Roscoe Turner’s 1929 Packard

While the author was in Indianapolis for the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show, he saw that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum had placed a 1929 Packard Custom Eight 6-40 Dual-Cowl Phaeton on display at the Indianapolis International Airport to promote its special “From the Vault” exhibition, While it is a beautifully finished example of a spectacular era of automobile manufacturing, what is most fascinating about the Packard is its original owner - the famed aviator Colonel Roscoe Turner.  

Born in Corinth Mississippi in 1895, Turner worked at various jobs until he enlisted for World War One. Roscoe first served first in the balloon corps then later as a fighter pilot.  Upon his return to the United States, the mustachioed Turner used his wartime pay to buy and airplane and became a dashing barnstormer and stunt pilot.

A consummate self-promoter, Turner was a pioneer in what we today call “personal branding.”  In public, Roscoe always wore a custom uniform the consisted of a military-style tunic, jodhpurs, and highly polished riding boots. He accessorized the outfit with an officer’s cap embroidered with a winged insignia with the monogram "RT" and the matching logo on a pin on his chest and on his large brass belt buckle.

In 1928, young film maker Howard Hughes purchased Turner’s huge Sikorsky S-29-A twin-engine biplane airliner for air-to-air filming of his epic film Hell’s Angels. Roscoe flew the airliner and worked as a stunt pilot until towards the end of filming, in March 1929, when Hughes asked Turner to undertake a dangerous “spin” stunt in the Sikorsky which Roscoe thought too dangerous.

With Turner’s refusal, Hughes fired him and enlisted another crew to fly the stunt. The Sikorsky, disguised as a World War I German Gotha bomber, crashed and one member of the crew was killed. Turner continued to work in Hollywood for several years as a stunt pilot and appeared in several films as an actor.  

In early 1929, Turner and his first wife, Carline, used the proceeds from his Hughes movie work to purchase this Packard from Douglas M. Longyear’s dealership Hollywood Motors Inc.  The car is identified as a ‘6-40’ which identifies it as the sixth series of Packard production built on a 140-inch wheelbase chassis. The car is fitted with a catalog #341 dual-cowl phaeton five-passenger body which means the car features no side windows but has a second cowl and windshield for rear seat passengers that was built by the Holbrook Company of New York.   

The Turner’s Custom Eight Packard was the mid-range of the 1929 Packard automobile line - Packard offered the Standard Eight, the Custom Eight and the Deluxe Eight, as well as the ultra-rare two-seat Speedster. The heavily optioned 6-40 is equipped with the dual side-mounts (spare tires with covers) and wire wheels, powered by the Packard L-head straight eight engine that displaces 384 cubic inches and develops 105 horsepower.

One of the major selling points for the new-for-1929 Packard was the new Packard Shock Absorbing System that features double-acting hydraulic shock absorbers on all four wheels for a smoother ride to complement the smooth slow-revving Packard straight-eight engine that features a crankshaft with nine main bearings.  

This photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Center for Digital Scholarship

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection shows Roscoe Turner's Packard 6-40

parked in the IMS infield in 1934.

Roscoe Turner continued his aviation career by forming with partners Nevada Airlines that flew a fleet of new Lockheed Vega 5B airplanes between Los Angeles, Reno and Las Vegas, with Turner as the operations manager and chief pilot. In 1929, the Governors of the states of Mississippi, Nevada and California all bestowed Turner with the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel as a member of their personal staffs and thus for the rest of his life, he was known as “Colonel Roscoe Turner.”  

Nevada Airlines was promoted by Turner as “The Fastest Airline in the United States," and he used the Vegas as his springboard to enter the emerging sport of air racing and record-setting with moderate success. Turner later persuaded oil tycoon Earl Gilmore to purchase a pair of racing airplanes- a Wedell-Williams Model 44 and a Lockheed Model 3 Air Express which used a parasol wing design fitted with wheel pants for streamlining that was primarily used in cross-country events.   

This photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Center for Digital Scholarship

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection shows left to right

Roscoe Turner, Madonna Turner, Mary Fendrich Hulman

and Anton "Tony" Hulman gathered around the stuffed lion "Gilmore"

For several years, Turner toured the country in the Air Express flying with his pet lion cub, another promotional idea, as a stylized lion’s head was the symbol of his sponsor, the Gilmore Oil Company. Eventually the lion grew too large to handle and went to a private zoo, but after the lion “Gilmore” died in 1952, Roscoe had it stuffed and kept it in his home. 

