The Johnny Shackleford story


part two

Johnny Shackleford's 1948 official driver photograph

courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection in

the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Unlike our modern era of racing where drivers travel between racing dates either in a motorhome, transporter or private airplane, post-war race car drivers often traveled together in groups. Before the creation of the modern system of highways, travel to the race tracks on unlighted two-lane roads could prove just as dangerous and adventurous as the races themselves. During their travels, race car drivers formed strong friendships and John H. "Johnny" Shackleford grew particularly close to fellow dirt track drivers Joie Chitwood, Duke Dinsmore and Travis “Spider” Webb.

Drivers struggled for their shot at glory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, because simply qualifying for the Indianapolis starting field provided a sizeable payday, but unless they had a ride set up in advance, most drivers eschewed the Speedway.


Those drivers believed they could earn more money by racing on the dirt tracks against depleted fields of competitors during the month of May instead of spending their days trying to convince car owner to give them a shot in a competitive car on the big 2-1/2 mile brick-paved oval.

Rather than head to Indianapolis for the 1947 ‘500,’ Johnny Shackleford from Dayton Ohio took part in the 30-lap big car race at Williams Grove Speedway in Pennsylvania on May 4 1947, and finished fourth behind Horn, Dinsmore, and Tommy Hinnershitz.


A week later, Shackleford stopped off in his hometown and handily won the 20-lap AAA Midwestern big car season opener at Dayton Speedway. Driving the ‘Iddings Special’ he finished in a time of eight minutes and 17.2 seconds ahead of a pair of Detroit drivers, Eddie Zalucki and Carl Scarborough.

The ‘Iddings Special,’ sponsored by a pair of brothers, John and Howard who ran an eponymous auto parts store in Greenville Ohio, had been built by Henry Meyer, his father and brother Bob in the basement of Henry’s house on Shakespeare Avenue in Dayton over the winter of 1937-8. Originally equipped with a double overhead camshaft ‘Hal’ four-cylinder racing engine, in the post-war period it was equipped with an Offenhauser engine. 

The next race on the 1947 AAA Midwestern big car schedule was held on May 25 at Funk’s Speedway in Winchester Indiana, a track very similar to Dayton Speedway, as it was high-banked and wickedly fast.  The race was won by Detroit’s Carl Scarborough trailed by Shackleford.

The next round for the 1947 AAA Midwest series came on Sunday June 15 at Dayton Speedway.  Duke Dinsmore took the win on a tragic day as 45-year old racer Elbert “Pappy” Booker perished when his car drifted into the wall and overturned. As his wife and daughter watched from the grandstand, Booker was thrown from his car suffered a skull fracture and was pronounced dead upon arrival at the St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Dayton. 

The following Saturday the AAA Midwest big cars raced at Salem Speedway, in Southern Indiana the third of four similar high-banked oval tracks on the circuit and Pennsylvania Dutch farmer Tommy Hinnershitz picked up the win.


During the afternoon’s first preliminary heat race, the wheels of the cars of Clay Corbitt and Jack Schultz interlocked and both cars flipped wildly up the embankment and out of the track.  Corbitt died on the scene and Schultz was critically injured and died in 1952 never having recovered from his spinal cord injuries. 

On Saturday June 29 the 15-race AAA Midwestern series paid a visit to the Ohio State Fairgrounds track in a race which was won by AAA Eastern “big car “division points leader Bill Holland, who just a month earlier had finished second in his rookie appearance in the 1947 Indianapolis 500-mile race. 


The AAA series returned to Salem Speedway for the race on July 4  and Hinnershitz broke the old record track by six seconds during qualifying, then went on to win the 20-lap feature in record time of eight minutes and four seconds ahead of Harold “Hal” Robson, Jackie Holmes, and Johnny Shackleford. 

29 days later at Salem Speedway, Hinnershitz won again, and then the series moved to the Milwaukee Mile on the grounds of the State Fairgrounds for a rare back to back Thursday-Friday program during the Wisconsin State Fair on August 21 and 22nd. Rex Mays the two-time pre-war AAA National Champion in a rare appearance in a “big car” set fast time on the wide dirt oval both days and won both programs in clean sweeps.


On Wednesday night August 27, Johnny, while still in the lead for the AAA Midwest "big car" championship took advantage of an open date in the Midwestern schedule and raced with the AAA Eastern big cars where he was in the top five in points.

Shackleford’s Midwestern points lead was endangered as on three consecutive Sundays - September, the 7th, 14th and 21st, ‘Spider’ Webb in the Leach Cracraft Offenhauser won the feature races at Dayton, Salem and Winchester respectively.  Ted Horn won the October 12 1947 feature at Dayton Speedway and Webb won for the fourth time during the 1947 season as he won the Midwestern season finale at Salem Speedway. Despite Webb’s late season heroics, Johnny Shackleford was crowned the 1947 AAA Midwest division big car champion with just one victory to his credit. 

