“500” Platolene gasoline

 

Several  years ago an episode of the History Channel "reality" television program 'American Pickers,' made a visit to Southern Indiana. At one site, one of the show's two protagonists bought a large old porcelain service station sign that read “500 Platolene” which used a checkered flag. The owner of the sign mumbled something about the people that ran the Indianapolis ‘500’ had owned this service station chain. Was this truth or reality show fiction?
 

Anton “Tony” Hulman Junior, who bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from Eddie Rickenbacker in 1945, was born in Terre Haute Indiana the only child of grocery magnate Anton Hulman and his second wife Ada Grace Smith Hulman.  Ada’s family owned the Princeton Mining Company and the Deep-Vein Coal Company both bituminous coal mining operation as well as Princeton Farms all in the vicinity of Princeton Indiana about 80 miles due south of Terre Haute.

Henry P. Smith Junior operated those businesses after the death of his father as well as the RJ Oil and Refining Company which in addition to its refinery RJ operated 100 service stations in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. Henry’s cousin, Tony Hulman was a partner in RJ Oil and Henry’s son, Donald Smith (later a Hall of Fame racing promoter) was RJ Oil’s sales manager.

In 1953 RJ Oil undertook a one million dollar expansion of its refinery that was completed in August 1953. The refinery was the first such plant in the area that used a new process developed by Universal Oil Products of Des Plaines Illinois known as “platforming”

In an article published in the Terre Haute Tribune,  Smith promised motorists that the company '500' service stations  will have “the most powerful, cleanest burning, most economical gasoline that has even been refined” because of “the specially developed catalyst in this secret new process.” The process used “precious platinum, a metal more costly than gold;” in 1953 an ounce of platinum cost $70 compared to $40 for an ounce of gold.  The name of the new gasoline was “Platolene” - the “gasoline made with platinum.” The name and logo ‘500 Platolene’ was trademarked in 1953.   

 

A matchbook from the author's collection combines two

Tony Hulman businesses - 500 Platolene and the

Meadows Shopping Center (Terre Haute's first mall)

 

 

Today the Smith and Hulman family business interests remained intertwined. Tony George, Tony Hulman's only grandson, recently re-installed as chairman of Hulman & Company currently sits on the board of directors of First Financial Bank N.A. (once run by the late Don Smith), Deep Vein Coal Company, Princeton Mining Company, and R.J. Oil Company.  

Postscript

 

 

 

There is one final racing connection to this story. In the early nineteen seventies Universal Oil Products (UOP) developed a new process known as ‘CCR platforming’ that allowed refineries to produce high-octane lead-free gasoline. To help promote their new process, in August 1971, UOP signed a sponsorship deal with Don Nichols’ Advanced Vehicle Systems.

The series of sinister black race cars in the SCCA Can-Am and Formula One series were known as “UOP Shadows.” The UOP Shadow DN4A driven by Jackie Oliver and powered by a 494-cubic inch Chevrolet engine powered by lead-free gasoline won the 1974 SCCA Can-Am championship.   

Postscript 2

Tony Hulman became a partner with RJ Smith in the Princeton Farms the primary product of which was popcorn. Around 1940 Smith and Hulman hired the former Vigo County Farm Bureau extension agent to run the Princeton Farms. The agent who ran the Farms for 12 years later became world-famous for marketing his own brand of popcorn: Orville Redenbacher.

Cunningham C-3 Continental Coupe at SEMA 2017

While the Cunningham C-3 Continental Coupe displayed at the 2017 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show was not a race car the marque has a fascinating racing lineage.   

 

 

Briggs Swift Cunningham II was born in in 1907 in Cincinnati Ohio the scion of an extremely wealthy family which had built its fortune in the pork packing industry, and later expanded into banking, street car lines, railroads, banking, and the start-up funding for the Proctor & Gamble Company.