Roscoe with the Packard 6-40 and the three major US aviation trophies

 that he won in his career. On the left the Thompson Trophy,

the center is the Harmon Trophy and at right is the Bendix Trophy

             

Turner won the 1933 cross-country Vincent Bendix Trophy race from New York to Los Angeles with the time of 11 hours and thirty minutes in the Gilmore Wedell-Williams. In 1934, Turner won his first Charles Thompson Trophy race, known as the “Indianapolis of the Sky,” and he covered the 150 miles on the ten-mile closed course above Cleveland at an average speed of 248 miles per hour (MPH) in Wedell-Williams.

In 1935, Turner lost the cross-country Burbank-to-Cleveland Bendix Trophy race by a mere 23 ½ seconds. Turner won the Thompson Trophy race again in 1938 and 1939 as he piloted the ‘Meteor,’ a plane of his own design. Roscoe won the 1939 300-mile race with an average speed of 282 MPH and became the only racer to win the Thompson Trophy three times.

During his career, Turner also was awarded the Clifford Harmon Trophy for the United States twice in 1932 and 1938 as the outstanding aviator in the United States. Roscoe also won the Clifford Henderson Award of Merit three times in 1933, 1938 and 1939 as the United States’ fastest air racing pilot. In 1939 and 1940, Turner also starred in the CBS Network weekly radio drama Sky Blazers that was supported by a mail-order model plane and comic book series.

The Gilmore-sponsored Lockheed Air Express powered by a Pratt & Whitney Hornet 525 horsepower nine-cylinder radial engine was capable of 175 MPH, but it did not have the same racing success as the Wedell-Williams plane. Turner bought the Lockheed Air Express from Gilmore in 1932 and flew it until 1938. During his ownership of the Air Express, Roscoe commissioned a custom-made hood ornament for the Packard that was a detailed miniature of the plane complete down to a working propeller that spun in the wind.       

Turner was involved with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for many years beginning with when the facility was owned by his friend the World War I ace and four-time “500’ starter Eddie Rickebacker. Roscoe served as the starter for the 1933 Indianapolis 500-mile race, which was the last year the starter’s role was ceremonial. Turner served as the race’s honorary referee in 1940, and he greeted the 1939 and 1940 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Wilbur Shaw in Victory Lane as the Champion Spark Plug representative.   

Turner moved to Indianapolis in 1940 and formed the Roscoe Turner Aeronautical Corporation based at the Indianapolis Weir Cook Municipal Airport to teach students the skills of aircraft mechanics and provided flight training. Roscoe and his wife bought a three-story 5,500 square foot four-bedroom four-bathroom home located at 6800 West 10th Street in Indianapolis. The 1929 Packard was kept in a special enclosed section of the large detached Turner garage.

Turner attempted to enlist for service in World War 2, but was rejected due to his age, and he spent the war touring war materiel plants and giving speeches. In 1945 Turner was divorced by Carline, from whom he had been separated since 1938, and in late 1946 he married a Hoosier woman 20 years his junior. With the dawning of the jet age, air racing and the name Roscoe Turner faded from the headlines and he stopped wearing his military-style uniform.

This photo courtesy of the Ray Satterlee collection at the Ball State University

Library Digital Media Repository shows an interview in 1961

conducted prior to the start of the Indianapolis 500-mile race.

At left Earl Cooper, announcer Jim Phillippi, Roscoe Turner,

Eddie Rickebacker and Ray Harroun on the right.

Roscoe forged a strong friendship with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s new owner, Anton “Tony” Hulman who was an aviation enthusiast. Turner was included in a group of “old timers” along with Ray Harroun, Earl Cooper and Rickenbacker. that piloted antique race cars around the oval before the start of the Golden Anniversary 1961 Indianapolis ‘500.

Given his friendship with Hulman, it is not a surprise that the 1929 Packard 6-40 was donated to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum several years after Roscoe’s death in June 1970 by his widow Madonna, while the rest of Roscoe’s trophies, airplanes (including the Wedell-Williams and the “Meteor”) and memorabilia (included the stuffed pet lion) were donated to the Smithsonian Institute.

At the time of the donation, the car was painted two-tone silver and gray and even though it had accumulated many miles, it was in excellent condition. The author recalls seeing the Turner Packard 6-40 on display in the “new” Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum around 1976, and since that time, the Packard 6-40 has been beautifully restored by the Museum staff in its two-tone brown livery.

All color photos by the author

        

Honoring the history of the Indiana State Fairgrounds one-mile track

On June 20, 1903, on the one-mile Indiana State Fairgrounds dirt track, Berna Eli “Barney” Oldfield became the first driver to run a one-mile track in one-minute flat, or 60 miles per hour (MPH).  The Indiana State Fair Board eager to support the automobile craze allowed the first automobile race on the dirt track in November 1905 staged by the Indianapolis Automobile Racing Association.  Races on the Fairgrounds also occurred on Decoration Day 1906 and in September 1908.  