Late in the 1947 season, Duke Dinsmore arranged a ride in an Indianapolis car for his friend Shackleford, an Offenhauser-powered car built in 1934 by Clyde Adams. The car was Duke’s “500’ entry from the previous year which was without a driver owned by Fred W Johnston a service station owner in Hamilton Ohio.


Period newspapers identified the car as the 1936 Indianapolis ‘500’ winning car, but in actuality the Adams chassis was the one that Louis Meyer had driven in the 1934 ‘500.’ Mutual friend Spider Webb occasionally drove Johnston’s “big car” and had driven the Johnston-owned Adams chassis in two races during the 1946 season.




Shackleford qualified the Johnston entry for the 1947 Springfield 100 held on September 28 at the Illinois State Fairgrounds mile oval to start from the 15th positon in the 18-car starting field, but the car retired at the halfway point which earned Johnny $258 and 10 AAA championship points.  

On November 2, the newly crowned AAA Midwest champion appeared in the AAA championship race at the Arlington Downs in Texas, but the ‘Johnston Special’ broke a connecting rod inside the four-cylinder engine and Shackleford was unable to complete his qualifying run.  With the points he earned at Springfield, Johnny wound up tied with Hal Robson for 45th place in the 1947 AAA Championship chase.



Prior to heading to Indianapolis, Shackleford appeared in the 1948 AAA Eastern "big car" series opening race at Trenton New Jersey on April 18 and he finished fifth in a race won by Ted Horn.   

While his 1947 championship car results had disappointed, at least Johnny had set his ride for the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race with the Johnston #48 machine.  As a rookie driver at the big track, Shackleford was in good company as many of the drivers he had raced with on the dirt tracks - Spider Webb, Lee Wallard, Walt Ader, George Metzler and Jackie Holmes - were Speedway rookies as well.


Early on the final day of 1948 '500' qualifications on Saturday May 29th, Johnny Shackelford was the day's first qualifier in the Johnston Offenhauser posted an average speed of 121.745 miles per hour for his four-lap ten-mile qualifying run.

After Louis Durant qualified the #29 Auto Shippers Special, the field was filled with 33 starters, and the “bumping” process began. One of the drivers ready to try to bump his way into field was Lee Wallard in the “Iddings Special.” Wallard, from upstate New York had passed his Indianapolis Motor Speedway rookie test early in the month in the ancient G&M Duesenberg-powered entry, then on the final day of qualifying May 28, he was behind the wheel of the ‘Iddings Special.’ 





The Iddings entry was the same Henry Meyer-built car Shackleford had driven to the 1947 Midwestern “big car” title, with its wheelbase stretched to be eligible to race at Indianapolis as a “championship car.” Wallard startlingly posted the fifth fastest run of the month with an average speed of 128.420 MPH. 

Spider Webb who had qualified the Anderson Offenhauser the previous weekend at 121.421 MPH had been bumped from the starting field, but came back late in the day behind the wheel of the Louis Bromme-wrenched “Fowler Offenhauser.”


Webb started his run just before the 6 PM deadline, but he pulled into the pit area at the end of his third lap after the yellow caution light had inadvertently flashed on. Officials claimed that they had seen debris on the track, although none was found, and an uproar ensued as Chief Steward Jack Mehan ruled that qualifying was closed for the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race.

After lengthy discussions Mehan finally relented and allowed Webb and the #51 car to return to the track and complete his qualifying run. Rather than a complete re-run, Speedway officials counted Webb’s first two laps, and combined that time with the time from his final two laps to record a composite four-lap average speed of 125.454 MPH that displaced his friend Johnny Shackleford from the starting field.

Lee Wallard shown in 1951 wearing his

Champion Spark Plug 100-MPH club jacket earned in 1948

courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection in

the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital studies

 

Wallard at 35 years old was the fastest rookie in the 33-car starting field behind the wheel of Henry Meyers’ stretched wheelbase sprint car fitted with a 232 cubic inch Offenhauser engine. Wallard started the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race from the 28th position and finished in seventh place. As Wallard completed the full race distance at 109.77 MPH, he earned admittance into the revered Champion Spark Plug 100-mile per hour club.

Although his “Johnston Special” did not make the starting field, Johnny did compete in the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race albeit as a relief driver. Joie Chitwood started the Ted Nyquist-owned car originally built by Wilbur Shaw as his “Pay Car” in the 1948 '500,' but Joie needed replacement behind the wheel by lap 54.

Veteran racer Paul Russo climbed in and drove until lap 74, when Chitwood returned, but Joie once again needed relief after he completed his 105th lap.  Johnny Shackleford took over driving duties of the Nyquist Special until lap 137 when he pitted with a leaking fuel tank - the car was retired from the race and placed in 17th position.  

The week after Indianapolis on June 6 1948 Johnny Shackleford took the wheel the #91 ‘Iddings Special’ for the Milwaukee 100 at the dirt Milwaukee Mile in place of Lee Wallard who was worn out after his Indianapolis adventure. Johnny easily qualified for the 18-car starting field, as the seventh fastest car of the 31 cars that posted qualifying times. 

