More on the ’37 B/A

[dinoKeymaster]

Found more …Will Post …Check Hibberts collection

[tomblakeParticipant]

What year? Looked at the entire collection but didn’t find it.

[dinoKeymaster]

Opps ,…wrong Recolection…have some new stuff…not posted or sorted ..Saw it someplace…stand by…might take a day …busy again at ‘home base’.

[masoParticipant]

[tomblakeParticipant]

Maso….I just could not remember that race and after looking close at the picture I remember why I didn’t remember.
I did run against Lagana in an eliminate once with the 55 E/G er and I won second place money against his Plymouth. He was always a good racer.

[tomblakeParticipant]

Copied this post from the “Looking for my 55”

SUPER SPORT PETE wrote:
TOM,terry o’shea gallery #14 near end. i saw that car at DOVER in later years running, don’t remember much more. the 37 my friend did buy sat on walnut tree hill rd. in shelton, in a driveway for 15 years,went by it frequently,people tried to buy it , they didn’t answer the door, or respond to letters left in mailbox. one day going by,people moving in. NO 37. when we went to look at johnny’s 37 it was owned by a body man who worked for him at one time no motor,set up for BBC. THAT’S THIS CHAPTER.

This is the picture from the O’shea collection.
Is this our old car?? The dates seem to check out and it does look like our old 37 but who knows?
It is possible, will check with Bill when he gets back from CT.

[masoParticipant]

The story on this car continues at: http://doverdragstrip.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=992&start=20

Read the post there by JADOYLE ( mid page ) and beyond… 😉

[dinoKeymaster]

Was it a 37 or 39 ???

[masoParticipant]

quote dinotheweirdo:

Was it a 37 or 39 ???

Dino…

That is a ’37, but Tom Blake thought it was a ’39 when he posted the first picture. He knows now.

I know a lot about Fords from the 1930’s. My father did five restorations of 1930’s V-8 Fords and between him and his friends, I was around a lot of them growing up.

[tomblakeParticipant]

Dino……Maso is correct. I started the thread and for all these years thinking the car was a 39 Ford. After Maso corrected me I didn’t know how to change the title so it stayed “More on the ’39 B/A” I got to visit with Bill McWilliams, on our way to the 1st Dover race and he told me that his car was in fact a ’37 and not a ’39 Ford.

……………..I FIX [dino]

[dinoKeymaster]

the plot thickens…Just got a call from Brian Doyle in Florida. Seems He -his brother John and Paul Fusco BUILT the car first. Put together at John’s B&T Texaco on Rt.122 in Silvermine,Ct around 1962. In the photo with Terenzio’s stude,thats Brian standing by the car.Paul usually drove the car .Ran In primer ,then THEY painted it the funky Green.Said they had it til around ’65,when Paul & John got drafted with Viet Nam.Brian also got drafted but got out with a medical issue.Being called to duty, they had to shut down the station and John Sold the car. Ran a bored and stroked 327 with Jahn’s pistons, 2 -4bbl. AFB carbs,4-speed , 4:88 gears and trick truck rear leaf springs.They put it in A/G or B/G .
Brian wrote also in an E-Mail:

