’t need them and decided to make a very public move into drag racing!

On October 6, 1964, the Pettys had a Plymouth Barracuda in their build shop. The car had a slight engine setback, a fabricated firewall and a large fabricated trans tunnel. As can be imagined, shoehorning a huge 426 Hemi with a big 727 Torqueflite into the little A-body Barracuda was an engineering challenge! The car used an 8 3/4 rear end rather than the small and weaker 7 1/4 that came in the Barracuda. To lighten up the car, the Pettys installed fiberglass fenders, hood and trunk lid. They cut away all of the inner front fenders, and strengthened it with added steel tubing above the stock frame. This tubing ran from the front wheel area back along the underbody to over the rear wheels. The seat was fiberglass set back because Richard Petty was rather tall. Finally, a large “loop type” roll bar with one single brace running back to the rear floor was added for safety. The car must have been ridiculously light, in my estimation, probably about 2,500 or 2,600 pounds. The safety features were probably OK for the mid-60s but a car like this would never pass an NHRA inspection today.

The car was finished and on the tracks by November of 1964. A sign on the front of the car read, “NASCAR, If you can’t outrun ‘em, outlaw ‘em.” On the doors, the Pettys painted “Outlawed” and “43 jr” was painted on the rear quarter panels. I have seen old movie footage of some of the earliest passes at Piedmont Dragstrip in North Carolina. This track is a story in itself! It used to be a section of highway, but when a new road was built, the highway became a dragstrip. Oddly enough, the “lanes” were barely a car width wide, and there was a big grass median strip running down the center of the entire “track”!

On November 22, 1964 Richard “match raced” against Ronnie Sox who at that time was driving a 1965 Comet with a big block Ford engine in F/X form. Ronnie beat Richard on several passes, probably due to his greater drag racing experience at the time. A rematch was held at Piedmont on December 13, 1964 and this time Richard was able to post some wins against Ronnie. By January 4, 1965 Ronnie Sox had switched to a now severely altered wheelbase Plymouth sporting a Hemi. Richard match raced him with “43jr” once again splitting round wins with Ronnie.

The experience gained match racing Ronnie Sox in 1964 gave the Pettys the confidence to hit the national level scene. “Outlawed 43 jr” was hauled across country to the AHRA drag race at Bee Line in Arizona for the January 29 – 31, 1965 race. A special class was created for home-built one of a kind cars called “Super/Stock Experimental” or S/SX. Richard’s Barracuda ran a 10.38 to win the class against a 427 Chevy II. At the same race, Ronnie Sox was running a 10.78 with his altered wheelbase B-body Plymouth, so Richard’s Barracuda was actually quicker at the time. Meanwhile, attendance was dropping off sharply for the all Ford NASCAR events. Bill France was forced to concede, and the Chrysler 426 Hemi engine was reinstated to NASCAR competition in late 1965.

But back in early 1965, “43 jr” was being booked at drag strips across the nation doing “exhibition” class racing where most of the exposure and money could be found. Unfortunately, all was not perfect with “43 jr”. A match race against Arnie Beswick at Southeastern Dragway in Dallas, Georgia on February 28, 1965 ended in tragedy. A piece of the front suspension on “43 jr” malfunctioned causing the car to go out of control into the crowd of spectators. Several of the spectators were injured, including an 8 year old boy that was killed.

The car was totaled and put in the junk pile behind the garage at Petty Enterprises. The Petty family was understandably upset, but undeterred, they build another Barracuda to continue drag racing. This particular Barracuda was a step up from the old “43 jr”. The word “Outlawed” was removed and a large white “43 jr” was the only graphics on the side doors. The Hemi carbs eventually gave way to Hilborne fuel injector stacks, and the Barracuda really picked up in performance. This car had a slightly altered wheelbase.