Pole position starter Johnny Mantz led the first 71 circuits until the Offenhauser engine in the J C Agajanian #98 broke a piston and Mantz dropped out of the race. The third place starter Emil Andres picked up the lead in Carmine Tuffanelli’s “Tuffy’s Offy” and held on to win the race as Shackleford finished in seventh one lap behind Andres at the finish. For his efforts in the hour and fifteen minute race, Johnny earned $840 and 60 championship points.

A week later Shackleford and the “Iddings Special,” reconfigured as a “big car” were entered for the Sunday June 13th AAA Midwestern “big car” series race booked at the high-banked oiled dirt half-mile Dayton Speedway.  On the third lap of the day’s 20-lap feature, Shackleford ran in second place behind Ted Horn when he lost control of the car and the Iddings Special swerved into the fence. 

Johnny Shackleford's final moments shown in a

photograph scanned from the June 16 1948

edition of the Middletown Journal newspaper

 

The crowd of 11,000 fans watched in horror as the car began to roll over as it tore out a long section of the upper wooden guard railing at the top of banking.  The blue #91 car disappeared over the embankment then rolled and crashed to ground approximately 40 feet below. Johnny, 34 years old was taken to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Dayton where he died four hours later. John H. Shackelford Junior was laid to rest in the Woodland Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio.

 

The “Iddings Special” was rebuilt following Shackleford’s fatal accident and entered at the 1949 Indianapolis 500-mile race for rookie Johnny McDowell who qualified 27th and finished 18th. Mark Light failed to qualify the Iddings Special for the 1950 Indianapolis 500, then in practice at Indianapolis on Thursday May 24, 1951 rookie driver Jimmy Daywalt spun and hit the fourth turn wall in the “Iddings Special.”


The crash bent the frame and the car could not be repaired in time to make a qualifying attempt. In 1952 Texas rookie driver Jud Larson passed his rookie test in the John Zink Kurtis-Kraft 3000, then stepped out of that car in favor of the ”Iddings Special” but failed to make a qualifying attempt in the Henry Meyer-built machine’s final Indianapolis appearance.

Johnny Shackleford–part one

Johnny Shackleford in a photograph scanned

from the November 17 1945

edition of the Wilson Daily Times in

Wilson North Carolina

John H. “Johnny” Shackleford, Junior was born on November 24 1913 in the northeast Ohio town of Jefferson, but during his racing career he always listed his hometown as Dayton Ohio, which in that era was one of the “hot beds” of Midwestern auto racing.  This author has been unable to find any records of Shackleford’s early racing efforts, but in an article in the May 1 1941 edition of the Van Wert Times Bulletin provides a clue, as it stated that Johnny “will break into the limelight after riding in the shadows the past few seasons.”

That optimism was warranted as for the 1941 season-opening race at the Greenville Motor Speedway Johnny was scheduled to be behind the wheel of a “big car” (today known as a sprint car) owned by Carl Keppler of Springfield Ohio powered by a "copy of the four-cylinder Offenhauser engine built by Keppler himself."  Keppler, a former racer had his driving career cut short with a September 1929 crash at the New Bremen (Ohio) Speedway which shattered his pelvis and left him hospitalized for months afterward.

Photo courtesy of Kem Robertson

Subsequent research with assistance from fellow historian Kem Robertson indicates that the Keppler engine may have started as an Offenhauser copy, but it wound up quite a bit different. The Keppler 16-valve engine photographed when it was apart of Bob McConnell's collection, appears to be considerably different than an Offenhauser engine.  The author is anxious to learn more about Carl Keppler and his engine.

Photo courtesy of Kem Robertson

  

The race scheduled for May 4 1941 sanctioned by the Central States Racing Association (CSRA) on the high-banked dirt ½- mile track located southeast of the town of Greenville Ohio on Eidson Road attracted entries from many famous drivers that included Elbert “Pappy” Booker, Travis “Spider” Webb and Ed Zulacki. The CSRA was founded in February 1936 by a group of track promoters that included Frank Funk with high-banked tracks in Winchester, and Fort Wayne Indiana, Dr. J. K. Bailey of Dayton Speedway and Foster (Oscar) Schultz who promoted the Greenville oval. 

The CSRA was considered an “outlaw” club by the larger and more powerful AAA (American Automobile Association) and drivers that competed in “outlaw” events were not allowed to race in AAA events. Despite the threat of being banned by AAA, many drivers built reputations racing with the CSRA which offered larger purses than AAA races. The CSRA operation, which east of the state of Ohio was known as the Consolidated Racing Association, was run day to day by Norm Witte from an office next door to Dr. Bailey’s ear nose and practice on Clay Street in Dayton.    

Contemporary belief is that racing at Greenville ended at the end of the 1941 season, but in fact Greenville like many tracks continued to race until the Office of Defense Transportation banned automobile racing effective July 31 1942.  Sadly the ban came too late for two drivers Earl “Zook” Harton and Eugene “Woodie” Woodford who died together in a grinding crash at Greenville on May 10 1942.  

