Segue
In my previous post I recounted how a simple job of accompanying my father to a photo shoot in 1957 turned into a lifelong quest to unearth information about speedsters.
What were they? Who made them? Who drove them? When? A whole host of questions lurked in the back of my brain for about 50 years before welling up like a volcano.
I knew then that I had to do something about these questions…
A Little More About Me
I grew up in post-WWII Connecticut and experienced a pretty normal life as far as I could tell. I was born on wheels – I always had some beneath me.
Me on a Tricycle, 1949. My older brother Billy was riding on the back. My father was always taking pictures of us!
As a young boy, I owned a bicycle and had a paper route. I mowed lawns in the summer and shoveled sidewalks and driveways in the winter. I bought models with my money, repaired my bike when needed, and hung around older kids who worked on their jalopies.
My first Ducati, 1965. My younger brother Pauly was sitting on the back. By the garage sat my next project, my grandmother’s 1954 Ford Crestliner that needed some love.
I also did chores for my family and, as I mentioned in my previous post, I helped my father in his commercial photography business. I was his camera boy and I carried his bag full of 5X7 Kodak film packs and Sylvania blue flash bulbs to weddings, family portraits, and the occasional sports boat or old car photo shoot.
My father Bill in 1940. He joined the US Navy as a submariner in 1941, shortly after Pearl Harbor. Bill apprenticed after WWII to eventually become a commercial photographer.
My father was also a car hobbyist; he knew guys who also owned old cars. He himself owned a 1928 Graham Paige.
1929 Graham-Paige, much like what my father owned. My older brother would drag race it in our neighborhood when Dad wasn’t home.
I grew up. I attended schools, played sports, traveled the world a bit, married and had children, lost my wife to breast cancer, and carried on somehow.
I had a full career in public education with side careers in automotive production, restoration, and home construction. At some point I decided it was time to stop working for others and concentrate on my writing. Which is what I have been doing full-time for over 20 years now. It’s been a journey…
How My Book on Speedsters Came About
I began to formally research and write on this topic around 2010. I belong to a number of car clubs, and in each club it seemed like a discussion would eventually arise about “speedsters.” No one knew much about them, or the variety of speedsters out there, and just when they began to be built. There existed a lot of questions and no real answers.
I knew that this was a topic that I had experience with and that I already knew something about from my distant past. I decided that this was something that I could write about, and the place to explore the topic was in national automotive history libraries.
Detroit Public Library bookmark. Where my research started. Wonderful library branch, sketchy neighborhood back in 2010.
I started at the Skillman branch of the Detroit Public Library and the rest of my journey developed from there. After ten years of research and writing, I have put together this book on the topic.
My Book on Speedsters
Classic Speedsters: The Cars, The Times, and The Characters Who Drove Them chronicles the most significant vehicles ever to have traveled American roads and racetracks. Speedsters were the pizzazz cars of their era. Speedsters were owned by entertainers, captains of industry, the wealthy, and in some cases, the everyday guy or gal. They were often expensive, but they were always fast and sexy. Speedsters were America’s first sports cars.
Each chapter frames the birth and evolution of a company that produced a speedster model in its lineup and includes a biography of a famous owner of the period. This book traces the journey of the speedster concept from 1894 to 1970. It examines the speedster’s story among twelve automotive companies, eleven of which were American.
This is the first automotive book to study the speedster concept in depth. It is the first book to examine a broad swath of speedsters from different companies in order to distill the essence of this singular model.
Classic Speedsters: The Cars, The Times, and The Characters Who Drove Them informs, enlightens, and entertains the reader with in-depth research. This book answers three fundamental questions about the speedster:
· Why were these cars so important and influential?
· Why did so many prominent people own them?
· What message do they have for modern design?
1928 Auburn Speedster ad from chapter 10 of my book. image courtesy AACA library
Next episode I’ll go into the chapters and the bio pieces that I wrote to include with each chapter.
Please spread the word about my book among your friends, as it is on track to be out this year.
I’m also considering a Kickstarter campaign to get a pre-sale going. More on that if I can get the project approved.
Until then… go get a ride in a speedster—I recently did! Wow!
Recently I had the privilege to ride in a 1914 Stutz Bearcat. What a beast!