Petty ran the car at the NHRA Spring Nationals June 6, 1965. But, by June of 1965 Bill France had begun working on rules to allow the big 426 Hemi back into NASCAR racing. The Pettys and Chrysler/Plymouth had won the war of nerves! The 426 Hemi was soon to be in full production for six more years, and used in NASCAR sanctioned racing for several more years after that. Richard soon gave up drag racing the stout little “43 jr” and the Pettys began preparing for the 1966 NASCAR season with a Hemi Powered Plymouth.

The moral of the story is what would have happened if the “43 jr” Barracuda F/X drag race car had never been built? The 426 Hemi had been engineered to race in NASCAR competition. If the Hemi could not be used in NASCAR would Chrysler have continued to develop and build it, probably not. But, since NASCAR required engines to be build and produced in publicly sold vehicles, the “Street Hemi” was produced, and the rest is history!

In addition, the little F/X Barracuda probably opened the doors (and eyes) for many drag racers. Light weight cars, with big Hemi motors were unbelievably fast and quick. Soon after “43 jr” an entire class of A/FX cars were born, soon to be morphed into the NHRA class known as “Funny Car”. And to this day, virtually every Top Fuel and Funny Car team run an aftermarket aluminum version if the fabled 426 Hemi, thanks in part to the Petty’s and the little S/XS car known as “43 jr”.

Final Thoughts: I have been so inspired by “43 jr” and the Barracuda A/FX cars of Sox and Martin that I went out and bought a 1965 Barracuda myself. I’ve been a drag racer since 1983 and continue to race today at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona. I run a Super Comp Mopar powered dragster and a 1970 440 Powered Cuda in brackets. I plan on building the 1965 Barracuda into a bracket car for my wife to drive. Plans are to either paint it to be a tribute to “43 jr” (more than likely) or just like the Sox and Martin Barracuda. I’ll post pictures on this site to keep you informed of my progress.

John C. Hill

Please join MyRideisMe.com and get your own Custom Garage Space (that one’s mine!) to put pictures of your car, project or whatever you’re driving!

Woodward Ave’s Legend, Jimmy Addison

Written By: Bill Stinson, published with permission.

Bill wrote this story in May of 2006, but it wasn’t until 2007 when I first saw the Silver 1968 Plymouth GTX known as the Silver Bullet. The undisputed “King of Woodward Ave” drew a crowd for days at the legengary Woodward Avenue cruise and stirred up quite a controversy when there were two of them! (that’s another story about the Silver Bullet)

Please enjoy this story from a man who was there and knew the owner of the Silver Bullet, Jimmy Addison.

The Passing of a Legend

I first met Jimmy Addison around 1961. The McKay family lived down the street from me, and of the five kids in that family, there were the twins, Gloria and Gerri (Geraldine). They were (and are) about four years older than me. One of them (Gloria) had a suitor who drove a cool ’60 Chevy convertible, black with a white top, red and white interior, packin’ a hopped-up 348 4-speed.

That car was named “Restless”. Jimmy and his friend Ted White raced the car on the street and at the strip and it was very fast for its time, especially with Jimmy behind the wheel. Race driving requires a combination of skill, knowledge, instinct, and a healthy dose of courage, and Jimmy Addison excelled in each of those categories. He was an excellent and meticulous mechanic with amazing driving reflexes, and was quite at home in the driver’s seat at well over 130 miles per hour, on the strip or on the street.

He was born on August 19, 1940, the only child of Archie and Ruth Addison. Born with chronic and life-threatening asthma, Jim was of slight build and frail as a child. But that never held him back. If he wanted to make something happen, he dedicated himself to that task until it was completed; a trait that served him well all through his life.

Now, from the mid-‘50s through the mid-‘60s, the north Woodward suburbs were hotbeds for young rodders with something being built or hopped-up in at least one garage on every block, and, with no shortage of young talented mechanics in Birmingham, Jimmy found himself right in the midst of it all.
One such ‘talented mechanic’ back then was Ted Spehar. Barely old enough to drive, Ted and friend De Nichols rented a garage to work on their cars. The garage was just across Woodward from Jimmy’s house, so it wasn’t long before the like-minded young rodders hooked up and began a lifelong friendship that took them through many ventures and adventures that ultimately led them to unimagined heights in the realms of drag racing and engine building.

