Tag Archives: hot rod magazine

MY Hot Rod Heroes

Posted on by Steve Carpenter
17 May

There is so many Iconic Builders, designers and owners or creators of Vintage Hot Rodding, it would take so many volumes to fill, but I am going to do a few of my own personal favourites of Hot Rod Royalty that inspired me when I was a kid and, 9000 miles away on a little Island you call Great Britain.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on Hot Rodding magazines in the UK in the late 1970’s and, living nearby all the old ww2 Bomber and Fighter Airfields, I felt a strange Euphora over WW2 American planes, Post war Belly tanks and of course Hot Rods.

I had my own 1932 Three window coupe in England and lived the American lifestyle and yearned to make that crossing to the United States and actually live my Dream, and here I am and live it every day.

So, one of my Early influences to this crazy Hot Rod fraternity was this Bloke- Dick Scritchfield.

 

 

THE DICK SCRITCHFIELD ERA
Dick Scritchfield has had a long and illustrious career in hot rodding. Yes, that’s right–career, being involved most of his adult life, both as professional (speed shop owner, the first NHRA Regional Rep, and Safety Safari participant, Associate Editor of Car Craft, and Advertising Manger at Rod & Custom), just to name a few, all the while actively participating as a hobbyist as well.

In 1944, as a lad of 14 living in Missouri, Dick purchased his first car, a ’29 Model A coupe, and was granted a valid driver’s license. Other cars would follow, with his first Deuce (a Sport Coupe) acquired in Washington, D.C., while he was stationed there as a drummer in the Navy, which he joined in 1948 (Dick is still a percussion instrument kind of guy). Dick went on to be stationed in Puerto Rico, where he cruised in another Deuce, this time a five-window, which was the only hot rod on the island. As Dick was one of those “hot rodders,” he was asked by the base brass to organize a drag race to keep the sports car guys (both enlisted and locals) from racing on the streets, where there had unfortunately been a few fatalities. Can you imagine for a moment that it was the sports car boys who were the ones they were trying to get off the streets? Dick eagerly complied, then promptly kicked some serious sporty car butt with his fender-free and channeled Deuce coupe. It was also while in Puerto Rico that Dick became a partner in a garage where he honed his bodyworking and painting skills during off-duty hours. He would later return to the island after his tour of duty, where he and his partner imported speed equipment from the States and performed engine swaps. However, as he was already an NHRA rep by this time, he returned to his new rodding career Stateside, moving to SoCal in ’56 to work at NHRA headquarters. One day Dick chanced to see a great looking yellow Deuce highboy roadster for sale in a gas station and acquired same forthwith. Now if you guessed it was Bob McGee’s roadster, you’re correct.

 

 

If the roadster had been both daily driver and race car to Bob, Dick added yet another element–movie and TV star. The “B” movie producers were always on the lookout for prop cars that screamed “HOT ROD!” and were willing to pay good money to rodders who wished to supplement their incomes by renting them to the studios, as evidenced by Norm Grabowski, Tommy Ivo, and numerous others. This concept wasn’t lost on seminal L.A. Roadsters member Dick, and soon the Deuce was involved in all kinds of socially inappropriate automotive hijinks on the silver screen. Dick, Tex Smith, Tony LaMesa, and other roadster owners decided a club dedicated to topless motoring would not only be fun, but give owners of such cars a responsible, public image as well. So, on one fateful Spring day in 1957 (A Sunday afternoon to be exact) the first formative meeting was held at Weiand Equipment Co., where Dick was voted President, and awarded membership card number one! His roadster went on to appear in such flicks as Hot Rod Gang, Hot Rod Rock, and other, more forgettable films as well. The now Scritchfield roadster (he owned it for some three and a half decades, 1956-90), also appeared on movie posters and lobby cards, album covers, and in many magazine how-to articles as well, making it one of the most visible public representations of the hot rod esthetic of its day. It also appeared on television shows like Dragnet, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Real McCoys, 77 Sunset Strip, and of all things, The Lawrence Welk Show, serving as a hot rod stage prop for the Lennon Sisters, which showed rodding’s more acceptable side to the “Geritol Generation.”

Over the years the ’32 was subject to many mechanical changes (flathead exchanged for 283 Chevy small-block, etc.) and cosmetic changes (first non experimental Metalflake paint job in 1960, which was the subject for a breakthrough article in Hot Rod, inspiring a young Jerry Weesner to do likewise with his own set of wheels, a ’48 Ford convertible). Dick would then build, with Dave Carpenter’s help, a 350cid small-block Chevy that would carry the roadster to a two-way average of 167.212 mph at Bonneville in 1971, with full street equipment. He not only set a record (C/STR) that would stand for a number of years, but the car was given the enviable title of The World’s Fastest Street Roadster as well. In a recent conversation with Dick (who now resides in Hawaii), he disclosed that he would drive the roadster on the street equipped just as it had run on the slat, so the title was both legitimate and well earned. And by the way, those over-the-frame headers that Dick ran and nobody could ever quite seem to identify, were Sanderson Chevy marine items turned upside down.

 

To backtrack just a scoach, in 1964 Scritch had it made, sharing a bachelor pad with fellow L.A. Roadsters’ member Sam Conrad, had a garage full of roadsters and parts, and a new position with his then employer, the Auto Club, where he had been transferred to the Claims Division. When our boy was introduced to his new secretary, one Marian Wilson, that was it–love at first sight! So what did our young couple drive on their honeymoon? If you guessed the Deuce, you’re still in the ballpark.