In 1917, a pair of racing greats, Oldfield and 1915 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner Ralph DePalma held match race for the World’s Track Championship on the Fairgrounds track. Oldfield “the master driver of the world” raced his famed Golden Submarine while DePalma “the idol of the speedways” drove the 12-cylinder Packard “White Twin Six.”

One of the most important series of auto racing events held on the Fairground’s oval track was ‘The Gold and Glory Sweepstakes,’ a race organized by the African-American community from 1924 to 1936. The Sweepstakes was a 100-mile race with a grand prize of $2,500 which drew an estimated 10,000 spectators. Indianapolis native Charlie Wiggins earned the nickname the "Speed King" for winning the ‘Gold and Glory Sweepstakes’ four times.

After the American Automobile Association (AAA) championship cars first ran on the big oval in 1946 for the ‘Indianapolis 100’ before the annual ‘Hoosier Hundred’ began in 1953, a tradition which continues until today.

Long-time Hoosier Hundred promoter 

Tom Johnson addressed the gathering

Tom Johnson and IRMA chairman Brian Hasler unveil the marker 

On May 24, 2018, nearly 115 years after Barney Oldfield's record run, the Indiana Racing Memorial Association (IRMA) a group dedicated to memorializing the people, places and events historically associated with Indiana motorsports, led by Chairman Brian Hasler, dedicated a permanent marker outside the first turn on the Fairgrounds mile in the afternoon prior to the 63^rd running of The Hoosier Hundred.  

The plaque honors Barney Oldfield’s First Minute Mile, 

The Gold & Glory Sweepstakes and The Hoosier Hundred.

All photos by the author 

Persistence - the Rudolph Wehr story

The Oxford dictionary defines persistence as “the continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty.” Throughout the long history of American automobile racing, few men have personified persistence as did Rudolph K. B. Wehr, who brought unique cars to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway six times during the 18-year period between 1922 and 1940, yet of all the cars that Wehr designed and built, none never ever qualified for the 500-mile race.

Born in Hungary around 1882, Rudolph Wehr attended the University of Budapest before he immigrated to the United States and took a job as a mechanic and chauffeur for J. W. O’Bannon, a wealthy New York bookbinder. A chauffeur's job was dangerous in those early days of automobile travel. Late one night in early August 1910 as Wehr drove his employer and R.L. Gilmore, a real estate investor home to Manhattan from Westchester County they stopped for what appeared to be a pair of stranded motorists but soon revealed themselves to be armed robbers. The New York Times newspaper reported that the robbers relieved the Good Samaritans of a total of $55 ($1,375 today) before they fled into the night.

While still employed by O’Bannon, Wehr began to experiment in his free time with rotary valves. Wehr eventually started the Wehr Motor Company in a shop on New York City’s Upper West Side and built his first working prototype of a rotary valve engine during 1916.

Most automobile engines use spring loaded poppet style valves; in the nineteen twenties there was development of the production “sleeve valve” engine, but Wehr seems to be one of the few men who ever attempted to develop a rotary valve racing engine.  A rotary valve works by the rotation of a plug with passages inside a cylinder that regulates the flow of liquid or gas.  Typically used in brass musical instruments, a rotary valve can also be used as a metering device to regulate the flow of a product.

On June 1 1918, Wehr raced his “Wehr Special” which was described by the New York Sun newspaper as “a car of his own make” in a non-championship AAA-sanctioned 100-mile race promoted by William Wellman. The race held on the great 2-mile Sheepshead Bay board track in Brooklyn New York once the site of a failed thoroughbred track was for the Harkness Auto Handicap Trophy, named in honor of the track’s principal investor, Standard Oil heir Harry Harkness. The race was originally been scheduled for Decoration Day, Thursday May 30, but had to be postponed twice due to misty conditions that created a wet track surface. The sport’s top cars and drivers of the day were on hand for this race which was held during the time that the Indianapolis 500-mile race was suspended due to the Great War.

Ralph DePalma's 1918 Packard at Sheepshead Bay 

Photo from the Bain Collection in the Library of Congress Collection. Photographer unknown 

Reports in Motor Age and Automotive Industries magazines explained that as a handicap event the cars started the race based on the lineup established by starter and handicapper Fred J. Wagner. The fastest car, as determined by Wagner, started last or “scratch” and then chased down and passed the earlier starters.  The New York Tribune newspaper stated that “henceforth handicap racing will prevail in the automotive realm, as the virtual unknown having hypothetically at least as much chance for victory as the world’s champion.” 

