Old Crow Speed Shop

Went to the Johnson Motors headquarters yesterday and picked up a replica if the Sweet 16 Bellytank tha Bill Burke raced in the late 40's.

2011-10-30T13:08:00.001-07:00

This tank was built by my friend Randy Mead in MT. It was purchased by Shawn Kelly of Johnson Motors for a display car. Were gonna get it dialed in and drivable. She'll make a great El Mirage putter.

Bonneville Speedweek 2011 new motor

2011-08-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

Well after a solid few months of work from myself, Max jr. and sr. at H and H Antique, and Logan Davis and Chuck at their new shop "Vintage Performance Automotive", I am happy to report that the new banger is finally together and running in the Bellytank. All test fired and broken in, she's ready to hit the salt. We loaded her in the trailer yesterday and we head out on Wed. Were still running 3 of Clives new Stromberg 97's and the Gemsa overhead cam head, but everything underneath is brand new..... Stronger, lighter etc.
Were hoping for speeds in the 160 + range. Wish us luck !!
Here's a short video:

Bonneville Speedweek 2010. "4 banger carnage"

2010-08-19T22:51:00.000-07:00

It was not a good Speedweek for the old Henry Ford 4 cyl. The Banger Gods were not shining their blessings down upon us. We'll not all of us anyway.
The Old Crow took off like a rocket on her first run and hit 165 mph at the first mile, but it appears the stock cast iron bellhousing couldn't take the torque and decided to desecrate instead. We tried to fix it, but the shrapnel took out too many parts. Here's a pic:

The So-What racing team had it worse than us. Also on their very first run, and not even to the 1 mile, this happened:

Yes, that is,.. or was... A Winfield head. Bummer huh?

Speaking if heads,.. The Vaughan Quick & Easy team didn't have much luck keeping their head together either:

Let's hope they brought a spare, I hear the motor is fine.

I also heard that the R2 racing team of Richard Reed has 2 rods hanging out the side of their block, but I couldn't find them to take a picture. Anybody got one?

Well. That's all the news that fit to print.

The old crow in the Sacramento Antique Auto museum. I get her back in a couple weeks and then it's a mad thrash to get ready for Bonneville

2010-06-23T14:57:00.001-07:00

Mobile photo

Old Crow

2010-01-25T16:24:00.000-08:00

Bonneville Speedweek 2009

2009-08-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

It was a wonderful year. My buddy Ryan popped his Salt cherry and wrote a wonderful blog about it. Here is a link, check it out:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=5827

The Redbull air races San Diego 2009

2009-05-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Red Bull, I got the VIP treatment this year at the San Diego air races, and I must say, it was one of the most fantastic racing events I have ever been to, (Next to Bonneville of course.)

The weather was fantastic, the planes were in your face, and the red bull was flowing. Good times. I highly recommend this event to anyone. Try and make it out sometime. Enjoy the pics.

Pinewood Derby for grownups

2009-04-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

A few of us Car Guys have started a once a month Pinewood Derby event at our local bar, the Bigfoot Lodge. It's the last Tues. of every month if anybody in the Los Angeles area is interested. 21 and older of course.

Check out the pics taken by photographer Ken Scott: http://www.kenscottphoto.com/Derby/

2009-03-19T19:15:00.001-07:00

Here is the latest bonneville project. It's basically a 1930's Indy car but we will be running it in the VOT class. Stands for "vintage oval track"

2009-03-17T22:15:00.001-07:00

At Stinkers in silverlake

2009-03-17T21:44:00.001-07:00

Happy at pattys

2009-03-16T23:02:00.001-07:00

Mobile photo

2009-03-16T22:49:00.001-07:00

I drove a 1955 isetta today. A lot fun and turns more heads than a pink testarossa. But nooo power

Speedweek 2008. We did it again.