In the early ‘60s, Jimmy worked at a local Cadillac dealership and then went to Jerome Oldsmobile in Pontiac, where he bought and built up a ’64 Olds Starfire. It ran a very robust 394-inch motor in a very classy ride. It was also at around this time that Jimmy bought my ’55 Chevy and he and his friend Ted White began converting it into a B/Gasser with 10% engine set-back and all – that is, until a disagreement sent them in separate directions, with White taking his freshly built 327 and going home, leaving Jimmy with a half finished gasser and no motor. The car was sold.

Jimmy first went to work for Ted Spehar in 1965. Ted owned an old Texaco station on Maple a couple blocks west of Adams in Birmingham. Besides accumulating a brisk neighborhood business, Ted had become acquainted with Dick Branstner. I used to see the ’64 Color Me Gone Dodge sitting out in front of the station, along with a little red Dodge pickup with a full-race Hemi protruding through the bed just behind the cab. My first glance at the yet unlettered, carbureted Little Red Wagon, then driven by Jay Howell. It was at this time that Jimmy and Ted began their long affiliation with the Chrysler race program.

In late 1967, Spehar bought a Gulf station on 14 Mile Road just east of Woodward in Birmingham and (I believe) it was at this time, or shortly thereafter, that Jimmy assumed ownership of the now-famous Sunoco station. It was also at about this time that he bought a nasty-looking ’62 Dodge from the Mancini’s.
It was half dark blue and half red primer, and it shook and shuddered and clattered like crazy while in Neutral, but that was nothin’ compared to what it was like in first gear with Addison behind the wheel. I remember, once while we were sitting at a light out on Woodward, I asked Jim, “How the hell do you ever get a race in this thing?” Was it a Hemi? Nope. It was what Ted Spehar described as a “thrashing machine” Stage III 426 Max Wedge in full drag race trim with a manual-shift Torqueflite with a stout set of gears out back!
That car was simply a blast. Talk about an attention-getter! And Jimmy had no problem runnin’ it hard an’ puttin’ it up wet. In comparison with the Bullet, I’d say the Dodge was the vehicular equivalent of the slavering, snarling, unwashed, fairly deranged older brother who lived in the attic. The car was a raging radical handful. It was as though Jimmy was the only one the beast would respond to. Once he was on board, it was safe for you to enter, too. Frankly, I thought the Dodge was a lot more fun than the extremely smooth-running, very streetable and much, much faster critter that was to come next. No one could have predicted the legendary status that Jimmy and his biggest project would achieve.

In the late ‘60s the Sunoco had become a nightly hangout for what was to become Chrysler’s “Direct Connection” gang. An assortment of Chrysler engineers that included Dick Maxwell and Tom Hoover, the man affectionately known as the “Father of the Hemi.” They were there to test speed parts on the street, plain and simple.
Well, one of the cars that were used as rolling test labs was a blue 440-4-barrel powered ’67 Plymouth GTX that was used for drag testing. The car had never been titled. It was snatched right off the back lot, used and abused, and eventually given to Jimmy Addison. The 440 came out, in went a lightened Hemi K-member, followed by a heavily massaged 1968 426 Hemi, the manual-shift tranny, and a Dana 60 rear end with a set of 4.56’s and a pinion snubber for traction.
In initial drag tests in ’69 at Motor City Dragway (rented by Terry Cook, then editor of Car Craft Magazine) Jimmy ran a low e.t. of the meet thru-the mufflers 11.89 at 121 mph and an uncapped 11.34 at 127. Not too shabby, eh? Well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

As the weeks went by, Jimmy began making the new car into the quintessential street runner of the day. To make it lighter he took several hundred pounds of weight off the body by using fiberglass body parts and drilling huge holes in anything he could. He then modified the rear wheel wells by slitting them and forcing them outward, in order to fit a wider slick in back. And he worked evenings removing metal (with a hand grinder) from the interior of the Hemi block so the half-inch CSC stroker crank would spin freely, and a set of A990 aluminum heads and a Racer Brown roller cam were added for good measure.
The trick exhaust system was fabricated from three-and-a-half-inch pipe with two runners coming off each header and running through four reworked Cadillac mufflers. The body was then finished and prepped and the car was painted silver.