Shackleford must have experienced some decent success with the CSRA in the Keppler machine as later in the 1941 season when the CSRA returned to race Greenville, the Piqua Daily Call newspaper noted that the “world speed record holder” Emory Collins was “anxious to tangle with CSRA stars such as Jimmy Wilburn, Ben Musick and Johnny Shackelford who have been burning up the CSRA courses in early season races.” 

During World War II, Shackleford enlisted in the United States Army in February 1944 at Fort Thomas Kentucky and he listed his occupation as auto mechanic with two years of high school education, with his marital status listed as divorced with no dependents. It’s unclear what unit Johnny was assigned to during his brief service stint in the United States Army.

He was back in action in a race car less than a month after the official end of World War II.  Interestingly, the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) allowed the resumption of midget auto racing on January 9 1945, prior to Germany’s surrender in May 1945, with the provision that the cars “operate on non-rationed fuels - industrial alcohol or petroleum distillates, and the tires used must be pre-war stock.” The general auto racing ban was lifted by ODT on August 17, 1945, days after the atomic bomb attacks on Japan but prior to Japan’s formal surrender.   

The 20-lap AAA-sanctioned feature race was held on Sunday September 30 1945 on the one-mile Trenton New Jersey Fairgrounds dirt track.  By joining the AAA ranks, Johnny was now on the pathway to eventually race at auto racing’s crown jewel, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Sadly on the eighteenth lap on the race, Harry Hutchinson lost control of his car entering the first turn crashed through the fence hit several parked cars and was “instantly killed.”

Bill Holland the 1940 and 1941 AAA Eastern champion who would later win the 1949 Indianapolis 500-mile race, tried to avoid the debris from Hutchinson crash and lost control of his car in the second turn, crashed through the wooden fence overturned and injured his left shoulder. The race was halted after the accident with veteran racer Joie Chitwood was declared the winner and Shackleford scored in second place.     

Chitwood, Shackleford and a list of well-known Eastern AAA drivers that included Frank Luptow of Detroit, Carlyle “Duke” Dinsmore of Dayton, “Pappy” Booker, Bill Holland, New Jersey’s Bob Sall, George “Dutch” Culp from Pennsylvania and Milt Marion of Long Island New York were scheduled to participate in a series of AAA sanctioned races in the Carolinas promoted by Sam Nunis. The first race on the tour was scheduled for October 7 1945 at the Greensboro Fairgrounds in north central North Carolina, and then two weeks later those same drivers were in action in another Nunis promotion at the Southern States Fairgrounds in Charlotte North Carolina.

The advertised highlights of these races were the entry of “five $10,000 Millers,” a reference to exotic pre-war dirt track racing cars built by the Harry A. Miller Company of Los Angeles, California. As a point of reference the average family income in 1945 was $2,400, and $10,000 in 1945 would be equivalent to $137,000 today. The North Carolina racing tour also included races at the Rocky Mount Fairgrounds on November 11 (postponed from November 4 by rain) and the finale at the Wilson Fairgrounds on November 18 1945.  

Shackleford opened his 1946 racing season at the end of March on the one-mile dirt track at Lakewood Park in Atlanta Georgia for the AAA-sanctioned “Mike Benton Sweepstakes,” named for the late President of the Southeastern Fair Board.  Before a reported crowd of 34,000 fans, Jimmy Wilburn won the “big car” race in record time as he covered the 20 mile distance in 14 minutes and 28.11 seconds, breaking Billy Winn’s standard set eight years earlier by 16 seconds. Indianapolis ‘500’ veteran Ted Horn finished second, with Chitwood third, Holland fourth and Shackleford in fifth position.

Johnny hadn’t yet been offered a ride at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, so Memorial Day 1946 found him racing an AAA “Big Car” at the one-mile oval in Trenton New Jersey. Shackleford drove Joie Chitwood’s Offenhauser-powered machine while Chitwood raced at the big Indianapolis oval. Shackleford won one of the preliminary heat races, and then won the 20-lap feature event over Bill Holland.

Johnny continued to race with the AAA “Back East” during June 1946 with appearances at Williams Grove Speedway in Pennsylvania on June 9, then at the Fairgrounds in Greensboro North Carolina on June 23, where he was billed in promoter Nunis’ pre-race advertising as the ‘Indiana State Champion.”  Thursday July 4th 1946 found Shackleford far to the west as he drove the “Christy Offenhauser” in the “National Championship Auto Races” at Des Moines Iowa.

Johnny, billed as the “western racing champion” scored a “clean sweep” in the July 7 1946 races at Williams Grove Speedway, as he notched the fastest qualifying time, won the “fast” heat race, and then won the feature event, which was called complete after 26 laps following the crash which injured Billy Devore. Johnny was one of the entries for the July 15 races in at Municipal Park in DuBois Pennsylvania which were sponsored by the local DuBois Brewery as part of a program of events billed as the “GI Homecoming Celebration.”  