2008-09-14T21:12:00.001-07:00

What a fantastic year. The salt was in perfect condition and our new motor ran fantastic.
Please follow the link below to see the full story written by my friend Kiwi Kevin:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=289292

Old Crow goes to Bonneville again

2008-08-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

Well.... While the Old Crow Bellytank was on Vacation in Amsterdam, I started building a new Model B 4 banger for the 2008 Speedweek at the Bonneville salt flats. This time a flathead, instead if the overhead cam conversion we ran last year. But this isn't your average banger,..... I decided to try running a reverse induction cam. So instead of the intake sharing two siamese ports, each combustion chamber has it's own port. In theory it should pack a little bit more fuel in than the stock configuration. We'll see how she runs on the salt.
The engine machine work was done by H and H Flatheads.
I went out to El Mirage last week to do a few test runs, and she was running great, until the C4 transmission ripped out all six of the ring gear bolts from the back of the crank. Not good. But Max at H and H came through and fixed the crank in 2 days. She's back in the car with a new 1940 Ford side shift trans, and were ready to go. I'll give you all an update after we get back from Bonnevile. Wish us luck.

The Tommy Hilfiger experience

2008-02-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

At the end of October, as world finals came to an end, we were feeling a little down after having killed a piston and missing our chance at the blown fuel record.

As we were collecting or equipment and getting ready for the long drive home, we were suddenly faced with an entirely different option.

A location scout by the name of Todd knopke approached us to let us know that Tommy Hilfiger really like our car and would like to know if we would be interested in staying an extra week to be a part of the photo shoot for their upcoming Spring Summer line. That's Todd on the left.

Hmmmmmm.. That one really threw me for a loop. After some discussion with my pit crew (aka Fiance and friends) it was decided that it sounded like fun and that we were in.

As we discussed the shoot more with the company it turned out that they were still looking for 2 more vehicles of similar appearance, so I let them know that I had one more old race car back at the shop. Bill Burke's original racecar:

and that we could build them another car from an old tank I had hanging from the ceiling.

They liked that idea, so I flew home and my buddy Logan Davis slapped a rolling lakester together in 2 days, and our friend Jerry shot the paint. The color has picked by the art department, not me. haha
And we headed back out to Bonneville with the 2 extra cars.

The 3 day photo shoot went great.

I got to drive the Crow while they shot some video. Here is the You tube:

Here is some of the finished product. Keep an eye out for billboards and magazine ads

While I was there, they asked if I would be interested in bringing the car out to Amsterdam for their runway show. Sounds good to me, I said.
But first we had get all this stuff back home.

On the way home from Bonneville Drew and I stopped by the "old sign graveyard"

and then shot machine guns at the local shooting range.

I think the oversized grin on Drews face pretty much says it all. hahaha

I was excited about the Amsterdam offer, and proposed that Myself, my fiance Carol and my friend Drew be flown over to help with the logistics.
However, shipping a car over to Europe is no easy task as I soon learned over the following few months. By the time we had finished all the details on negotiations with the rental of the car, it was too late to ship out of Los Angeles, so instead the car had to be trucked to New York and put on a container there and shipped to Antwerp, Belgium. Shipping out of New York shaves off about a month of travel time across the ocean.
But once we knew the car was safely in it's container and on the open ocean, the three of us hopped on a Swiss air flight to Amsterdam.

Here is the view from our hotel room

Luckily I had a friend in Belgium.

Hans, seen here in the photo is a vintage motorcycle collector and he helped me get the car from the shipping company in Antwerp.

We transfer it to the Hilfiger showroom in Amsterdam. About a three hour drive.

Once we arrived at the Hilfiger showroom, the front window of the building had to be removed and a crane helped pickup the car from the trailer and hoisted it into the showroom where it will live for the next month. It was quite a production.

We were in Amsterdam for 2 weeks and had a nice time except for the freezing wind and rain that greeted us everyday. (Note to self,..don't go to Europe in the winter)
We drank loads of Belgium beer and met some great people. As illustrated in the following pictures.

All in all it was an wonderfully interesting experience and all thanks to the crazy world of Hot rodding, land speed racing and the fashion industry.

To view more pics of our adventure, follow this link:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v337/bellytank/hilfiger%20story/

October was a crazy month

2007-11-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna keep this kinda short and let the pictures do the talkin because there really is too much to talk about.
We took the Crow to bonneville with a new intake and carb to try and grab the open record for the fuel class. We ran a different blower with methanol.