One day while Terry Cook was at the station, Jimmy took the car out for a little run off the 14 Mile light. As Cook watched Jimmy launch, with virtually no tire smoke, he mentioned that it looked like a silver bullet being fired from a gun. The name stuck, and the legendary team of Jimmy Addison and his Silver Bullet was born.

In January of 1970, I came home on leave from the Navy just before I was to be discharged. I met up with Jim and his then wife Gloria, told them I was looking for a job, and Gloria made Jim hire me. For the next few months, I pumped gas and did oil changes while Jimmy handled the mechanic work.
Now, for those of you who may have come by the station back then, to check out the Bullet or other cars being worked on there, you were probably summarily ordered off the property in a far less than gentle way. Jimmy had a business to run with a lot of time, money and sweat invested there, and he wasn’t about to waste time with kids who came to ogle the race machines. He was not a warm and fuzzy guy when someone seemed to be interfering with him providing for his family.

To Jim, family was everything. And providing the best he could for them was his main goal in life. He once told me that the primary reason he street raced was to supplement the family income. The gruff exterior was a survival tool. But there came a day when I found out what the real Jim Addison was like.
One day a guy brought in his tricked out Dart for an oil change. I did the job, but apparently didn’t tighten the oil drain plug tight and, as the guy drove off, oil began leaking out of the motor at a fairly rapid rate. Thankfully he caught it and came back to the station before he did any internal damage to the motor, and he was pissed!

He began rippin’ on Jimmy and I knew I was as good as dead. When the guy left, with a fresh oil change done by Jimmy, he took me into his office, sat me down…and calmly explained what had happened, what could have happened, and how I had to be extra careful from now on…and he gave me a raise in pay. That was the real Jim Addison. It’s a shame that few people ever knew him like I did.

Well, soon the escapades of Jimmy and the Bullet began being written about in virtually every rodding magazine across the country (and eventually, many different countries) and Jim’s reputation grew and grew, and stories about the undefeated street racer spread far and wide. There was even supposed to be a race set up between Jimmy and Big Willie Robinson, head of the L.A. Street Racers.

Willie drove a Hemi-powered Dodge Daytona. The race was to be somewhere in the Mid-West, half way between here and California, and was being organized by Terry Cook. But nothing ever came of it. Years later, when Jimmy told me the story, he said he’d have won the race anyway because Willie’s car was set up all wrong, the car weighed too much, and the Hemi was an original 426 and fairly mild compared to the Bullet.

Finally, after having done everything he could to the now infamous Silver Bullet, Jimmy sold the car in ’73 or ’74 and began work on the Silver Bullet II, which would have been a Hemi-powered Plymouth Duster. Work was begun on the drive train while the body was being acid dipped, but the car came back with too much damage due to the extreme weakness of the ultra-thin metal, and the project was scrapped.

By the mid-‘70s, with the Arab oil embargo in full swing, the Sunoco station saw less and less performance work and Jimmy sold the station in ’77 or ’78 and he stopped building cars. He continued to work at different gas stations as the Big Three got out of the performance business and, as his asthma worsened, he began to look for a less strenuous line of work. One where he could keep his oxygen bottle close at hand. Eventually, in 1993, he began driving a cab for a living, and found he thoroughly enjoyed the slower pace. He was sitting in his cab in his own driveway when the disease that nearly killed him as a child, tightened it’s grip on him for the last time. He was 65 years old.