“We won several times at Dover, West Hampton during that time but in the Gas class’s the Drag n Run car club had a car for every class and they were tough. I also ran a 55 Stude and won 4 trophies in a row, a 57 chevy contv. with a sneaky 4 speed and won, only Blue Goose the announcer knew i had 4 sp.I also ran a bad ass 61 Ford 406 ,411 rear first 3 sp then 4sp hedders and a little extra cam ran against Lil Bit a cool black guy from NY? he too ran very well, a good guy.
I now live in Summerfield Fl and still have a 57 2 dr hdtp 4 sp etc etc which Ive had for 25 yrs, even took it on Power Tour in 2006. I must be nuts gave up car payments and bought a 87 Monte Carlo ss which I m still working on, a frame up restoration for a driver, screw rice burners and car payments. Oh and whats really super cool after I had lived here for say 2 or 3 mos I was out for a ride and I find Don Garlit’s place only like 15 miles from the house. He helped us at Dover when he was there, read our plugs -said too much fuel. Paul rejetted and we ran 2 10ths faster.Hope you get a kick out of this, my memory is ?? day to day not so good but Dover was the real fun part of growing up? sleeping over and drinking beer in NY only had to be 18 .We were all from Ct., where you had to be 21, cooking on an open fire and talking to the police, a few times the cops took our keys until the morning and a few beers, cool guys, stay well and keep doing it, we may pass but Memories and Pride will keep it Alive!! ”
“Thats all I got but I love what your doing, Paul Fusco passed away several yrs ago from complications recieved in Nam..but I sent many a picture for his wife and Paul jr.”

[tomblakeParticipant]

Dino…..Yes on the plot thickens.
There has been a lot of pretty interesting stuff come up on the Dover site. The 37 Ford has had some pretty interesting and good history show up.
The original builders and the history before Bill and I had the car seems good and I have no doubt about it’s accuracy. But have a question, who is standing by the car?
Several years ago Bill’s wife thought it was Bill standing by the car with little doubt in her mind.
Since looking at more of the pictures and information from back then I still have questions. I think the person standing on the block next to the car is a track official, starter.
I think the year the picture was taken was 1965 or 1966. Reason for thinking the picture was taken than was the pressure tank located in the grill area and I think that is the pressure tank Bill and I put in the car back than.
From Page 2 of this thread it looks like V Bob took that picture and another one posted here.
Picture #1 is the Studebaker and the 37 Ford in the staging lanes
Picture #2 is the Studebaker and the 37 Ford on the line.
Both pictures were taken the same day, checkout the two 55 Chevys in staging and the people around the area, they are the same.
Picture #3 is photo shopped picture MASO posted but the starter is along side of Lagana’s car (the insert was taken from a picture in the right lane and installed into this picture).
The starter was the same, one standing on the block and the other just getting up on the block.
I don’t remember that starter but looks like someone taking Al’s place, maybe a temporary starter. I only remember Al being our track starter.
What does anyone else remember? Was there another starter? Didn’t Al need a break once in a while? I know it is a long time ago for us older folks but who remembers?

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[mikey]

Guys, this is going to sound silly, but the picture with the Orange ’55 Chevy, and the White ’55 Chevy, the Orange one has #505 on it. Could that be the first “Little Giant??
……………..Mikey 😮 😯 😕 🙄 😆

[masoParticipant]

Yes… I cropped out the area of Bob lagana’s coupe from another one of V-Bob’s pictures and inserted in into the other V-Bob picture with the Blake-McWilliams coupe for an illustration to my parody poem for my good friend Billy Casey. [ Casey… At The Track http://www.doverdragstrip.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1177 ] It was all for fun and I think it cheered him up at a painfull time, Billy was just one day out of his throat cancer surgery when I posted that. The origional background for that picture had Blake – McWilliams staged against Brazee’s Little Giant and the bottom quarter part of Lagana’s rear tire was obliterated by something in front of it, so I aligned my paste up so that Brazee’s rear tire would complete the image. Look closely and you will see that. The Lagana coupe in it’s origional V-Bob snap shot was in fact staged in the right lane and I pasted it to the left lane for my composition and that explains the extra starter. I couldn’t really fix that. It was all for fun.

[dinoKeymaster]

quote mikey:

Guys, this is going to sound silly, but the picture with the Orange ’55 Chevy, and the White ’55 Chevy, the Orange one has #505 on it. Could that be the first “Little Giant??
……………..Mikey 😮 😯 😕 🙄 😆

No.don’t think so…everybody liked to put 505 on things ,cause of the ISKY 505 cam…we have photos going way back of the “early” little giant…Gotta call George anyway…I’ll ask him IF /OR what he ran before the Crosley.

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