Here's the result of 6 lbs of boost and a broken ring landing. haha. Prety ain't she?

But despite the blown piston we had a great time and as usual met some great people, even other tank people:

And even though we killed a piston, it could have been a lot worse, here is a picture of Roy Creel's motor from the same meet:

I guess he spun a bearing, broke a rod, and sawed the motor in half. Ouch. But I'm sure he was going faster than me when it happened. He always does.

here is a link to more Bonneville pictures. http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v337/bellytank/Bonneville%20Oct%2007/

Bonneville Speedweek 2007

2007-08-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

Were back and feeling good !!!!!. The week we spent in Wendover UT was great!!!! And we came back with a record. Official record: 12-Aug-07 Old Crow Speed Shop V4 BGL 104.365 mph
Do we plan to go faster next time? Of course !!!

A big highlight of the week was hanging out with the Tom Beatty Bellytank
This was the car that inspired the look of the Old Crow.
Looks like Father and son huh?

As you can see in the picture below, our 50 yr. old unopened bottle
of Old Crow bourbon has been opened, consumed, and filled with Bonneville salt.
It will now have have a new home in our shrine to the gods of speed.

But the celebration didn't stop there, oh no.
In true conquering hero fashion, I gotta get a tattoo.
Master tattoo artist Zulu lays out Coop's old Crow

A fitting end to a fantastic week.

To see more pics of our Bonneville week visit Coop's album: Photos here.

And for the best Tattoo artist around, visit: http://www.zulutattoo.com/

Bonneville bound

2007-08-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

After fixing all the bugs were ready to hit the salt. If you make it out to Bonneville this year, stop by and say hello.

That's Racing

2007-07-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

Well,... After fixing the broken drive shaft in the blower, and rebuilding the waterpump and adjusting all the valves, the old banger decides to blow a head gasket.
No time to locate another one and swap it out before El Mirage today. So there goes our last test run before Bonneville. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to wing it.

Vintage Trailer rally

2007-05-19T23:16:00.000-07:00

There is an obscure event that happens every year here in Southern cal.
It's called the Vintage Vacations trailer rally, and I try to make it every year.
It's a great way to spend a day in Orange County, Newport Beach to be exact, which is kinda of the Beverly Hills of Orange County, and normally I would'nt spend much time there, but they do have a really nice RV park in wich to house this fine event.
It's put on every year by an old friend of mine, Craig Dorsry, you can find out more about him and the event here: www.vintage-vacations.com
Here are a few pics, and a link to my photobucket account with a bunch more pics. Enjoy.

More pics here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v337/bellytank/vintage%20trailers/

The ugly electric fan

2007-02-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

If your like me, there's nothing that can ruin a period perfect automobile worse than a "stick out like a thumb" modern piece of equipment on a car that far pre-dates it's modern upgrade. Most car people have their own pet peeves when it comes to this. For some, it's disc brakes, or an alternator instead of a generator, for others it's air conditioning, but for me, it's electric fans. Uugh.

Well,... As you can imagine, when I found myself with no other option but to use and electric fan, due to an engine swap to a much larger motor, I was not very happy.
I was hoping to hide the fan in between the radiator and grill shell, but there just isn't enough room. So my only option was to put the fan on the engine side of the radiator, but in a roadster with no hood or fenders, there's really no hiding it.
So I decided rather than hiding it, I'd dress it up to fit with the time period of everything else around it. I had seen pictures in old Hot Rod magazines of a couple cars that experimented with the use of electric fans on cars in the 50's. Most looked like house fans, and that was the inspiration for the treatment of my modern plastic necessity.

The following is a pictorial. Perhaps it may inspire others to hide their ugly moderness, and keep me delusional as to the decade I'm living in. LoL. Enjoy.

Cut away as much plastic possibly, that is not absolutely necessary.

Find yourself an old table fan with the right diamater screen.

Spray anything showing with old timey wrinkle paint.

Cut off the finger guard of an old 40's or 50's fan, and attach it over your electric fan.

And voila, modern cooling that's easier on the eyes.

Grand national roadster show

2007-01-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

Here is a sneak peek at the display Lucky and I put together for the roadster show.
I will post again later with more comprehensive coverage.