Jimmy Addison worked hard all his life and he was fortunate enough to earn a living for most of his life doing what he did best: making engines run better, and often much faster than they had previously done. He was honest and forthright in every way, modest about his successes (which were many), and absolutely devoted to his children, Dawn and Michael, and to his beloved Donna, his wife of eighteen years.
It’s said that people come and go in and out of our lives for a reason. Jimmy Addison gave me a chance that I will always be grateful for. I’ve always been proud of him and I’ve always bragged about his accomplishments, even though he used to get mad at for doing so. And I will be forever proud and honored to have called him friend.

Bill Stinson

If you like the story, let us know. Please leave a comment.

16 Years old on Woodward Ave Circa 1968

This story is written by Paul Schram. I met Paul after he left a comment at one of my first (and most read) blogs at MyRideisMe.com: The Real “Silver Bullet” – 2007 Woodward Cruise. The comment said:

“True, not true, fact, fiction, legend, Only Jimmy and maybe I know.
I have heard many stories…”

Being a curious (and somewhat desperate) blog writer, I contacted Paul. After all, talk is cheap. Needless to say, it wasn’t just talk! Paul was there. He knew the people and was a big part of the scene. I’m fortunate that this is the first of maybe 4 posts Paul will contribute about his time and his memories from Woodward Ave. back in the late 60’s. Here’s his first post, a bit of an introduction:

Imagine being 16 years old, in love with cars and anything to do with Drag racing. Imagine living just a couple miles away from Woodward Avenue in the suburbs of Detroit. Imagine that it is 1968, the explosion of muscle cars from the Big 3 are hitting the streets of Detroit. On top of all that imagine you work at the Sunoco gas station on Woodward Avenue just north of 14 mile Road in Birmingham, Michigan pumping 260 gasoline into almost every muscle car and hot rod that was cruising Woodward on a Friday or Saturday night. Oh, did I mention that the Sunoco station was owned and operated by Jimmy Addison the builder and owner of a certain 1967 Plymouth GTX fondly known as “The Silver Bullet”.

Sounds like a job some kid would dream up after reading the latest Hot Rod magazine. It might be except the kid was real, the job was real and that kid was me. Of course being 16 years old and totally engrossed in everything around at that time I had no idea I was right in the middle of what would become not only a part of automotive history but also street racing legend.
How do I come to write about this now? Last year was my first Woodward Cruise and like a lot of people I saw the two cars that were supposed to be Jimmy’s Silver Bullet GTX. However, one person had the car, another had the engine. It had been years since I’d seen the Bullet. And, I just recently heard of the death of Jimmy Addison. All this made me want to remember and talk about those times now that I have some perspective about what I was actually in the middle of back then.

So, who am I and how did I get that dream job for 16 year old car nut. I actually had a pretty close connection to Chrysler racing myself. My father, Brian Schram, was the manager of Chrysler Performance Parts back then. Actually he started the Performance Parts Department in the very early 1960s and ran it until 1988 when it was still known as Direct Connection and he retired. He found me my first job in cars back then. But oddly enough it was not Jimmy’s Sunoco station on Woodward. My first job was working at a Gulf station 2 blocks east of Woodward on 14 Mile Road. But this is where you see the rare opportunity I had back then. The Gulf gas station was owned by Ted Spehar. If you don’t know who Ted Spehar is maybe you have heard of another car called the “Motown Missile”. Though the Missile had yet to be thought of or built back then there were other cars that were quite famous being built and raced by Ted. The car Ted was building then was the “Iron Butterfly”, a 1964 Super Stock Hemi Dodge driven by Wally Booth at the time I worked there. But school was starting soon and though I was working full time for Ted that Summer I could not work full time during high school. So I may have been involved the first trade in racing history. I was traded to Jimmy Addison where I could continue to learn about engines and cars and be able to work evenings and weekends. And, someone who was not in school any more and working for Jimmy was sent to Ted’s new shop in Royal Oak to work full time. Sound’s pretty wild when I write about it now!
But let’s get back to the Sunoco station. What did I do back then working for Jimmy Addison? Basically I was the “grunt”. I pumped gas, I cleaned the bathrooms, I cleaned Jimmy’s tools and washed the service bay floors. However, those things did not take up all of time, so in between the cleaning and pumping I was taught about engines, cars and racing.