After two years at Yale University, Briggs left to marry a Standard Oil Company heiress and became what was described as a “gentleman sportsman” who participated in sports car racing and competitive sailing as he won the 1958 America’s Cup as the skipper of the 12-meter yacht Columbia which he co-owned as part of a syndicate.  

Briggs started automobile racing around 1939 with his friends Miles and Samuel Collier, heirs to the publishing and real estate fortune, but he made his big mark in sports car racing in 1950. Briggs bought two new Cadillac Series 61 Coupe de Ville cars to race in the 24 Hours of LeMans in France under the banner of the B. S. Cunningham Company.  Cunningham found long-distance races much more interesting than short races because of the strategy, preparation and endurance required of both man and machine.

One of the Cadillacs remained stock appearing, but the other had its body stripped and was fitted with an aerodynamic aluminum roadster body built by Grumman Aircraft. Upon arrival in France, the French fans fell in love with the Cadillacs - they nicknamed the stock car “Petit Pataud,” (Little Clumsy) and nicknamed the roadster “Le Monstre” (The Monster).  At the finish of the 1950 LeMans 24 hour race, the regular Cadillac driven by the Collier brothers finished tenth and “Le Monstre” driven by Cunningham and Phil Walters (aka Ted Tappett) placed eleventh one lap behind.

The following year, Cunningham returned to LeMans with a team of three purpose-built Cunningham C2-R racers powered by 331-cubic inch Chrysler “Hemi” engines. Walters set the fastest lap speed in practice, but two of the C2-Rs were eliminated by accidents. The third C2-R ran in second place through the 18th hour but shortly after the car was slowed with engine problems and it failed to complete enough laps to be classified at the finish.

In 1952 Briggs established a factory and race shop at 1402 Elizabeth Street in West Palm Beach Florida to produce the Cunningham C-3, a Grand Touring style sports car built on the C2-R chassis design.

 

 

The first two C-3’s were entirely built in the Florida shop, but the B.S. Cunningham Company later sub-contracted the body construction to the Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale (Vignale), and the company advertised the C-3 as the combination of “American Engineering with Italian Artistry.” Cunningham crews built the running chassis which was shipped to Turin for installation of the body styled by Giovanni Michelotti then shipped back to Florida for final completion.

 

 

Equipped with a 331-cubic inch Chrysler “Hemi” V-8 engine fitted with four Zenith downdraft single-barrel carbs atop a custom intake manifold was connected to a Cadillac three-speed transmission that fed a Chrysler rear end, the C-3 in the coupe body style sold for a base price of $9,000, which by comparison was more than double the price of a 1953 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe de Ville. 

 

 

 

The C-3 roadster body style cost $1,000 less, but with a variety of optional racing parts such as polished connecting rods and high-compression cylinder heads, the price of a Cunningham C-3 could approach $12,000 or even if the customer wanted the car equipped with a Chrysler Fluid-Torque semi-automatic transmission. Even with the high price, reportedly, each C-3 cost the B.S. Cunningham Company more than $15,000 to build.

 

 

The manual transmission 220-horsepower Cunningham C-3 was capable of reaching 60 miles per hour (MPH) from a standing start in less than seven seconds and could hit a top speed of 150 MPH.  Expert opinions on how many C-3’s were built vary – some claim just 25 (the minimum required for homologation to compete at LeMans) while other list the number of car built as high as 30. The Revs Institute documented production at 27- 18 coupes and 9 roadsters. Cunningham customers reportedly included Nelson Rockefeller, duPont heir Charles Moran and Mercury Marine and Chrysler stock car racing team owner Carl Kiekhaefer.

Some Cunningham C-3’s were raced but not as part of the factory-supported effort; those later Cunningham team race cars were identified as the C-4R, C-5R, and C-6R.A Cunningham built car never won the Le Mans race though the team placed fourth in 1952 and third in 1953 and 1954. Briggs was on the cover of the April 26, 1954 issue of Time magazine under the headline: “Road Racer Briggs Cunningham: Horsepower, Endurance, and Sportsmanship.”

