Month: March 2019

Hello again, my web friends.  Recently, I decided to find out a little more about a cherished family picture I’ve looked at for years.

The photo above is of Albert Robinson with four of his children.  My Grandfather Elmer Carling (1887-1954) is holding my father Gerald (1919- 1991).  It was the style to dress newborns as girls in them days.  My grandmother Christa (1886-1954) is standing next to him, and I think the three children in white may be Clora  3, June 7, and Wanda 5.  The lady in white is Albert’s wife Catherine holding their 5^th child.  The photo appears to have been taken up Chalk Creek above Fillmore, Utah.

I asked a knowledgeable car friend and writer, John Clark for some help.  John publishes the series MOTOR TALES, www.motortales.com, about early Utah motoring and is also THE expert on Utah license plates.  He was tasked by Gov. Huntsman to help design the new Utah plates back in 2007.

John immediately I. D.’d the car as a 1919 STUDEBAKER  and pointed out that the plate has the low number 48, which indicates  it was a dealer plate used for demonstration rides with prospective customers.  The small number 20 indicates the plate was current in 1920.

John suggested I visit the Utah State Historical Archives in the Rio Grande building for further info.

A great resource and friendly people.  They supplied pictures of a 1919 Stude as well as the later 1920 model.  Sure as shootin’ the car in the picture is a 1919 Studebaker.

Notice the front bumper of the ’19 has two horizontal bars, probably of spring steel, but the bumper in my picture looks like a piece of wood.  .  Maybe one of those test drives didn’t turn out so well.  The wood is somehow being held in place on the frame horns, but I don’t think baling wire and duct tape were invented yet.  Destroying the front bumper may also explain why part of the plate right above the 20 seems to be missing.  Ouch.

The Archives also supplied me with a shot of a 1920 Stude. 

Notice it is the first year of all steel wheels, no more wooden spokes.

Being the curious sort, I wanted to find out more about Studebaker history.

Stutenbecker  was a family of German metal workers from Solingen, Germany who immigrated in 1736 and settled in South Bend, Indiana. One of the brothers returned home after hitting it big in the California gold fields making wheelbarrows and other tools.  In the 1850’s the family  geared up and started making wagons.  They were the largest manufacturer of wagons in the U.S. by 1876.  When they switched to automobiles in 1902, their first cars were electric, but in 1904 they changed to gasoline. Wilson Motors in Richfield was the Stude dealer closest to Fillmore in 1920.

Grandfather Elmer was town marshall and the now-one-year-old 1919 Stude was possibly being marketed as a used car, following the unfortunate front bumper incident. Warner Motors, the Ford dealer in Fillmore, may have been the sales agent.

Ford’s Model T commanded 40% of the market, and a 4-door Touring Car sold for about $400.00  ($5,000 in today’s money).  Stude was number 3 in sales, after the now forgotten Overland brand, and was priced about the same as the Ford.  The 4-door Touring was the only model Stude offered. 

Prohibition hit in 1920, and Stude became very popular with bootleggers because it was bigger and faster than the 4-cylinder Fords. The 354 cu.in. “Light 6” could do an honest 80 M.P.H.    (I presume with the windshield and the top folded down).  Brakes unfortunately were expanding drums on the rear only.  At the time there were less than 100 miles of paved roads in Utah. With fabric cord tires, wooden wheels, dirt roads, and wishful brakes, those bootleggers really had to want to get away! 

There may a be a back storyhere:  A dark and stormy night, illegal booze, a desperate chase, a terrifying crash, arrested and jailed by the Town Marshall, and the car being confiscated and sold!  Or maybe not.

The family picture is 6 ½ X 11 ½ and appears to be professionally done.  Back then the negative was usually the same size as the picture, which meant cameras were quite large.  Contact printing produced the positive.   A sticker on the back says WHITE HOUSE, which according to Google was an upscale (Deluxe) 3-story “fireproof” hotel on Main St. in Salt Lake City. Perhaps they offered photography and picture framing also.

if a picture can tell a story, this old family photo tells several. Thanks to Albert, Elmer, Christa & Catherine for this fun family story.

At age 72, Alan Wilson still maintains a schedule that would make a 20-year-old weary.

“We have designed over 150 tracks world wide,” he says, “of which 40 got built, including 7 street tracks. We currently have three more under construction, two of them private.”

Alan may not be a household name among race fans, but he is and has been a driving force for over 40 years in every type of motorsport from midgets to Formula One. His web page www.wilsonmotorsport.com has a history of his projects dating back to the 1970’s.

With that long perspective, I asked Alan what he sees as the future of racing worldwide.

“China is the world’s largest car market. The Chinese are getting richer, and they have a large domestic auto manufacturing base. They should be the prime future market for auto racing. We have been in China since 2000, and I have come up with what I call ‘The China Conundrum,’ which is basically that they don’t know what they don’t know.

“I recently bought a ticket to the F-1 Chinese Grand Prix, the first ticket I’ve bought in over 40 years, just to see what the experience was like. I was careful to get a seat near a big screen so I could see the cars on TV, and near a speaker so I could hear the announcer. They had a good crowd of over 100,000 spectators.

“F-1 is what I call ‘fly away racing’ as built by Bernie Ecclestone. You couldn’t get near the paddock, so forget about meeting the drivers. They weren’t introduced before the race, and the numbers on the cars were so small you couldn’t read them. There was a 2 hour delay between final practice and the race, when the entertainment was a guy on a skate board and a local ping pong match. As soon as the race was over the drivers got into their helicopters and flew away.

“The Chinese have the mechanics of a race down, but they need to realize that racing is in the final analysis ENTERTAINMENT ! They’ll have to get that before they can reach their potential.

“In 2017, I spent 141 days in China designing tracks that would accommodate every type of racing from F-1 to carts. We had all the finances and permits lined up, and 2 under construction when the government pulled the plug and took the land back. Land is the ultimate form of wealth in China, so race tracks and golf courses are frowned upon. Racing, and golf too can keep the entertainment dollars at home, but the conundrum is they don’t know that !

“China has a growing auto manufacturing base, and Geely is one of the smartest manufacturers I’ve ever dealt with. Ford practically gave them Volvo, and Volvo under Geely turned a profit of over a billion dollars last year. Geely also now owns Lotus, and they just bought Volvo trucks. India’s population is getting richer and younger, as opposed to most of the world, which is getting older, and the wealth more concentrated. India is a prime market for racing if they could just over come their bureaucracy

“In India, the biggest problem is the bureaucracy. It can take 10 years just to get an excavation permit, plus exorbitant fees along the way.

“Neither India or China have a history and culture of racing, and that’s what produces crowds, but also takes time.

“In Europe and the U.S., which both have a great automotive culture, the greatest threat to racing is the bureaucracy, which is dominated by the environmental lobby. I just received a print out of the F.I.A. rules for this year, and it’s over 6 inches thick!

“All of the tracks I’ve done in the U.S. since Miller Motorsports have been private tracks. It’s either a condo situation where a bunch of wealthy guys build a track with garages and service facilities, with food and entertainment for their private pleasure. Or just one guy who wants to build a track to go out and play with his toy.

“The environmental lobby wants to do away with cows because their farts are causing global warming. But there will always be guys who want steaks, and I see the private track market as a way to assure you can always get a good steak!”