Here’s a link to some info about the Motown Missile and the Iron Butterfly: ProStockHemi.com;

I’ll kindly BEG Paul to go on. Please encourage him by adding any info you might have and if you’ve got some vintage pics of the “Iron Butterfly” or the “Mowtown Missile”, please let me know.

A rocket ride to oblivion…

…and a trade that rocked the world.Twenty years ago this week, the Edmonton Oilers traded Wayne “The Great One” Gretzky to the LA Kings, marking the day that Hockey stood still. August 9, 1988 is a date that still elicits a response in any Hockey fan, and for good reason. I’ll throw in another date: December 12, 2000, the day that GM announced that they were pulling the plug on Oldsmobile. Two very different events with very different outcomes… yet, they share a few key things in common, and a valuable lesson that a carmaker could have learned from a Hockey player.Consider the impact that Gretzky had on the game (if not a community): 1851 points… 200+ points in each of four seasons… 92 goals in ONE season! (hell, being a Sabres fan, I have to point out that Alexander Mogilny came close once… at 76 goals in the early ’90’s) Take a moment to fathom that, then, consider that his record has stood since being set in the ’81-’82 season. The man’s photo should appear in the dictionary under the word “Hockey”. I could spout off stats here, but you can find those easily enough… Suffice to say, he dominated the game on the ice. Yet, what he did OFF of the ice would forever change the game as well.In 1988, the Great One was traded to the LA Kings.The deal was monstrous to begin with, but the terms were astounding in their own right: The Oilers gave up the league’s reigning superstar for $15 million, three number one draft picks, Krushelnyski, McSorley, and negotiating rights to minor league defensemen, along with LA’s Jimmy Carson (a recent pick who just put up 55 goals).Take a second to drink in that trade.Not only was that big money in ’88, but it broke up a team that had “dynasty” written all over it… If you’re a Hockey fan, then you know all about the Oilers of that era, with Grant Fuhr, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier… Man, I remember collecting cards and stickers of those guys like they were gold (in some cases, they were… Remember the gold foil stickers?). To take Gretzky to LA?! What were they thinking?Granted, number 99 in Los Angeles wasn’t the ticket to a cup victory (or a dynasty) on ice… But what the deal did for the sport itself?! Far-reaching and dynamic are two words that scratch the surface… Barely. Here was an uber-talent, wrapped in a marketing dream. Great personality, incredible with words, and a look that could move product. His assimilation into US pop culture was the stuff of legend. Consider: If, like me, you grew up in the ‘80’s, you knew Gretzky (even if not from Hockey) from ads for Campbell’s, Coke, Ford, American Express, an action figure, hell… the guy even had a Saturday morning cartoon with Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan! (remember “Pro Stars”?) Add to his clout an ambassador status, bringing the game to numerous new fans… A fact to ponder: When Gretzky hit US soil as a player, there were 15 franchises of the NHL in the US. Today, there are 24. Talk about opening a market!Back to Oldsmobile for a spell here… Consider that in 1897, the carmaker was forging ahead, pushing design and technical innovation to create a dynamic new car. It was to become GM’s shining star, the brand that pushed innovation for the corporation. Being GM’s “innovation brand” meant that other carmakers would often study their products, and attempt to mimic them. Not only was Oldsmobile the first mass-produced car (the 1901-1904 Curved Dash), but was the first with an automatic transmission (1940 – the Hydromatic), the first overhead valve V8 (’49 – also leading the way with a hardtop and wrap-around windshield that year!), the first turbocharged engine in an American car (’62!), the first front wheel drive car in America (the ’66 Toronado), and so on… Ponder this: in the 50’s and ‘60’s, makers like Mercedes would buy and dissect Oldsmobiles (and other GM cars) to see what made them tick. At the time, there was truly no substitute