Shackleford closed out the month of July 1946 with a repeat appearance at Langhorne on the 21st where he won his preliminary heat race and finished second in the feature behind George Robson, then again a week later at Williams Grove Speedway where he won the semi-main event then drove through the field to finish second behind Ted Horn after 1946 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner George Robson’s car broke an oil line on the 19th lap of the 30-lap feature event.

August 1946 found Shackleford on the Nunis Speedways Pennsylvania tour with stops in Bedford on August 10 where he was billed as the “1941 Indiana State Champion” behind the wheel of the Ted Nyquist Offenhauser-powered big car, and Johnny took part in an unusual “match race” pitting the Nyquist car against a midget race car for 10 laps around the Allentown Fair Grounds oval. 

Two weeks later, at Uniontown Speedway Johnny and the other touring “Indianapolis stars” were entered against a field of local drivers that included Otis Stine, Mark Light, and Walt Ader. Johnny, along with Horn, Stine, Ader, Chitwood and many other stars were scheduled to race at Williams Grove on October 20 in the heavily advertised 50-lap added purse “Championship Trophy Race” but the race was cancelled due to rain which ended Shackleford’s 1946 season.   

The Pack-Age-Car’s connections to racing history

 

 

courtesy EBay

This restoration uses incorrect wooden doors

 

Recently the internet auction site EBay Motors listed for sale a 1931 Stutz Pak-Age-Car, which caught the author’s attention. At this point, you the reader might reasonably ask “what do these trucks have to do with racing history?”  The author’s research into Pack-Age-Car history revealed a surprising number of connections between the history of these humble utility trucks and historic automobile industry and racing personalities.  

 

The Pak-Age-Car, known originally as the Pac Car, was a small urban delivery vehicle introduced in 1925 as an alternative to horse-drawn city light delivery wagons. The simple all-steel body truck with a 92 ½ inch wheelbase powered by a two-cylinder horizontally opposed two-cylinder Hercules engine coupled to the rear axle packaged in a slide-out module. The Chicago-based manufacturer claimed that in case of mechanical troubles the engine package could be exchanged in fifteen minutes by a two-man crew without disturbing the truck’s payload.  

 

 

The early Pack-Age-Cars resembled horse-drawn wagons minus the horse. The Pack-Age-Car could be controlled from either side of the 52-inch wide cab by the standing driver. The throttle, clutch and brake functions were all controlled through a lever, with one lever mounted on either side of the cab and the steering wheel in the center of the cab. The top speed of the wagon-like vehicle was a scary 12 to 15 miles per hour with an advertised average fuel consumption of one quart of gasoline per hour.

In December 1927 it was announced that Stutz Motor Car Company of America based in Indianapolis Indiana had taken over the distribution of Pack-Age-Car trucks in the United States.  Early advertising for the Stutz Pack-Age-Car referred to it as “the horse’s only competitor - designed to be more economical in maintenance and operation that a horse and wagon.”  The powered wagon sold for a retail price of $995 with the exterior of the body finished in white undercoating ready for the customer to paint in their colors

Harry Stutz had founded his eponymous automobile manufacturing business in 1911 and the company built its reputation from a Stutz’ performance in the inaugural Indianapolis 500-mile race. Team driver Gil Andersen started from the twenty-second position (based on the date the entry was received) and finished the grueling grind in under seven and half hours in eleventh place. This result led Stutz to advertise as “the car that made good in a day.” Stutz himself left the business in 1919, and after the company’s financial failure in 1922, the new board of directors brought in Frederick E. Moscovics to run the company.

Moskovics understood the publicity value of automobile racing, having been involved in the management of the 1910 Los Angeles Motordrome board track in Playa del Rey California. Stutz built a reputation of speed and reliability through their success in early stock car races. Unlike the modern-day NASCAR silhouette “stock car” races, these American Automobile Association (AAA) sanctioned races were open to strictly stock cars that displaced 300 cubic inches or less. To ensure the stock nature of the cars, the AAA Contest Board reserved the right to select the cars at random and supervise their preparation.

The races were scheduled, often in conjunction with AAA championship races on two East Coast board tracks - the Rockingham Speedway in New Hampshire and Atlantic City Speedway in New Jersey. Cars raced less the windshield, fenders, running boards and tops with the only mechanical adjustments allowed limited to “valve grinding, cylinder honing, relieving bearing clearances, and fine tuning.”  1924 Indianapolis 500-mile race co-winner LL Corum, along with drivers Ralph Mulford, Tom Rooney, Bert Dingley, and Gil Andersen competed and won races with factory-entered Stutz Blackhawk Vertical Eight Speedsters.  

Despite the racing success, the late nineteen twenties, Stutz automobile sales began to drop off so Moscovics used the Stutz dealer network for the distribution of the Stutz Pak-Age-Car in 1927. On November 28 1932, with automobile sales and the company’s finances ebbing, the Stutz board of directors approved the purchase of the controlling interest of Pak-Age-Car from Mechanical Manufacturing Company of Chicago.  

