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Home > Articles > Historicar Society > Rear View Mirror - Mysteries From The Past
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One summer day in 1955, while riding with his brother, Jack, and friend, Jim Breen, Ed Newton spotted this radical ‘50 Olds 98 parked along the street. They pulled over on Beverly Blvd. (between Hollywood and Beverly Hills), and he grabbed these shots (Jack on the left, and Jim acting like he has something to do with this "rad" custom). About his chance photo op, Ed said, "Radical customs were nothing new back then, but cars that had such character, clean artistic effort and good taste were not always the end result achieved by those talented torch-jockeys of yore".
Subsequently, Ed never saw it in a magazine or car show, or anywhere, for that matter. So if there’s someone out there that knows anything about this 50-year-old car, shoot us an E-mail update; we’ll post it, and then you’ll all know "the rest of the story".
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Snap Facts ~ by Newt
While I was at the Reno, Nevada, sports car races in August of 1958, a woman was speeding down the "run-off" shoulder of the track. She was so nervous about being in an illegal area, maybe looking frantically from side to side, that she ran right into and almost over a hay bale that was clearly right in her path. She can be seen facing the cop, standing right next to her driver’s side door. Needless to say, when I heard her madly gunning her engine, thinking that she might "jump that car" right off the hay bale, I wanted a shot of the action. I wasn’t able to get into position quick enough to capture the idiot cooking her rear tire while trying to blow the valves right out of the block, but I thought the "aftermath" was still worth a single picture. It was just another one of those stupid human tricks, a "Driving Miss Oopsy-Daisy" special.
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1. J. Cheatham's Wild Ride --
During the mid-fifties, and before parachutes became a critical part of the safety equipment on diggers, the record setting James Cheatham was one of the most gutsy rail jockeys of all time. In fact, his willingness to run all out at smaller drag strips sadly cost him his life. Shortly after "Newt" took this picture at San Jose’s "Little Bonneville" strip in 1957, "J" blazed off the Half Moon Bay drag strip in Northern California. He just flat ran out of room at the end of the race track trying to stop that "bare bones" Cadillac powered 150 mph gas dragster.
2. Arfons' Green Monster XI --
When Ed took this shot of Art Arfons' huge aircraft-engined Green Monster XI, it was one of the biggest draws on drag strips all over the country, running record speeds nearly everywhere it appeared. This day in August of 1959, however, was the day that the Monster got beaten by a high-winding Chevrolet powered rail in the feature match race of the weekend. Only the fans who were there could remember that awesome sight of the Monster totally blowing past the "mousemotor" dragster inches AFTER the little upstart crossed the finish-line.
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| Got a nostalgic car photo or a "mystery from the past" you'd like to share or resolve... then click here. |
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