for an American car.Oldsmobiles were the choice of the techie crowd… they had the advanced features, and appealed to the more technologically hip consumer. Olds and GM capitalized on this for a bit, but then lost the vision somewhere along the way. Rather than build on a success (see Gretzky above), GM stuttered, and down-graded the brand to compete with foreign cars on their own level. Rather than push the envelope, and allow Oldsmobile to bloom into the leader in technology and design for GM, they pulled funding from the coffers for projects like Saturn, among other things. (don’t get me wrong here— Saturn is a fine make, and having worked for Saturn, I am grateful for the food and shelter my career there provided… just still suffering the “WHY??!!” over pushing Saturn into Oldsmobile territory, and giving the little plastic-clad cars all of the cool advancements) GM dropped the ball, and took what should have been a bright Oldsmobile future, with great new cars that would have rivaled Lexus, BMW and their ilk, and let it slip into the old folks home of the corporation. One notable exception was the Aurora (I have a very soft spot for the first-generation units… Remember the first time you saw the ‘95’s… Man were those cool when new!), which led the way 20in innovation, and sat at the crossroads for a trek back to greatness… yet, sadly, it seems that the higher-ups were too busy looking into overpriced, oversized SUV’s to haul fat-ass suburbanites around the mini malls. By the time that last Alero rolled off the line on April 4, 2004, the fire was definitely gone. The rocket was more of a lawn dart, sadly…Adding insult to injury, GM decided to kill off more jobs and cars with potential to concentrate on… Trucks.At the start of a new environmental awareness, the good General concentrated on big old SUV’s, targeted at vacuous housewives who have no clue how to drive them. Another well thought out plan. Rather than attack the future and hold an upper hand, doing some good for the entire brand, they concentrated on one small niche, which ironically, has become the proverbial Achille’s heel of a car-making giant. Presently, they have no true marquee in brand that does what Olds once could. Who’s to say that Oldsmobile may have been the leverage point for GM in the escalating hybrid wars? I’d like to entertain that notion. Had they stayed on path, who knows? We may have seen George Clooney cruising a Cutlass versus a Prius.Consider the effects of the Gretzky trade, when applied to the Oldsmobile (and subsequent GM) debacle: While Edmonton sacrificed a pillar of their team, they still managed winning seasons and a Cup victory, and gained a fairly stable ground (player-wise, not so much owner-wise) to build on. Bigger than that, Hockey itself won, big time. By allowing a great talent to continue down a road that he himself forged, great things happened all around. Had number 99 stayed in Edmonton, I have no doubts that we’d have seen a number of Oilers Stanley Cup years… it’s a given. Yet, what that trade accomplished for the future of the sport was incredible. Am I suggesting that had GM invested resources into allowing Oldsmobile to progress on the brand’s original course that it may have had a similar effect on the corporation at large? You bet your ass I am.All told, I’ll bet that there will be a moment of silence this week as Edmonton fans and residents recall the day the Great One left the Great White North… and that, at the same time, a few tears will be shed by GM shareholders as they look back on the rocket ride that could have been…Need more insight and opinion? Just want to look at cool pictures and hot rod designs? Head on over to PCK Studio at www.problemchildkustoms.com.

Bugatti Veyron Top Speed Video

With Youtube, you can spend all day watching car videos. (I’d never do that!) I found a few about the most amazing production car ever made. The Bugatti Veyron. 250+ mph with air and a stereo. Wow. 16.4 liters, 4 turbos and 10 radiators to keep it all cool.

So check out this video from Top Gear. They’re at the VW test trace on a 5 mile long straight running the Veyron up to it’s top speed.

Then, just for fun, check these out. Seems like everyone wants to race the Veyron.