 In 1955 at LeMans, the new Cunningham C-6R fitted with a Weber carbureted Offenhauser engine modified to run on gasoline was a disappointment as it posted slower lap time than its predecessor. Never competitive in the race the C-6R engine burnt one of its four pistons in the 19th hour with 202 laps completed.  1955 marked the first and only time that at least one Cunningham entry had failed to finish the 24-hour grind.     

1955 marked the last year for production of the Cunningham marque of passenger cars, as the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations only allowed low-volume automobile manufacturers a period of five years to reach profitability; after that the IRS classified the expenses as a non-deductible hobby.

The Cunningham West Palm Beach shop was closed and forty men lost their jobs but not before SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) President and former Indianapolis 500 riding mechanic Charles Moran won the SCCA with B-Modified championship in 1955 driving at various times the C-4R, the C-4RK (an aerodynamic Kamm-back coupe) and the C-5R.

Briggs Cunningham continued to participate in SCCA amateur racing with cars that included the C-6R refitted with a Jaguar engine, a Jaguar D-type and XK-150, a Maserati Type 60 and a Porsche 550.  In an era when race cars were towed to the track on an open trailer, the Cunningham team was a forerunner of modern racing operations that arrived trackside with a tractor-trailer rig stocked with spare parts and equipment and the cars serviced by a squad of professional mechanics.

Briggs returned to LeMans with a Chevrolet Corvette in 1960 teamed with Kimberly-Clark Paper Company heir Bill Kimberly but failed to finish, then the pair returned in 1961 with a Maserati type 60 Birdcage and finished eighth. In 1962 Briggs now the New England Jaguar distributor teamed with 1959 LeMans winner Roy Salvadori in a Jaguar E-type and finished third, then in his final LeMans appearance in 1963 he teamed with Bob Grossman in a lightweight Jaguar E-type and finished ninth.  

After he married his second wife, Briggs retired from race driving and established the Briggs Cunningham Automotive Museum in Costa Mesa, California which opened February 8 1966. An eponymous car museum was an obvious move as Briggs had kept almost all of the significant cars he had ever owned. Briggs’ car collection included the first Ferrari sold in the United States, a 1948 166 Spyder Corsa sold to him by Ferrari’s United States distributor Luigi Chinetti, and the 1930 Bugatti Type 41 Royale Kellner Coach that Cunningham purchased directly from the Bugatti family in 1950.

The Museum closed on December 31, 1986 and the collection was sold to Cunningham’s life-long friend Miles Collier who moved the collection to Naples Florida; the museum is today known as the Revs Institute.  Briggs Cunningham died at age 96 in Las Vegas on July 2, 2003.

The Cunningham C-3 shown at SEMA 2017 is chassis #5207 the second car built which was used as a media car and was featured in numerous period road test articles finished in an attractive tri-tone combination of dark green, medium green and cream.  The car now finished in matte black is unrestored aside from mechanical restorations to make it safe to drive. The car’s owner, the famed Barn Find book series author Tom Cotter has no intention to restore the car as he says it is “perfect as is.”

To learn more about the fascinating life of Briggs Cunningham visit http://www.briggscunningham.com

All Photos by the author

 

The Challenger 2

Danny Thompson broke 400 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 2016 as he set a class record with his 5,000-hp Challenger 2, a restored refined version of the streamliner originally built by late father the legendary Mickey Thompson in 1968. Danny set the overall AA/FS record as he averaged 406.769 miles per hour (MPH) over a measured mile.

In September 1960 Mickey broke the magical 400 MPH barrier as he ran 406.6 MPH in his Challenger 1 powered by four supercharged Pontiac engines, but it was not recognized as an official record as he was unable to complete the required return run.