Rudolph Wehr and his car started first, followed by Percy Ford’s unidentified machine one minute later, and then so on through the fifteen starters that included Ira Vail’s Hudson, Tommy Milton and Eddie Hearne in Duesenbergs, and Barney Oldfield in the formerly enclosed cockpit Miller-built ‘Golden Submarine.’ The pattern continued until Wagner released the two fastest cars, Ralph DePalma’s cream-colored #4 Packard powered by a 12-cylinder 299-cubic inch aircraft engine, five minutes behind Wehr, and Louis Chevrolet’s #3 Frontenac that started “scratch,” six minutes after Wehr.

Ralph DePalma won the Harkness Auto Handicap race with the mighty Packard, and finished the 100-mile distance in 58 minutes and 21 seconds at an average speed of 102.8 miles per hour (MPH), just ten seconds ahead of Tommy Milton, with Oldfield third in the ‘Golden Submarine.’ Louis Chevrolet lost his chance for victory when he was forced to make three pit stops and finished a distant seventh. The published results of the race list Wehr in last place without details or explanation.  

Wehr's earliest patent design for 

use of two rotary valves per cylinder 

Rudolph, who was not yet a United States citizen and technically still a subject of the King of Hungary, applied for his first United States patent to protect his idea for the use rotary valves with internal combustion engines in June 1917, and in July 1918 he was issued patent #1273433.  On May 2 1919 now a United States citizen, Rudolph submitted for a patent his idea of a combined rotary intake and exhaust valve cylinder head for an internal combustion engine and received patent #1347978 on June 27 1920.  

Wehr's 1922 patent application drawing

for a single valve

The first try- the 1922 Indianapolis ‘500’

On May 21 1922, the New York Times newspaper reported that three men, Rudolph Wehr, Joseph H. Lehman and L.P. Come had entered a “mystery car in the big sweepstakes” to be held on Memorial Day in Indianapolis. During the interview in their “little office in a grimy shop or the upper west side they somewhat reluctantly disclosed some of the details.” Wehr explained his years of study on the use of rotary valves in an automobile engine, which he claimed was 25% lighter in weight, with 100 fewer parts, that resulted in increased efficiency and less fuel consumption.

Wehr’s partner Lehmann, who was an electrical equipment manufacturer, had invented an alternating electric current ignition system which meant according to Lehman “higher speed, a twin spark working from a single break” and the elimination of the pitting of the spark point.   The shadowy Mr. Come, said to be managing their affairs, stated that the car was due to be shipped to Indianapolis the next day. 

The three men refused to discuss the speed of the car beyond stating that it had been tested on “lonely roads about New York ….at over 110 miles per hour.”   The Times article closed by simply stating that “Frank E. Davidson will be the pilot,” although AAA records also list Wehr as the driver. Davidson was later identified in subsequent press reports as “an engineer” “famed dirt track racer,” and at times the owner of the machine.

The #28 “D’Wehr Special” was a curiosity as it was the only car entered in the Indianapolis race that took advantage of the new for 1922 AAA (American Automobile Association) racing rules. The New York Times article stated that the 120-cubic inch engine’s cylinders had a “bore of 2-5/16 inches with a stroke of 4 ¾ inches,” which through calculation means Wehr built it as a six-cylinder engine. 

Since 1920, AAA rules had allowed entries with an engine that displaced from 123 cubic inches up to 183 cubic inches a minimum car weight of 1650 pounds less gas oil or ballast.   New AAA 122-cubic inch single-seat rules were set to go into effect for the 1923 ‘500,’ but in the meantime, the 1922 AAA rules package contained “weight breaks” for cars whose engines displaced less than two liters (122 cubic inches).

A 1922 Indianapolis entry with an engine of less than 122 cubic inches but more than 1-1/2 liters (91.5 cubic inches) was allowed a minimum weight of 1400 pounds, while a car equipped with an engine that displaced less than 91.5 cubic inches would be allowed to weight as little as 1200 pounds, but for the 1922 Indianapolis ‘500,’ no such small engine cars were entered; the D’Wehr featured the smallest engine among the 1922 Indianapolis entries.   

Frank Davidson in the single-seat D'Wehr Specail

photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection 

IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

With an engine that only displaced 122 cubic inches the “D’Wehr Special” was also allowed to compete without a “mechanician” (riding mechanic). Frank Davidson rode alone with a rear view mirror, which harkened back to Ray Harroun and the 1911 Marmon ‘Wasp.’  With the new AAA rules package, the riding mechanic required since 1912, would become optional with the 1923 running Indianapolis ‘500’ and remain an option until 1930 when the “mechanician” again became mandatory. 

