What you see on the American Hot Rod Foundation site is only the tip of the iceberg on what the foundation is doing to save hot rod history. We are trying to document any and everything pertaining to it. Personally, I started seriously saveing car stuff at the age of twelve when my dad's friend game me all his old Sports Cars Illustrated Magazines back in 1957. From there it's grown to thousands of books and magazines. Along the way you keep all the ticket stubs, decals, race programs and other car related stuff that comes your way.

Along came the AHRF and all of a sudden the boxes of junk turns to gold in the since that I/we wern't around when the Spalding's or Rufi ran their cars at Muroc before WWII but we've got pictures and results to show what they did hideing within the junk. It's our job to organize and present it to you.

A case in point is the attached shot of Johnny Junkin's Pierce Arrow from the Tommy Davis Collection. The cars familiar since it ran in the late '40 but we need more facts. By looking at the photo's background it says pre-war by the looks of the cars, people, clothes etc. Looking at the car there is a faded number, what I call a real clue. It just a matter of looking through a few years of programs if we have them and trying to find a match. Now for the tricky part. Some of the cars didn't have numbers on both sides so we can resort to another trick. Look at the back of the photo if it's not glued in a scrapbook. If you're lucky there might be a caption but that's rare, so look at the number usually stamped on the back in black. Find other pictures with the same number and you know they were printed at the same time. Find other cars with numbers and you're on the way to establishing more info to set a date by. See how easy it is? With the number on the Junkins car it is established that the car was photographed on May 15, 1938 at the first official S.C.T.A. event ever held. The place was Muroc. But wate, make sure the number wasn't used by two different cars at two different meets. Now look at the scan from a section of the May '38 program and it will help confirm that this is really the Junkins car as the number and description match. We're batting a thousand here as someone was nice enough to note a speed for himin the program. This is where having duplicates really comes in handy as you will note not everybody has a speed listed. After working with the stuff a while you get a feel for it and it's tons of fun to ID an unknown car.

With all this info to remember sometimes an unrelated image can jog the memory. A few days ago I got an e-mail from Bob Sirna. He's run a Gullwing Mercedes at Bonneville for a few years with Icon John Fitch as driver and was asking about some of our safety updates. As usual a little bench racing takes place and he mentioned that he ownes one of the old Reventlow Scarabs. Not to be outdone I quickly find a business card from my collection circa '60. There arn't many of these left in the world but I just happened to have a few since my dad worked there. Enjoy it.

Since i'am on the subject here is a little more history and a pix. The Scarab sports car was pure hot rod and built by Troutman and Barns with a Traco (Jim Travers and Frank Coon) engine, Emil Diedt hammered body designed by Chuck Pelly, and had Chuck Daigh and Phil Remington as driver an wrench. And don't forget the Von Dutch stripeing and graphics. As a side none the Egyptian Scarab was a lowly Shi# (dung) beatle. All rodders have a scence of humor. Anyhow in the late '50's and early '60's they kicked butt waxing europe's best exotics like Ferrari, Maserati, Jags etc.

The attached shot shows AHRF pioneer Phil Remington putting together the jewel like first rear-engined Scarab formula car with the ill-fated Leo Goosen designed desmodromic F-1 engine in it. It was backed by a Cooper junkbox. (English F-1 cars were crude in those days, when the oil galleries in the box were drilled they came out the side of the casting and patched with epoxy.)

A few mounths after we interviewed Kent Enderle for the AHRF he called and said he was cleaning out his garage and wanted to know if we wanted some old junk. Naturally we said yes and a trip to his shop was a good one. Inside the old cardboard box were a few dozed well used magazines from the early '50. We know the name Car Craft but what about Honk from August, '53, it's father. Look closely at the cover and you'll discover the driver is a real dog who'se lost control of his Yo-Yo (and Wally was the editorial director, go figure). Look a little closer and you'll discover the car was actually built by customizer Jimmy Summers maybe ten years earlier. The dog is named Ted and belongs to Max and Ina, who also owned the car. A few years later they bagged the name of an Alan Ladd movie for a new Buick powered contraption that they called Old Yeller, a real mongrel dog. Yep that's the rodders Balchowsky. Thanks for the Junk Kent. Someday we might even get all the covers scanned to share with you.

From our Bay Area friends we've scanned all the early Grand National Roadster Show Programs and have Bonneville covered with programs and results for the first 20 years thanks to more friends. We have S.C.T.A. Racing News from before and after the war, Veda Orr's CT (California Timing) News after the war, the list goes on.

This is just some of the stuff under the surface. There are still big gaps left to fill (the Midwest, the South and the East) but with friends like you hopefully it will keep us buisy for a long time to come.