The finished product

2007-01-20T19:25:00.000-08:00

Well,... the aluminum head fairing has been engine turned, and the paint is applied, and she's lookin good.
My friend Ruben Haute is a designer for Lucky Brand clothing,
but before he did that, he used to paint cars. I called him up and he
came over with some One Shot paint and brushes, and knocked out the logo
and name on the Bellytank.
It came out perfect, and very Old Timey. Here are the pics:

Coop's Old Crow

2006-12-16T17:35:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Coop for painting up a logo for the Bellytank.
I really think it captures all the elements of this car.

Here is a quick mock up of what were going to paint on the tank

Some people have asked where the name "Old Crow" came from, so here is the official story. On a trip to Connecticut last year to look at a Sprint car, I stopped into a local antique store, and came across this vintage bar display for Old Crow Whiskey.

Now being a bar owner, I am always looking for cool old bar stuff, and this guy really stuck out. The Old Crow has a simple yet strong aesthetic to it, similar in my opinion to the Western Exterminator man, my favorite promotional character of all time.

So naturally I had to buy him. But the thought had not crossed my mind to name a race car after the old whiskey until I was watching the History channel one night. The show was about the p-51 Mustangs of WWII, and what do I see flying through the beautiful black and white grainyness of 1940's film??? A famous P-51 Mustang called the "Old Crow" !! How cool is that.

So then it hit me, what a perfect blend of Booze, character and WWII aviation. A match made in heaven for an old Bellytank turned race car. After talking to friends about the concept, Coop had a great idea of taking the crow and giving him a Clay Smith cams feel. Clay Smith was a cam maker in the 50's and many a hot rod/race car donned the famous woodpecker logo.

I think Coop gave the Old Crow a lot more life than he originally had.
So there ya have it.

El Mirage last meet of the year

2006-11-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

Just when I was getting started,..... the last meet til next May. Well at least I broke a hundred. 105 mph to be exact, and I know I could get a lot more out of her if I had some more test runs. Oh well. I'll have to wait til next year. Will have lot's of time to tinker and fine tune a bunch of stuff this winter.
Here's some pics of the run my buddy Primo took.

A pigs nose ?

2006-10-29T11:27:00.000-08:00

In my never ending search for vintage garage wear, I came across some coveralls with a very peculiar slogan: "Wear like a pigs nose". I'm not quite sure what they're trying to say,..?? Do pig's noses never wear out? Does a pigs nose fit really well? Are they saying you should wear it in a certain piggy way? I don't know. But it was funny enough for my blog. Those silly Fink's

Bellytank pops cherry

2006-10-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

Positive Ape Index

Old Picture Ala Coop

2006-10-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Coop for the old timey reatment to this photo.

El MIrage test run

2006-10-14T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to Coop's blog. Check it out.

http://positiveapeindex.blogspot.com/2006/10/big-day-at-el-mirage.html

Bonneville rained out. Damn.

2006-10-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

Damn damn damn.

We have been thrashing for three weeks straight .... living on caffine and little sleep, and we just fired her up for the first time yesterday, got her all tuned and dialed in this morning...... we were ready to hit the salt Tuesday, then I just got the call..... Bonneville is cancelled. Damn !!.
I guess a huge thunderstorm hit last night and dumped enough rain to call the event off.

The Model B is sounding soo good too. We dailed in the boost on the blower, and she sounds real healthy. Blows a beautiful 12 inch blue flame out the header when you let off.... so nice.Well, I guess we'll run her at El Mirage on the 22nd. and look forward to next August.Here are some pics of the motor. Enjoy

Aircraft latches and you.

2006-09-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

Aircraft surplus,.... One of the few rewards of the war effort that hot rodders have taken full advantage of in post war peacetime. When you mention the words Hot rod and aircraft surplus, a few images immediately come to mind.... probably the most popular, being the Bomber seat, a favorite of the post war lakes racers as a cheap lightweight seat for their racecars. But let's not forget, the aircraft seatbelts.... Fuel tanks and filters, ....Oxygen tanks converted for water or fuel, and of course my favorite, the Bellytank..... Years of government paid engineers windtunnel testing pollywogs, just to be taken full advantage of by hot rodders seeking land speed records. Ya gotta love it.
But one of my favorite little items I discovered at my local Burbank surplus supply center, is the aircraft latch. Obviously designed to latch a door or panel while staying flush, and not sticking out in the airstream,....exactly what I need for the door of the bellytank. Modern SCTA rules require that the latches for a door must be actuated from the outside as well as the inside, in case of an emergency.