 

The slimmer, sleeker “Autolite Special” Challenger 2 built in 1968 by automotive fabricating legends Quin Epperly, John Buttera, Tom Jobe, and Nye Frank was intended to finally get Mickey Thompson officially over 400 MPH, but bad weather foiled the attempt and the project was set aside for two decades. In 1988, Mickey planned to renovate the Challenger 2 for his son Danny to drive.

That plan was interrupted when Mickey and his wife Trudy were murdered in their driveway by two unknown assailants. Years after his father’s tragic murder and the conviction of Mickey's business partner Mike Goodwin of the crime, Danny got Challenger 2 out of storage and spent a reported $2 million to rebuild it to modern SCTA (Southern California Timing Association) safety standards.
 

 

When the author chatted with Danny Thompson at the 2017 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show in Las Vegas, he shared that in 2018, to mark five decades after Challenger 2 first touched salt, he will try to best his previous top speed of 435 MPH. Danny's goal is to set the piston engine-driven world record, unseating George Poteet’s “Speed Demon,” which holds a 437.183 MPH SCTA  national record and a 439 MPH world record.

 

 

Instead of the original Ford  SOHC (single overhead camshaft) 427-cubic inch engines, the Challenger 2 is now powered by a pair nitro-fueled 2500-horsepower non-supercharged Brad Anderson “Hemi” V-8 engines which uses an all-wheel drive configuration.

 

Twin three-speed gear boxes link the two engines together and counterbalance the power output, while the front of the car houses two 30-gallon aluminum fuel tanks that hold just enough nitromethane fuel for one full speed pass. Challenger 2 uses Optima batteries, which explains the car’s presence in the Optima booth at the 2017 SEMA show in Las Vegas.

 

 

 

The Challenger 2 measures 32 feet in length, with a height of 27 inches at the tip and 37 inches at the canopy, and is 34 inches wide and weighs 5700 pounds ready to run.

All photos by the author

Tucker 48 replica at SEMA 2017 reminds us of Tucker's connections to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many automotive historians are familiar with the name and the story of Preston Tucker, the automotive promoter entrepreneur who tried to build his own car, the “Tucker 48” but failed after 50 vehicles were completed.  Even more people became familiar with the basics of the Tucker story after the 1988 Lucasfilm motion picture Tucker: The Man and His Dream that starred Jeff Bridges.

Preston Tucker worked during the late nineteen twenties and early nineteen thirties as a car salesman, and in 1935 together with master racing car designer and builder Harry A Miller formed a company, Miller and Tucker, Incorporated which somehow convinced the Ford Motor Company to pay them to produce ten new race cars powered by 221-cubic inch Ford flathead engines for that year’s famed Indianapolis 500-mile race.  

The Miller-Ford cars were low and very streamlined and used independent front and rear suspension that featured aerodynamic cast aluminum suspension arms.  As ground-breaking as they appeared, work on the cars started too late and there was insufficient testing.

 

Of the ten cars ordered, only nine reached the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and only four qualified for the 33-car starting field despite the fact that the Miller-Ford team boasted such famed drivers as Ted Horn and 1924 Indianapolis ‘500’ co-winner LL Corum.  

 

All four Miller-Ford entries retired from the race with the same malady - frozen steering, a problem caused by the fact that the steering box was located too close to the flathead engines’ exhaust manifold and the heat boiled out all the grease in the box.

After the end of World War II, the American car-buying public was anxious for new cars  and Preston’s new company the Tucker Corporation staffed by former “Big Three” automobile executives was going to supply them with something really new- a “safety car” the Tucker 48.  

 

The safety features that Tucker advertised for the “48” included disc brakes, the location of all controls within reach of the steering wheel, a padded dashboard, self-sealing tubeless tires, a chassis which protected occupants in a side impact, a roll bar within the roof, and a laminated windshield designed to pop out during an accident.

 

The car was to be powered by a rear mounted low-speed 589 cubic inch “flat six” engine with hydraulic valves, air cooling, mechanical fuel injection, and direct-drive torque converters on each rear wheel instead of a transmission.