Fifteen years later, a May 16 1937 Indianapolis Star article related what allegedly happened after the “D’Wehr Special” arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 22, 1922. “When they took it out on the track, it simply would not go fast enough. Wehr was almost in despair when Ralph DePalma, then at his peak, driving for the Duesenberg team, happened along and volunteered a solution. "When I go out to qualify," he told Wehr, "have your driver get on the track at the same time, get in my 'tow' and you'll get in with me."

According to the 1937 Star article, “Davidson followed these instructions, and DePalma roared down the straightaway at more than one hundred miles an hour.  So did the rotary valve racer, but only for a brief stretch. The pace was more than the engine could stand, and it threw rods all over the track.” Reportedly Wehr’s reaction was “I’ll be back,” an utterance that predated Arnold Schwarzenegger’s film statement by more than 60 years.  Davidson and the “D’Wehr Special” was one of only two cars on the grounds that failed to qualify for the 27-car 1922 starting field.

A basic problem for rotary valves come from the pressures in the cylinder of an internal combustion engine are high, due to both the compression stroke and the explosion of the fuel-air mixture. This produces large forces on the valve system, but with the poppet valve system those forces simply push the valve tighter against its seat, and have no effect at all on the valve-actuating mechanism.

Rudolph Wehr did not return to the Speedway with another rotary valve entry until 1931, and in the meantime he had moved his base of operations to the Los Angeles area and had five more patents to his name. During his lifetime, Rudolph Wehr obtained ten United States patents, all related to rotary valves, with the last issued in 1945.

The 1931 Indianapolis ‘500’

For his 1931 Indianapolis 500 ‘entry’, Wehr built a 170-cubic inch displacement engine that was apparently based on the block of a Miller 122-cubic inch engine fitted with a rotary valve head in a revamped Miller 122 chassis widened to accommodate a two-man cockpit.  Wehr’s driver was none other than Raffaele “Ralph” DePalma, whom news reports called “the grand old Roman of the auto racing world,” and the 1915 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner in a four-cylinder Mercedes. DePalma had raced at the Speedway before the bricks were set, but his racing career had gone into steep decline after the 1923 Packard Motor Car Company fiasco. Ralph now 48 years old, had last raced in the ‘International 500-mile Sweepstakes’ in 1925.   

In a bizarre decision, DePalma and the team drove the “Wehr-Miller Special” to Speedway Indiana from the West Coast as part of a caravan that arrived in Indianapolis on Sunday May 24, as reported in the following day’s Indianapolis Star. There were five people and two cars reported in the DePalma party. Riding with Ralph in the racing car was Ralph Powers, while following in a touring car, also fitted with a Wehr rotary valve head engine, was Rudolph Wehr, accompanied by Harvey Heller, the pattern maker for the Wehr Motor Company, and Frank J. Fabian, described as an “old time racing mechanic,” who had worked with Fred Duesenberg and Ira Vail during their golden racing years.

In order to generate interest in his moribund career and probably generate some much needed cash DePalma contributed a story about a 1917 Providence Rhode Island race  with “his oldest and greatest rival”  Barney Oldfield to the Western Newspaper Union’s (WNU) nationwide syndicated sports column series entitled My Greatest Thrill in Sport. Other WNU columns in the series featured stories by such sports luminaries as football coach John W. Heisman, swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, and boxers Jack Dempsey and “Gentleman Jim” Corbett.   Unfortunately, DePalma’s column appeared nationwide on May 22, while DePalma was still enroute to the Speedway.

The Star reported “Wind-blown and sun-burned, Ralph DePalma, racing hero of a million Americans for a score of years, got into the speedway grounds as dusk was falling Sunday evening. He had driven his Miller-Wehr racing car from Los Angeles to Indianapolis since last Tuesday” (May 19). The Star reporter wrote that DePalma’s “golf hose were once gray, but were now spattered with dust and grease. His gray slip-on sweater looked like it might have belonged to a longshoreman, it was that bedraggled.”

The unidentified Star reporter colorfully noted that DePalma’s “gray hair, now thinning on the sides to leave a fairway down the middle, was brushed or blown back from his forehead. His hands were grease-grimed and his face, forehead and hands were the color of an aborigine.” And the ‘Wehr-Miller Special’ was described as “a companion piece to its master, for it too was greasy and muddy. One does not amble from the west coast to Indianapolis without leaving some travel stains on master and servant ....”