A long wheelbase Pack-Age-Car

 

At the New York Automobile Show held in January 1933 Stutz unveiled the redesigned Stutz Pak-age-Car built by the new Package Car Division established in the Stutz factory at 1002 North Capitol Avenue in Indianapolis.  The redesigned Pack-Age-Car was powered by a four-cylinder opposed engine with a more contemporary truck-like front end design with fenders. Stutz also expanded the line with the availability of a longer 106-inch wheelbase, and the earlier dual lever control system was abandoned in favor of a typical left-hand stand or seated driver setup with a single gauge bezel in front of the driver.  

 

Stutz also tried to shore up their automobile sales in the deepening economic depression with the introduction of lightweight six-cylinder models. The new automobiles models failed to score big sales and after consecutive years of ever-increasing losses, new Stutz president and former company treasurer Marvin Hamilton ended passenger car production in 1935.

Although the once-proud Stutz automobile was no more, Pak-Age-Car production continued and on May 3 1936 Hamilton announced that George H. Freers formerly with Marmon joined Stutz as the chief engineer in charge of all Pak-Age-Car activities.

 

 

Freers, an Indianapolis native and 1908 graduate from the Rose Polytechnic Institute in Terre Haute Indiana worked for several truck manufacturers before he joined Nordyke & Marmon the builders of the Marmon automobile in 1912. During his lengthy career at Marmon, Freers became professionally and personally close to Howard Carpenter Marmon one of the company co-founders Daniel Marmon’s two sons.   

In 1924 Freers was named Nordyke & Marmon’s assistant chief engineer in charge of the experimental department and in 1926 he built a new three-bedroom home in Indianapolis’ Irvington neighborhood at 5124 East Walnut Street. Freers’ appointment to succeed Thomas J. Litle Jr. as the Marmon Motor Cars Company’s chief engineer was announced in the Indianapolis Star on October 21 1929. Three days later the Wall Street Crash occurred which led to the worldwide economic depression which would eventually spell the end for many automobile manufacturers including Marmon.

While in charge of the Nordyke & Marmon experimental department, Freers and his staff worked with race car builder Earl Cooper to prepare the two Marmon 1928 Indianapolis 500-mile race entries.  Marmon which had competed in racing since its stunning victory in the inaugural 1911 Indianapolis ‘500, and likely wanted to build on the publicity of the eight-cylinder Marmon 78 being selected as the race’s Official Pacemaker. The yellow and red Marmon Model 78 rumble-seat roadster would be driven for its pacing duties by Joe Dawson, the 1912 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner who had driven a Marmon to a fifth place finish in the inaugural 1911Indidnapolis ‘500.’  

 

A factory photo of the 1928 Marmon 68 Special

Courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

 

The Marmon entries were built by Earl Cooper, who had a remarkable driving career both before and after World War One was the three-time American Automobile Association (AAA) national champion in 1913, 1915, and 1917. Before the war, as a member of the powerful Stutz Racing Team, Cooper notched sixteen victories mostly on dirt tracks and early road courses. Cooper returned to race driving in 1922 at age 36 and proved to be an adept board track racer during the Miller 122- and 91-cubic inch eras with a string of strong top-five finishes.  

During the 1926 AAA season, Cooper bought the Miller supercharged 91-cubic inch chassis number #2605 and over the winter of 1926-7, he built three copies, with the full knowledge or and assistance of Harry A. Miller. Funded by Buick Motors, each of the three new Copper-built cars were powered by a supercharged 91 cubic-inch eight-cylinder supercharged Miller engine breathing through four Miller Dual Throat Updraft carburetors that produced 167 horsepower and powered the front wheels.  

The major difference between a Miller and Cooper was the construction of the front drive assembly. Instead of the typical Miller jewel-like front drive, with the design assistance of Leo Gosssen, Copper’s cars used a Ruckstell planetary gear set paired with two-speed Ruckstell axle to achieve four forward speeds.

Near the end of their construction, Buick withdrew its support and all four of Earl Cooper’s cars were entered for the 1927 running of the Indianapolis 500-mile by Cooper Engineering for veterans Peter Kreis, Bennett Hill, Bob McDonogh and Jules Ellingboe.  All three new cars qualified for the 1927 ‘500,’ but Kreis’ and Hill’s cars had mechanical failure and Ellingboe crashed so only McDonough finished coming in with a sixth place finish with the re-badged Miller.

By 1928 Earl Cooper had sold his original Miller chassis and for the 1928 ‘500’ landed Nordyke & Marmon Company as the sponsor for two of his three cars, and part of the sponsorship agreement included Cooper’s use of the Marmon engineering shop and staff to help prepare the cars.

On April 13 1928, Earl Cooper formally entered two “Marmon 68 Specials,” and the Indianapolis Star proclaimed that by “entering the 1928 500-mile race the Marmon Company is using the event as an actual means of testing many new and advanced engineering principles.”  "Changes in the future design of passenger automobiles are coming so fast that we decided to take some of our advanced engineering ideas to the race course for a trial," Howard Marmon was quoted "We are entering the Indianapolis race, not so much from a competitive standing but rather to forward the splendid achievement of our cars and to see just how near a state of perfection the innovations that we have conceived have progressed."