 

 

As part of the advertising campaign for his new car also known as the “Torpedo,” Preston Tucker returned to the familiar grounds of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In 1946 Tucker sponsored owner/driver George Barringer’s 1938 rear-engine Gulf Oil funded Harry Miller creation. Tucker returned the following year as the owner as the same car driven by Al Miller and also provided sponsorship for Joe Lencki’s two entries. Miller returned in the rear-engine machine in 1948 but failed to qualify for the starting field.     

The world premiere of the much anticipated Tucker 48 on June 19, 1947 did not go well; Tucker’s crew worked up until the last moment to ready the car for its moment. The engine needed an external power source to start, was very loud and the car could not go in reverse as the torque converters were not completely developed.

When production was set to begin in the world’s largest factory which Tucker had leased, the early production cars used a Franklin O-335 engine mated to a modified Cord 810 electro-vacuum manual transmission, but as production continued, different transmissions and different suspensions were utilized.

Tucker used the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a testing ground for a fleet of seven Tucker 48s in secret during September 1948, and one Tucker spun, blew a tire and crashed, flipping over three times. Just as advertised the Tucker’s windshield popped out, and after the tire was replaced the Tucker was battered but still drivable but the uninjured driver, mechanic Eddie Offutt.    

To fund his company had Tucker used an innovative program wherein potential buyers purchased Tucker accessories and thereby were guaranteed a place on the waiting list for a Tucker 48 car. A Security and Exchange Commission investigation found this innovation troubling and though Tucker was eventually acquitted of fraud charges, the company collapsed. 

 

When production ceased a total of 58 Tucker frames and bodies were built with 36 cars were finished before the factory was closed. After the factory closed, but before the court-ordered liquidation of his assets, Tucker and a group of employees assembled an additional fourteen Tucker “48s” for a total of 50 completed, with another car partially completed.  

Fast forward nearly seventy years to the 2017 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) trade show where the Axalta Coating Systems booth displayed a freshly-finished Tucker 48 replica built by Rob Ida Concepts for owner Jack Kiely. This is the fourth Tucker replica built by Ida, of Morganville New Jersey whose grandfather was an original Tucker dealer, with the 51st Tucker (completed after it left the factory) as a pattern for the build.  

 

 

 

This is not a 100% faithful replica, the car rides on a RideTech air ride suspension and instead of a Franklin flat-six air-cooled engine it uses a transversely mounted 500 horsepower twin-turbocharged Cadillac Northstar V-8 engine.

As viewed from the show floor, the car has a split personality; the passenger side is equipped with large-diameter billet hot rod wheels fitted with low-profile rubber, while the driver’s side rides on wide-white high sidewall tires fitted with 1947 Cadillac “Sombrero” hubcaps.

 

 

The interior is very close to the appearance of a Tucker 48 with a 1941 Lincoln steering wheel (that’s right Tuckers used rejected 1941 Lincoln steering wheels and columns) and the “lollipop” heater controls to the left of the wheel and a pre-selector gear knob on the right side of the steering wheel.  Unlike the original, the Ida version repurposes these controls- the gear knob controls the Cadillac transaxle, while what appear to be the heater controls actually controls the air ride suspension.

 

 

 

The carbon-fiber and steel body panels are of course finished in a custom mixed Axalata paint to match an original Tucker color, Waltz Blue.

Postscript:

The author recently visited the Blackhawk Museum in Danville California where Tucker #1019, owned by a private party from Vallejo California was displayed. This car, chassis number 016 and engine # 33519 fitted with a modified Cord transmission was originally painted grey with a grey and blue interior but was repainted in a color approximating Waltz Blue.

 

This was one of the Tucker promotional cars, fitted with light panels mounted on the rear bumper that read "You've been passed by a Tucker."

All photos by the author

 

 



Mark Donohue’s 1967 Can-Am Lola T70

The Sunoco Race Fuels booth at the 2017 PRI (Performance Racing Industry) trade show featured a Lola T70 Mark IIIB car as raced in 1967 SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) J Wax Canadian-American (Can-Am) Challenge series for FIA Group 7 cars by Mark Donohue for Roger Penske Racing Enterprises.