The article continued “No sooner had he parked his car in the the alley of the long line of garages than he called for some fresh spark plugs and with a wrench himself went to work at making the change from old ones to new. DePalma then had all the appearance, in fact, of a racing driver, but it was tough seeing DePalma wheeling a racing car into the grounds instead of rolling in aboard a Packard. It was like seeing a scion of a noble line getting back to bedrock from whence started his family.”

This must have been a trying personal period for Ralph DePalma, as sixteen years after his “500’ victory, DePalma was reportedly nearly broke. His wife, Clara, had been granted a divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court after nearly 22 years of marriage on April 2 on grounds of desertion and Ralph agreed to pay her $25 a week in alimony (nearly $400 in 2016). DePalma later filed for personal bankruptcy in a Los Angeles courtroom in August 1931 and cited $10,000 in assets, mostly real estate, and over $50,000 in liabilities.

   

The May 25, 1931 Indianapolis Star article closed by stating “Anyhow, DePalma is now here with his racing car, which is one of his own. It Is Miller-built, fitted with the Wehr rotary valve type of head. Ralph says that he breezed it up to as high as 100 miles an hour (MPH) during his trip east. DePalma is expected to give his car a trial Monday and if things go well, he will attempt qualification either late Monday or more possibly Tuesday.”

In 1931, the Speedway scheduled three weeks of practice sessions before time trials commenced for five consecutive days beginning on May 23, so Wehr and DePalma had cut their schedule close by arriving on the evening of May 24, after nineteen cars were already qualified for the starting field. It was reported on Tuesday morning that “the journey was too much for it (referring to the Wehr entry), and the engine needed much readjustment before it could even attempt to qualify.”  

On Wednesday May 27 the ‘Wehr-Miller Special’ did not show sufficient speed in practice, as the 1930 requirement was a 90 MPH minimum speed average for four laps. DePalma nonetheless got in line to attempt a time trial but the American Automobile Association (AAA) race stewards ruled that DePalma could not complete his attempt to "crowd.” or bump. his way into the 40-car starting field as the ‘Wehr-Miller Special’ was not in motion when the sun set which officially ended qualifications. This sad end with the Wehr entry marked Ralph DePalma’s final appearance as a driver at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

1932 Legion Ascot Speedway

In May 1932, Wehr who lived with his wife Theresa in a five-unit apartment building at 318 West 84th Place in Los Angeles, and Frank Fabian bought a Miller AAA ‘big car’ chassis which according to Michael Ferner’s research was originally built in 1930. As the #40 ‘Billy Arnold Special’ it was driven by Ernest “Ernie” Triplett in late 1930 and throughout the 1931 season during which Triplett won his first AAA Pacific Coast championship.

Photo of the Jack Buxton, Frank Fabian, and the Rotary Valve Special

photo appeared in John Lucero's  Legion Ascot Speedway

The ‘big car’ came to Wehr and Fabian without an engine, which was not a problem as Wehr still had the Wehr-Miller hybrid engine that now displaced 183 cubic inches.  The #29 car, dubbed the “Rotary Valve Special” was driven early in in the 1932 season at Legion Ascot and other AA Pacific Coast events by Jack Buxton and later in the year by former Legion Ascot ‘Class B’ driver Bill Hart, neither with great success and after the end of the season the rolling car was sold to Clarence Tarbot who installed a Cragar engine. 

  

Buxton, a Canadian by birth who lived in Los Angeles, was the 1928 National Auto Racing Association (NARA) (frequently listed in error as the AAA Southwest) champion also well known for his detailed pencil sketches of fellow Legion Ascot drivers and visitors, which appeared in the race programs and in issues of the Coast Auto Racing newspaper. Buxton died on May 13 1935 in the Palmdale California hospital following a passenger car roll-over accident near the village of Little Rock in northern Los Angeles County. 

We will continue with the second and final chapter of the story of Rudolph Wehr’s dogged persistence with the application of rotary valves on racing engines in a few days.  

The 1934 “Jinx Day Auto Derby”

Part One- The wonders of the 1933 World’s Fair

The 1934 ‘Jinx Day Auto Derby’ held on Friday, July 13, 1934 which matched 13 famous cars and drivers holds a unique place in automotive racing history, but before we get into the details of the race, we first need to examine the setting for this unique race.

The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair officially known as the “Century of Progress Exhibition” opened May 27 1933 and ran through November 12 1933. Its purpose was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the city's incorporation and, more importantly to provide jobs and recreation for a nation mired in a deepening depression. The fair site covered 424 acres on the shore of Lake Michigan between 12th and 39th streets, south of the Chicago Navy Pier in Chicago, within walking distance of Chicago's downtown.