Cooper would later enter his third front-drive car under his own name after on-track practice had opened on May 2 for rookie driver Russell Snowberger. This entry after the official close of entries was allowed after it was evident that the Speedway was facing a short field of entries.

 

Peter Kreis' Marmon Special on race morning 1928

Courtesy of the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

 

The two “Marmon 68 Specials” were assigned to drivers Albert J. “Peter” Kreis and Johnny Seymour. Kreis, from a wealthy Tennessee family finished eighth in his first ‘500’ in 1925, and for the 1926 ‘500’ bought a new Miller. Kreis became ill after he qualified the car and turned it over to rookie Frank Lockhart to drive in the ‘500,’ and Lockhart won the rain-shortened race. During the 1927 racing season Kreis earned his pilot’s license and at his wife’s request had reduced his racing schedule to Indianapolis only.     

In comparison to the veteran Kreis who was listed as an early favorite to win the ‘500’ Seymour a former motorcycle racer on Daytona Beach and the board tracks was an Indianapolis rookie. In fact the 1928 ‘500’ was the first official AAA (American Automobile Association) race start for the driver from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  

Unlike the modern schedule in 1928 time trials were held three consecutive days from May 26 through May 28. The nineteen cars that qualified on the first day included Seymour in the Marmon #33 with an average speed for his ten mile run of 111.673 miles per hour (MPH). Kreis in the Marmon #32 was the fastest qualifier on the second day of time trials with a four-lap average of 112.906 MPH and was scheduled to start in the 20th position.

When qualifying closed at sundown on Monday May 28 there were only 28 cars in the field which led Speedway officials to extend time trials into Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, Buddy Marr’s qualified “BW Cooke Special” (owned by the operator of the Coyne Electrical School of Chicago) crashed was badly damaged and later withdrawn which moved Kreis’ #32 Marmon to the inside of the seventh row on Memorial Day.   

Snowberger in the third Cooper entry was the first car out of the race with a broken supercharger. By lap 73, Kreis’ Marmon entry was sidelined with burnt rod bearings, and Seymour’s entry dropped out with a broken supercharger on lap 170. Kreis earned $499 for his 22nd place finish, while Seymour earned just $69 more for his 17th place finish.

1928 marked the last formal appearance of the Marmon name on a race car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway until 1993 when the Marmon Group returned as the sponsor of John Andretti’s Lola 9200. Lee Oldfield’s Marmon-powered bizarre rear-engine home-built machine that appeared at the Speedway during the late nineteen thirties was not a factory-support effort. 

In the late nineteen twenties, Nordyke & Marmon restructured. Howard Marmon’s brother, Walter became the company president and was named chairman of the board of Nordyke & Marmon in 1924. In 1926 Walter sold off the company’s grain-milling equipment business line which was the foundation of the company.  During 1929, the Marmon Motor Car Company was spun off as an individual entity with Howard named the new company’s president.

In 1931, the company headed by Walter Marmon entered a partnership with Colonel Arthur William Sidney Herrington for the manufacture of trucks under the name of the Marmon-Herrington Company. The British-born Arthur Herrington had served as racing official with the AAA since at least 1905 and served as the powerful Chairman of the AAA Contest Board until the AAA withdrew from race sanctioning at the end of the 1955 season. 

Marmon-Herrington moved its operations to the defunct Duesenberg Company plant at 1511 West Washington Street a 16-acre site located on the corner of West Washington and Harding streets in Indianapolis. This site housed the Marmon-Herrington factory until it ceased Indianapolis operations in July 1963, and today one of the original Duesenberg buildings still remains intact.  

Marmon renowned for its series of magnificent luxury automobiles introduced the successful “Little Eight” in 1927 and followed it up with a new lightweight 201-cubic inch 70 horsepower straight-eight powered car for the 1929 model year. The Roosevelt which honored the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, was advertised as the “car for all” as one body style retailed for less than $1000. Despite its startling low price, there were rumors in the press of a “soft crankshaft” and like many “junior” marques introduced by other luxury automakers such as Stutz and Locomobile the Roosevelt was a sales failure. In 1930, the marque was renamed the Marmon-Roosevelt and in 1931 and 1932 it was sold as the Marmon Model 70, but sales remained awful.

 

Marmon 16 Convertible Sedan

 

The Marmon “16” introduced in January 1930 was a spectacular machine powered by a 490 cubic inch 45 degree sixteen-cylinder overhead valve aluminum engine that produced 200 horsepower. The Marmon “16” advertised as "The World's Most Advanced Car." weighed 4,600 pounds but was guaranteed by the factory to reach 100 MPH.  Available in either a coupe, sedan or a Convertible Sedan body style, all the “16” series models were styled by Walter D. Teague and his son Walter Junior who worked with Frank Lockhart on the body design of the ill-fated Stutz Blackhawk Land Speed Record Car.