 

The FIA Group 7 regulations developed in 1966 specified few rules - the cars had to be fitted with fenders, windshield, two seats, two doors, headlights, taillights, roll bar, dual braking system and a self-starter and that they must run on commercial gasoline.

 

 

 

This particular Lola chassis was the third of three Lola T70s purchased by Penske over a two-year period.  Lola Cars, based in England was founded in 1958 by designer Eric Broadley. The T70 was by far the company’s most successful customer car with over hundred cars built in three iterations, with its reputation established after a Lola T70 Mark II driven by John Surtees won the inaugural SCCA J Wax Can-Am series in 1966.

 

 

The first Penske Lola car, a Mark II series identified as chassis number SL71/21, was raced during the 1966 season but after just three races was destroyed in a crash in the Watkins Glen Grand Prix after contact with John Cannon’s spinning Genie owned by actor Dan Blocker. The subsequent fire after the crash virtually destroyed SL71/21 which was replaced by Lola Mark II chassis number SL71/32.  

The second Penske Lola T70 chassis powered by a 327-cubic inch Chevrolet V-8 built by Traco Engineering was dominant in the 1967 United States Road Racing Championship (USRRC) as Donohue won five of the series’ first seven races - the rounds at Las Vegas’ Stardust International Raceway, California’s Riverside International Raceway, the sandy Bridgehampton Road Course on Long Island, Watkins Glen, and Pacific Raceway in Kent Washington.    

 

Chassis SL71/32 was damaged in a July 1967 crash during a private Firestone tire test at Riverside and though it was later repaired, Penske needed a new car for the start of the 1967 SCCA Can-Am Series so he took delivery of our feature car, identified as chassis SL75/124, a Mark IIIB lightweight Spyder.

 

The new dark blue Lola debuted at the 1967 USRRC season finale at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course powered by a thundering Chevrolet 427-cubic inch V-8 engine. Donohue set quick time in qualifying, posted the fastest lap during the race and won the race by three laps over Jerry Hansen to clinch the 1967 USRRC championship.    

Despite the Lola’s Mid-Ohio success, testing showed that the 427-cubic inch engine lacked reliability, so for the 1967 Can-Am series the car was powered by a 327-cubic inch Chevrolet engine.  With finishes in only three of the series’ six rounds Donohue finished tied with John Surtees for third in points behind Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme and their dominant McLaren M6As.  

 

 

The key visual elements of this Lola T70 are the unique ram-air inlets located on either side of the roll bar. In his 1974 book The Unfair Advantage Donohue remembered the inlets as “….the greatest things! They made the car look like a spaceship. We didn’t realize that they were interfering with airflow to the rear spoiler, which probably offset any gains in horsepower. And they would crack, and they would fall apart, and we even sucked their screens into the carburetors.”  

Penske sold the car to the Carroll Shelby and Shelby Racing used it to test various engines and suspension parts.  Later in 1968, long-time Shelby American employees, brothers Charlie and Kerry Agapiou were encouraged by the Ford Motor Company to start a Can-Am team, and they bought using the Lola T70 from Shelby and raced the car with a hugely powerful Ford 427-cubic inch bored out to 464 cubic inches.

 

The Agapiou brothers started the season with Ronnie Bucknum as the driver but later George Follmer came on board. The car proved to be powerful and fast but unreliable though Follmer did finish second in the final 1968 Can-Am race at Las Vegas.

 

 

After its racing career ended, Lola SL75/124 was rebodied as the T70 coupe version and it spent time in a museum, but later it was sympathetically restored to its 1967 Can-Am appearance. Currently fitted with a 365-cubic inch Chevrolet V-8 engine it is raced in vintage events frequently.  

https://www.sunocoracefuels.com

 

All Photos by the author