There is a wide variety of interesting latches out there, here is a sampling:

I picked the latch that had the largest open button.

The two buttons sit flush with the skin of the body

In case your wondering how I'm gonna open the door from the inside, I still have to attach a pull tab to the inside under the "Push" button.

If you use your imagination, you can think of all sorts of uses for these latches on a hot rod.

Accessory turn signals of the 20's and 30's

2006-09-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

For a few years now, I have been fascinated by a very odd automotive accessory,..... the add on turn signal / Stop light...... Mainly because of the seemingly endless variety of styles and companies that made these things from the teens through the 40's. I seem to come across a different one at least every month, and they just keep getting stranger and stranger.

You see, ... as strange as it may seem to anyone under the age of 65, most cars didn't come stock with turn signals..... Not until the late 40's early 50's. And as necessity is the mother of all invention, you can only imagine how many model T's and A's smashed into each other due to the lack of information form one driver to another as to which direction you were about to suddenly go. Of course everyone could use hand signals, but you can imagine how many people actually did, I mean,... what if it's raining ?.. are you gonna roll down your window and stick your arm out of the car every time you want to turn? Probably not.

Hence, the accessory turn signal. I hope you enjoy them.

As much as I would love to own them all, and some of them are from my small collection, I have come to the conclusion that trying to get them all would be a very time consuming and money wasting experience, as I have seen some of these crazy things sell well into the hundreds. So for now, I am content with saving the images, and collecting them on my hard drive.

Got Sticky Valves?

2006-08-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Speed age magazine 1955

2006-08-30T16:12:00.000-07:00

I was pretty excited the other day when I got my
January 1955 Speed age magazine in the mail that
I got from Ebay, because on page 34 was an article
for a bellytank that I have never seen before.
Which I might add is rare, since I have been searching out
Tanks for a few years now.

Not Gonna Make It

2006-08-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Aug. 8th, and Bonneville is this weekend, and I'm finally admitting that the tank won't be ready to run.. I had my doubts for the last two months, but kept hope alive just in case all the small details came together in the end, but no such luck. Oh well. At least there's October just around the corner, and not to mention El Mirage Sept. 10th, which I would rather run at first anyway just to break her in. I will be at Bonneville this weekend regardless, so I'll probably see some of you out there.

Thanks to everyone who helped and supported, and enjoy these great pics taken by Zap Teshima at El Mirage last month.

Bellytanks........ A study in alternative uses

2006-07-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

I have been working on compiling all of the pics and info on Bellytanks that I have been gathering over the past 8 years, and I realized while looking at some of the pics, how many uses, (other than land speed racing) there are out there for these surplus items. Obviously, there are hundreds, ranging from water tanks to carnival rides, and I don't want to post a million pics, but I do want to share with you guys a few of the different things I personally have done, or have in my collection. The first, is obviously my race car, which by the way is almost done, and if I make it to Bonneville in August, great !! if not, I'll be there in October. I'm not gonna kill myself. The second, is a fun project my buddy Drew and I did last year, he had one and a half small tanks that came off a carnival ride, so we made two soapbox derby cars out of them. Fun!!There is also a wagon that I bought at Turlock swapmeet last year. Cool windshield huh?

The third is really cool. Lucky Burton and myself did a bar interior recently, and I knew where a bunch of big droptanks are at a salvage yard in Sun Valley, so we took one, cut it up, powdercoated it, and made it a hood for a firepit. It turned out great.Lucky is also making a go kart out of a tank, it's the one hanging from the ceiling. Now that will be fun at El Mirage.I'm also throwing in a great pic of two tanks converted into a boat.I hope to do a Bellytank book one day, so please feel free to post pics of your own alternative use tanks.Enjoy!