Originally printed in DTA MAY 2002 NEWSLETTER
This month’s featured member is Al Starr. Al and Dovie (his wife) joined the Denver Timing Association in 1994. He also belongs to the Early Ford Club which he’d joined in 1988.
Al began racing stock cars at Englewood Speedway back in 1948. It was a 1/3 mile dirt track. In 1952 a meeting was held regarding the racing club moving to the 1/5 mile asphalt track at Lakeside Amusement Park . The club split in half between Lakeside and Englewood . Al chose Lakeside because it was closer to home and was asphalt. He continued racing stockers, sprints, and modifieds until 1990 (42 years). The last years he raced he ran a sprint with a bored out 400 inch small block V8 Chevy.
In 1950 he had bought a ‘36 Ford 3 window coupe for $50 from Flint Motors Ford in Arvada , CO . The main reason Al wanted it was because of the Pines trim (chrome which encircles the front of the grill and extends rearward along the side panels). This accessory trim was very rare even then and was in excellent condition. It had a worn out flathead engine, so Al did a typical rebuild to get it on the road (rods and rings only). Al drove this stock bodied ‘36 daily for the next few years. Sometime in about ‘57 or ‘58 he came across another 3 window on South Broadway behind a service station. The owner was asking $75 for it. It was a solid car and had been customized in California . Al wanted it because it had a chopped top. There weren’t any windows or interior. He pulled it home behind his other ’36. He soon had swapped bodies between the two ’36 Fords. The stock body coupe was sold. The chopped coupe didn’t have a windshield yet so Al taped the larger stock windshield on the outside and drove it! This wasn’t too unusual in those days since most of us scrimped for every nickel. He drove it this way for a time while he saved up to have windows cut to fit the smaller openings. He replaced the well worn flathead with a small block Chev V8 (a 265 incher). This lasted about a month before it was removed (with the 3.78:1 rear end gears it was a dog leaving stop lights). In its place he put in a ‘52(?) Cadillac with 331 cubic inches. The reason for the question mark follows.
Remember the recording Johnny Cash had about “borrowing” parts from the Cadillac assembly plant and carrying them out in his lunch box? This was the only way Johnny Cash figured he would ever get his very own Cadillac. Of course it took several years during which there were numerous body and running gear changes by GM. The upshot was he ended up with a mish-mash of parts when he finally began trying to put it together. It required a ton of “A-dapters” (as he called them). Well, Al did something similar to get his Cad engine. He and DTA member Bill Barnard would stop at Gahagen Auto Wrecking each week on their way home from their jobs at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Gahagen had a big pile of engines. The pile was constantly changing due to more and more engines being piled on top of existing ones, so an engine you got parts from today would end up at the bottom of the pile later on. Al and Bill would strip junk engines and buy as many parts as Al had money for. One time it was the block, then an intake manifold, then a couple of heads, then a crank, then rods, then a flywheel. This went on and on and on until they had enough parts to build a complete engine. Al says Bill really knows his Cad engines and, if it weren’t for Bill, he would never had gotten parts that would fit together. So the engine ended up being a ‘49-‘50-‘51-‘52-‘53-‘54 engine (just like Johnny Cash’s Cadillac did). Only Bill knew what year each part was. But everything bolted together like it was supposed to!
In 1955 the Cad was ready to go in his coupe. He picked up a ‘46 Lincoln overdrive transmission with 26 tooth Lincoln gears and a complete ‘47 Ford Columbia overdrive from Webb’s Auto Wrecking.... for the princely sum of $35! He put both the Columbia overdrive rearend and the Lincoln overdrive transmission in the coupe (1.85:1 ratio in double overdrive!). So now he had double overdrives with a 3.78 rear end. He installed his freshly assembled 19?? Cadillac engine. He says the Cad pulled hard but ran out of rpms way too soon. Al said it idled along about 35mph in double overdrive! That’s about 400 rpm! Think how fast he’d be going in double overdrive at 4500 rpm (if the Cad would pull that many rpms with so much gearing)! Scary to say the least.
He drove it this way for several years until he joined the Early Ford V8 Club in 1988. Then he pulled the Cad and replaced it with a ‘37 Ford 221” flathead V8 mill with a McCulloch blower. This was more in keeping with the Early Ford Club’s liking. He kept both overdrives in the coupe. The Cad ended up being stuck in one corner of one of his garages.
A friend named Harv Zimberly was running a pair extremely rare of Jumbo General rims on the back of his ‘66 Ford pickup. Harv would never sell or trade Al the rims. Every time Al would see him, and it was quite frequently, he’d always asked if Harv was ready to sell them. Always the word was no. Ten years passed since Al had first talked to Harv about the wheels. One day Harv called Al. Said he was selling his pickup and, if Al was still interested, the wheels were his. Finally Al had four of the rare wheels. These were soon on the coupe.
Remember Bill Barnard? Seems Bill was building a ‘34 Ford pickup in a barn. Bill had several collector pieces on his project pickup. Like ‘40 Pontiac bumpers, Thickstun dual manifold, Thickstun head covers, and several other collector pieces. Then the unthinkable happened.... the barn caught on fire and burned to the ground. The ‘34 pickup also burned completely. There were puddles of aluminum where the intake manifold had been and another where the head covers were. Al got the ’40 Pontiac bumpers and had them rechromed and put them on his coupe.
In 1992 Al bought a ‘48 Lincoln Continental with a V12 flathead engine. The chrome trim was pretty well pitted since it had been subjected to road salt in Indiana . Al found a collector who would trade him good chrome for his V12 engine. So out came the V12 engine and the trade was made. Now the Lincoln has no engine. Yes it does..... or would have. Yep, Al retrieved the Cad engine from the garage corner and dropped it into the Lincoln Continental.
In 1996 Al pulled the Columbia overdrive out of the chopped coupe. The transmission overdrive remained in the coupe. He replaced the 3.78:1 rear end gears with 4.11:1 gears.
Then in 2002 he replaced the tired little ’37 flathead engine with a freshly built bored and stroked 276 inch flathead V8. Plans are to install his blower on this engine sometime this year.
Al also has a beautiful 1960 Ford Thunderbird, the 1948 Lincoln Continental, a restored and completely stock 1950 Mercury club coupe, and a ‘47 Ford chopped coupe under construction. The ’50 Mercury was in baskets when he bought it. It, and another ‘50 Merc, were advertised in the newspaper by one owner. Al thought the asking price of $1500 was too high for the Merc in baskets. Al offered the man $1300. The man snapped it up right away. Later that day Al happened to check the ad again. The ad stated the price was $1800 for the Merc Al had bought The $1500 price was for the other Merc! Al got the more expensive Merc for even less than the man was asking for the cheaper Merc. Talk about being a shrewd horse trader!
Al enjoys driving his cars and they’re frequently seen at cruises throughout the state and at other car functions.