The 1933 World’s Fair proved to be such a success for the local economy that as the original scheduled closing date drew near, the organizers announced that the Fair would be opened again to run from May 26 to October 31, 1934. But let us not get ahead of ourselves just yet…..

With more than 300 companies involved, to see the all the exhibits at the ‘Century of Progress’ would have required visitors to walk more than 84 miles.  New consumer products shown to the world included items as simple as the Metflex stainless steel  ice tray which enabled consumers to easily go from “from tray to glass,” to the new air-cooled Electrolux, the gas refrigerator advertised as “totally silent and trouble-free” as it had no moving parts. The fair was also the site of the debut of streamlined passenger trains, irradiated milk, automatic signal control elevators, and Westinghouse’s high-pressure mercury lights.

A postcard of the Havoline Thermometer

Visitors could ride the Sky-Ride, designed by Robinson & Steinman which took passengers on an 1850-foot ride in zeppelin-shaped cars suspended 219 feet above the fair, then look over the world's tallest thermometer, which was twenty-one stories (218 ft.) high and displayed the temperature with neon light tubes, sponsored by the Indian Refining Company, Lawrenceville, Ill., makers of Waxfree Havoline Motor Oils which was sold at all Texaco stations. The Sinclair Refining Company presented an outdoor exhibit of animated dinosaurs that included recreations of a stegosaurus, protoceratops and a seventy foot long brontosaurus. 

Two postcards of the Houses of Tomorrow 

The ‘Houses of Tomorrow’ exhibit  contained ten complete finished houses in a neighborhood setting which featured the  two-story Armco-Ferro Porcelain Enameled Frameless Steel  House Built By Ferro Enamel Corporation (builder and supplier of enamel service stations). 

The Masonite Corporation bragged that “millions of feet of Masonite was used in thousands of places” at the Fair built a house out of  insulated Masonite.  Century Homes’   presented “America’s first glass home” a three-story octagon home, while the Brick Manufacturers' Association of America presented “the supersafe home of the future.”

The Southern Cypress Manufacturers' Association exhibit a house built entirely of Pecky Cypress, while the Rostone Company of Lafayette Indiana , makers of Rosite fiber-reinforced unsaturated polyester resins used in electrical gear, introduced the Rostone synthetic stone fireproof steel framed home with a cellwood interior, and  Stran Steel built two steel framed homes,  the “town house” and “garden home”  which they claimed were “fire safe, lightning proof, shrink proof, termite proof and salvageable.”

A postcard of the Firestone World's Fair factory

  

Firestone Tire and Rubber Company had a small tire factory built on site and a display of the 1911 ‘500’ winning Marmon Wasp in a glass-enclosed case alongside “one of the winning cars from the 1933 Indianapolis 500-mile race” (actually Tony Gulotta’s 1933 fifth place finisher, a Studebaker). The display not so subtly reminded visitors that for 14 consecutive years, Firestone Gum-dipped tires have been on the winning car “in the most grueling test of tire dependability the world has ever known.”

A postcard of the Firestone singing fountain

The Firestone exhibit also featured two one of a kind display, a “singing color fountain,” six dome-shaped fountains which shot water 20 feet in the air synchronized to music, and the “first in the world” 80-foot long multi-color shadow sign. Goodyear countered by offering rides in its new blimps, the Reliance and the Puritan, which became familiar sites cruising over the Fair from Goodyear’s landing field south of the Chrysler exhibition building.

While there were many wonders to be experienced in this Depression-era World’s Fair, the most stunning had to be the automobiles, as all the manufacturers were represented, and many of the luxury brands introduced one-a-kind customs built just for the Fair. 

The restored Packard Car of the Dome

  

Packard showed its “Car of the Dome,” a Packard 1107 147-inch wheelbase V-12 powered chassis fitted with a four door sedan body built by Dietrich, Inc. designed by Raymond Deitrich that featured a V-windshield style. All the body hardware was gold-plated, as were the steering column and all the instruments. 

A view of the interior of the Packard Car of the Dome

The Packard's  interior was outfitted with highly polished Carpathian elm with a cabinet behind the front seat stretching the width of the car. One wonders how well the 160 horsepower engine worked to move a vehicle with a curb weight of over 5000 pounds. This restored car was later purchased by Bob Bahre, owner of new Hampshire Motor Speedway. 

The restored Duesenberg "Twenty Grand"

Duesenberg presented the "Twenty Grand,” so called because it reported cost $20,000 to build (nearly $6 million today). The Arlington Torpedo Duesenberg SJ chassis number 2539 was fitted with the body built by Rollston of New York designed by Gordon Buerhig. This beautiful machine was later restored and fitted engine 513 and is one of the gems of the Nethercutt Museum Collection in Sylmar, California. 