 

 

When Scritch finally retired to Hawaii around a decade ago, Marian restricted him to only taking some half-dozen vehicles with him. So, with all kinds of motorized transport to choose from, including a Deuce Phaeton he built while at Car Craft (and which he still regularly drives), the roadster was put on the block, as Hawaii still had those pesky fender laws (which varies from island to island), which had caused Bob McGee to sell the roadster all those many years before as well.

 

 

An Icon and always will be.

Photos taken from Internet from Rod & Custom, HAMB and google, please let us know any other credits so we can show the people who took these wonderful shots.

 

TEX SMITH’s Final trip – What a legend in Hot Rod History

Posted on by Steve Carpenter
26 Jun

By John Gunnell

Former Associate  HOT ROD magazine editor and publisher Charley Roy Ugama Waya Golaneeda, known around the automotive hobby as LeRoi “Tex” Smith, passed away on June 11 in Australia, where he had lived during the last years of his life. Smith was an icon of the hot rodding sport, but was always involved with all types of old cars and old car events.

Clarence LeRoi ‘Tex’ Smith was born in Cleveland, Oklahoma, to Esther Mae Welch on Jan. 4, 1934. Later, he took the name of his stepfather, Carlos Debs Smith. Tex was of Cherokee and Choctaw heritage. He was a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the Cherokee Band of North Carolina. His Great Grandfather and Great-Great Grandfather were principal chiefs of the Eastern Band of Cherokee.

 

Tex was trained in tribal culture by his grandfather, Charley Welch. In the 1960s, he became very active in tribal and national Native American affairs. On occasion, Tex was commissioned to write articles and conduct public relations forums for other Indian tribes.

Tex stayed in Oklahoma until he was six. In 1940, he went to Texas and then to California in a typical “Okie” search for better jobs for his dad. His stepfather was a craftsman skilled in many trades. He worked in oil fields in the Bakersfield, California, area and then moved to Washington, where he became an interior carpenter on World War II Navy PT boats. Carlos then became a journeyman auto body and paint expert in northern California. During this time, Tex rarely attended one school for more than three months. The family moved to Rexburg, Idaho, in 1949. Tex graduated from Madison High School there in 1951.

Tex was a supporter of the first Bonneville Salt Flats speed trials sanctioned by the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA). He crewed for Lee Wooley’s Buick coupe in 1952. Also in the ‘50s, he raced a ‘32 Ford coupe with a flathead. Tex remained a fixture in land speed racing, most prominently as a journalist.

 

Tex continued to develop his interest in specialty cars (hot rods and circle track racers) during the early years of those sports in Southern California. In this period, he worked closely with the legendary Wally Parks on development of the National Hot Rod Association. Over the years, Tex served as NHRA’s international Ambassador, European Director and National Field Director, working out of a Hollywood office. He formulated and directed the activities of NHRA drag racing, created the International Car Club Association for NHRA, and developed programs related to driving sports cars in European races and rallies.

After one year at Idaho State College and one year at Ricks College in the early postwar years, Tex signed a contract to play professional baseball in St. Louis, but he was then drafted into military service during the Korean conflict. He was selected to attend the U.S. Air Force’s cadet program and graduated as a Lieutenant specializing in piloting single-engine jet fighters.

The Air Force provided Tex with further training as a Personnel Officer. He was assigned to bases in France and Germany, but left the service in 1957 via an early-out program to accept job as Associate Editor at Hot Rod magazine in Los Angeles. He then took additional college courses at Montana State University, but left just prior to graduation to return to Hot Rod.  “I was already in a career that I thought I needed to finish college to get a career in,” he once told us.

 

 

Tex left Hot Rod in 1964 to launch a successful free-lance writing career. He expanded into writing books for various New York publishers including Dodd, Mead & Co. during the ‘60s.  He wrote on wide range of activities, specializing in sports of interest to men — boating, aircraft and cars.

Tex wrote a book called We Came In Peace, a look at America’s first moon landing. He created an outline for a popular outdoors TV show, did magazine promotions for Boy Scouts of America, undertook public relations writing for the White Mountain Apache Tribe and, from the ‘60s thru ‘70s, wrote many Petersen specialty automotive books.

 

 

Tex created TRM Publishing Co. as the foundation for Tom McMullen’s company. Starting in 1968, he introduced a series of successful magazines such as Street Chopper, Chopper Guide, Hot Bike and Street Rodder. Tex also helped put Tom Medley’s Rod & Custom magazine into the mainstream as the voice of the emerging “street rod” movement. He also did much to generate direction for what was a fast developing new aspect of hot rodding in that era.

 

 

In 1979, Tex moved to Iola, Wisconsin, to become editor of Old Cars Weekly and was almost immediately promoted to publisher for all of parent company Krause Publications’ automotive titles. From there, he moved to Dallas, Texas, to become PR Director for Interstate Battery Co.’s Great American Race in the early days of that event. In 1985, LeRoi retired — for the first time — and relocated to Idaho to live and go trout fishing in the Teton Valley.

 

 

 

In 1987, Tex came out of retirement to start his own publishing company based around a popular magazine he created called Hot Rod Mechanix. He also developed an ever-growing line of specialty books.

 

 

LeRoi Smith retired for the second time in 1999. Following the death of his beloved wife Peggy, Tex remarried. From that point on, he split his time between homes in Idaho and Australia, with stopovers on Kauai, Hawaii.