Bugatti Veyron vs. Yamaha R1 RACING DOWN MOTERWAY

Bugatti Veyron vs Porshe full test

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1969 Chevelle After two decades….

…things are bound to change. Just about 20 years have passed (we’re about a month-and-a-half shy) since this photo was taken:

It’s my old Chevelle, and the pic was snapped as the car was being completed… this being roughly my Senior year in high school (note lack of tail pipes and trunk lock cylinder, among other important items). I bring this up on roughly the tenth anniversary of selling the car, after moving to CA in the late-90’s, and, surprisingly, after my father ran into the car once more in Pleasanton, the very grounds where the old girl was passed to a new owner. In any event, it’s kind of funny to look back at the changes. I bought the car (with help from my parents… I had a very cool and supportive, hot rod-oriented mom… how killer is THAT?!) as a near basket case (here it is in progress)

…and with a ton of guidance and help from my father and a few close friends, brought it back to life (in the form of the lead photo). Fast-forward a few years, and things were shaping up on it, with some new wheels and aggressive rubber, all setting the tone of a late-’60’s/early ’70’s street machine (OK, with updated wheels… hindsight yells “shoulda kept the slotted mags!!”). The tall stance and big meats were part of it, as was the period cool crushed velvet interior:

It was a fun car… not the fastest, by any stretch, but respectable enough. It was a clean car that had a classic look, and looking back on it, was an amazing car for a late-teens/early twenties-age guy going to school.

It packed attitude, and that black paint was a constant source of pride (and time-swallowing detailing), and the monster even saw the first snow on one notable occasion. It was a reliable, almost comfortable car, considering the ride height…

Fast-forward ten years after selling the car to head back to school, and I get a phone call from my dad, at the Pleasanton Goodguy’s event. “You’ll never guess what I’m standing in front of,” he says. “The disembodied, floating head of Elvis?!” I ask, really wanting a picture… “No, you (expletive), your old Chevelle.” Very cool indeed… The old girl is alive and well. Granted, like any personal project, the new owner has taken the car and personalized it, as anyone might make something their own, creating a vision they can be proud of. The car has a new life, yet continues its rebirth, which is an awesome thing. See if you can spot the changes:

Rally stripes, new wheels, a front valance…

New seats up front (the rear remains!), updated gauges, speakers, and so on….

…but most amazingly, the black paint that was laid upon the car in ‘88 is still looking deep, shiny and straight… Seeing that work live on made my day. It’s testimony to spending time in the right places, and taking pride in anything you do… a lesson I’ve been trying to teach my kids in all they do, and was illustrated perfectly in a car none of the three are old enough to recall. In any event, long post, I know… But I thought it was cool to share a project that spans two decade, two owners and two very distinct styles, but shares the same basic foundation.

May all your first projects carry on as long…

Written by: Brian Stupski of Problemchildkustoms.com

Nissan GT-R is Almost Here

It’s been a long time coming and I’ve been waiting like so many. The GT-R is a race car built for the street. For those of you who don’t know why the GTR’s so cool, compare it to the Corvette. Except the GT-R’s a racing Corvette (think Z06 + Callaway upgrade) that’s NEVER been offered for sale in the US. Here are the pictures Nissan is releasing of the car:

The GTR’s all business and always has been. Consider that in 1989 the R32 version of the GT-R was undefeated, winning 29 of 29 races in the 1990 Japanese Touring Car Championship. Then, the next generation R33 became a legend by lapping the famous Nürburgring race course under 8 minutes. At the time, that was unheard of for a “street” car.

In the released photos of the GT-R, it retains its signature round tail lights. Other than that, the details are all rumor since Nissan is keeping extremely tight lips on engine and suspension details. If you want to know the truth, you’ll have to wait until the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show in October. When it’s release, look for Nissan to confirm that it STOMPS the Z06 Corvette for about the same money and beats the Porsche 911 Turbo’s 7 minute 40 second lap time at Nürburgring. Ever priced a 911?