Like other luxury automakers Marmon’s sales plummeted through the Great Depression. Production of the magnificent “16” totaled 12,369 units in 1930, and then fell to 5,687 units in 1931. Only 1,365 cars were built for the 1932 year with only 86 16-cylinder cars built in 1933.

In 1932, Howard Marmon envisioned a new car - the HCM. With Marmon in severe financial straits, the car was built in a corner of Marmon factory by a team led by George Freer. The car’s reported cost of $150,000 was personally financed by Howard Marmon himself.  The HCM was ground-breaking with such advanced features as a central backbone chassis riding on independent front and rear suspension with inboard brakes.

For the HCM’s engine, Marmon and Freer eliminated the four rear cylinders of the 16-cylinder engine to create an aluminum 368-cubic inch 45 degree overhead valve V-12 engine that developed 150 horsepower. The aerodynamic two-door sedan body designed by Walter Teague Junior featured rear-hinged “suicide” doors and the headlights set into the front fenders reminiscent of a Pierce-Arrow.

 

The HCM

 

Unfortunately by the time the new HCM car was completed in the fall of 1933, the Marmon Motor Car Company was already in bankruptcy proceedings. In its last quarter of operation Marmon Motor Car Company lost $234,000 and during the final year of operation lost $1.8 million. Shortly after the bankruptcy filing Walter Marmon shocked many in the automobile industry when he told the Auto Topics magazine that Marmon Motor Car had been completely independent from Marmon-Herrington for “over a year.”

Howard Marmon took his HCM car on a nationwide driving tour but could not find financial backers to save his company and build the HCM. There were several competing efforts to rescue the Marmon Motor Car Company out of receivership including a 1934 plan that involved promoter Preston Tucker and race car builder Harry A. Miller. After their failure to take over Marmon, the pair formed Miller-Tucker which built the ill-fated ten-car Ford V8 race team under contract to N W Ayer & Son, the Ford Motor Company’s advertising agency that was entered in the 1935 Indianapolis ‘500.’     

Although the HCM never advanced past the single prototype, Freers and Marmon submitted patent applications in 1933 for their backbone chassis and independent front suspension  designs and received patents for each in 1935 and 1937 respectively.

Howard Marmon’s still-born HCM prototype remained parked in the garage of his Pineola North Carolina estate ‘Hemlock Hedges’ until his death in 1943. After his death Marmon’s widow would not sell it and instead gave the car to Fred Moscovics. As a testament to the closeness of their relationship, Howard Marmon’s last will and testament bequeathed the amount of $5000 cash to George Freers, which is equivalent to $70,000 today.

Alas the Stutz Pack-Age-Car career of George Freers did not last long, as Stutz filed for bankruptcy on September 29, 1937. With Stutz’ failure, the patents and licensing rights for the production of the Pack-Age-Car light delivery truck reverted to Northern Motors of Chicago. The rights were then purchased during 1938 by former Auburn Automobile Company executives (Auburn had failed just a few weeks after Stutz) and the men formed a new company the Pak-Age-Car Corporation on August 25, 1938. Former Auburn General Manager John McGowan was the new company’s vice-president, and Auburn vice-president Roy H. Faulkner was installed as the new Pak-Age-Car company president.

Tooling was moved to Connersville Indiana and Pack-Age-Car production resumed in the Auburn Central Manufacturing Company plant on October 15 1938. Central Manufacturing founded early in the twentieth century and in 1928 Errett Lobban Cord acquired a controlling interest in from the Ansted family and folded it into his Cord Corporation. Years later, William Ansted son of the original founder of Central became a noted car owner at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the roadster era and was one of the co-owners of AJ Foyt’s 1964 “500’ winning machine.

Although the Cord Corporation was bankrupt, the Auburn Central Manufacturing managed to remain open throughout due to its income from its many lucrative contracts to supply sheet metal stampings to other automakers and for home products sold by Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck & Company. 

The revised Pack-Age-Cars used key components supplied by other Cord Corporation divisions; they were powered by a four-cylinder Lycoming CT flat-head engine hooked to a Columbia axle packaged in the removable rear sub frame. Since the manufacturer lacked a dealer network, the trucks were distributed through Diamond T Motor Car Company truck dealerships beginning with the 1939 model year. Diamond T Pack-Age-Cars were built in small numbers probably until March 1941 when the Auburn Central Connersville factory switched over to the manufacture Jeep bodies for Willys-Overland which continued throughout World War 2.  

Exact Pack-Age-Car trucks production numbers during the approximately 15 years of manufacture are unknown, but very few Pack-Age-Car truck remain today, largely due to their design. As the trucks lacked any built-in refrigerant system for their perishable payloads, the trucks were instead packed with ice. Drivers stood atop of a wood pallet arrangement so they did not have to stand in water from the melting ice, but of course within just a few years the Pack-Age-Car sheet metal bodies began to rust from the inside out.

 

Research was conducted using the Automotive Research Library of the Horseless Carriage Foundation of which the author is a proud member. Check out their site at https://www.hcfi.org/