A restored Silver Arrow 

Pierce-Arrow presented the third of five modernistic ‘Silver Arrow’ concept cars designed by Phillip O. Wright and originally introduced at the January 1933 New York auto show. Each car was hand-built reportedly a cost of $10,000 each on a Pierce Arrow model 1236 chassis, the Silver Arrow featured sleek fastback styling recessed door handles, no running boards and carried its spare tires in compartments behind each front wheel. 

Each of the five Silver Arrow cars was powered by a 462-cu.in. L-head V-12 engine, rated at 175hp with a claimed top speed of 115 MPH. An eight-cylinder Silver Arrow 2-door production version followed in 1935 and 1935 but these cars were weak imitations of the originals.  

A postcard view of the Studebaker display

Studebaker went in a different direction and built a mammoth wooden model of their President Land Cruiser automobile. The giant Land Cruiser, displayed in the great hall of the “Travel and Transport Building,” was 80 feet long, 28 feet high, and 30 feet wide. The running boards were 21 feet in length, the windshield wiper three feet long, and the tires 12-1/2 feet in diameter.

A photo of one of the Studebaker miniatures 

For maximum appeal, the giant Studebaker was painted ‘Canary Yellow,’ a color later made available on production cars for an extra $80. Below the running board was a door that led visitors into an auditorium inside the massive wooden creation that held 80 guests. Films were shown that extolled the virtues of the new Studebakers and that Studebaker had set more than 140 records for speed and endurance. A 5 3/4-inch long pot-metal miniature, molded on site by National Products with “Replica of Giant World’s Fair Studebaker” cast into the trunk, was sold as a souvenir.

A postcard of the Nash display

The Nash display featured the Whiting Corporation’s (an overhead crane manufacturer) Auto-Parking Tower an eighty foot tall glass-enclosed tower stocked with sixteen Nash six and eight cylinder automobiles on “an endless chain”

The Dymaxion 

The Gulf Oil exhibit featured Buckminster Fuller's “Dymaxion Car” a 20-foot long aluminum bodied car shaped like a blimp that rode on a steel frame with a canvas top. The front-wheel drive car had three wheels, two up front, one in the back and a periscope instead of a rear window. “Dymaxion” was the combination of the words “.dynamic, maximum, and tension,” to summarize Fuller’s goal to do more with less.

Chicago Daily News columnist Howard Vincent O’Brien described the Dymaxion on August 15, 1934 as “well worth a look if you are interested in knowing what sort of vehicle may soon be taking you about. It’s a three-wheeled affair, driven from the front wheels, and with the engine in the rear. It turns on its own base, and, using a standard Ford engine as a power plant, it will go – says Mr. Fuller – 125 miles an hour, doing 30 miles to the gallon of gasoline. I haven’t ridden in it yet, but those who have say it floats like an airplane.”

Fuller formed the Dymaxion Corporation on March 4, 1933 and set up his workshop in a former building of the defunct Locomobile Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut  In three months Fuller and his 27 employees finished the first of three prototypes which was sold to Gulf Oil to promote its aviation gasoline.

On October 28, 1933, the Gulf Dymaxion was hit and rolled over four times in a traffic accident near the entrance of the World’s Fair. At the time of the accident the Dymaxion to transporting two male passengers to the airport to board a plane to Akron Ohio so the men could board the Graf Zeppelin to return home. 

 

The 36 year old driver, Francis T. Turner, described at the time in news reports as an a race car driver from Birmingham Alabama but actually an aviation mechanic, died of his injuries, and his two passengers were injured. William Francis Forbes-Sempill of Scotland suffered a fractured skull and Charles Dollfuss of France suffered cuts and bruises and internal injuries.

Press reports following the accident only stated that Fuller’s “weird car” had rolled in the accident, which led to the public perception that the Dymaxion was unsafe.  The subsequent coroner’s inquest found the actual cause of the impact was a collision with a car driven by a Chicago parks commissioner who wanted a closer look at the Dymaxion.  

According to witnesses' testimony, the two vehicles were traveling down the road in the same direction at and estimated 70 mph, and Turner tried to evade colliding with the politician's wandering car to no avail. The inquest found the design of the Dymaxion was not a factor in the accident, but by the time that decision was announced the negative publicity had already done its damage; financing collapsed and Dymaxion cars never entered production.

Part two of the Jinx Day Auto Derby history, coming soon, will provide more background for our story that includes an examination of the amazing exhibits of the Detroit “Big Three” automobile manufacturers at the 1933 World’s Fair.