All this cool car stuff, I never was into building cars but I do love cars, I go gaga over mopar, my favorite is a Cuda!
I am pretty lucky to live next door to some cool California history. My neigbor is Tommy Sparks daughter. Tommy Sparks was a well known pioneer hot rod and engine builder, he also was the first guy to rent his car collection to the movie studios, he invented that back in the day and made it lucrative. Any body and everybody pretty much knew him in the drag racing world like Tom McEwen, Don The Snake Perdome and many others. If you are interested there is an autobiography on Tommys life on the net.
Tommy passed In 2011.
That all being said my friend Eric ( married to Tommy’s daughter) had a memorial run from the old house she grew up in down in North Hollywood through the San Gabes to there house up to Acton.
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Jenifer since 2011 has sold off most of her fathers car collection but has kept a few prize possessions including the 1929 Ford Modle A pictured in the private invitation. She also kept this prize winning 56 T-Bird that was in a little old movie called the Sting.
Here is a pic of the old house and the Bird, that BTW the director of The National Hot Rod Assosiation just bought from them. This is where the drive started from.
I got to drive the hot rod for half of the run, always fun to do, fun to break it loose from time to time!
The wife and I driving it from a car show in Lancaster.[/ATTACH]
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Also relivent to this bicycle sight was Tommy’s other passion, racing bicycles!
I pulled this from his autobiography.
“Although not hot rodding- or auto racing-related, it should be noted that Tom Sparks also was a champion-level bicycle racer during the latter half of the 1950s and throughout the 1960s. Tom remembered, "I had a customer bring a car in for servicing, and when he dropped it off, there was a bicycle in the back seat. Not a regular bike but, you know, a race bike. It was an Italian bike and was pretty unusual. I didn't know anything about them and hadn't ridden a bike of any kind very much in my life, so, I didn't know. I just thought it looked neat. So, on my lunch break, I went and unloaded the bicycle and rode it around the parking lot, figuring out the shifting and all that. I ended up riding it around the neighborhood a bit before bringing it back. When the customer came back to get his car, I asked about the bike, and he told me he was in a club and they raced them. You know, up in the mountains and all over. I'd never been to one of these, and he mentions a race happening that coming weekend. So, me and my wife, Laura, went up Angeles Crest Highway to see these guys on their bicycles, and I was hooked. When that first big pack of guys came rushing by, I was really hooked. So, I bought myself a good racing bike and joined the club and started racing."
“Incredibly, after Tom bought his first racing bike in 1956, he became the California state Road Racing Champion less than two years later, in 1958. In 1959, he was invited to try out for the 1960 Olympic team and flew to New York to compete against other riders from across the country for a spot. He was paired with another rider during the trial and was always frustrated when speaking of the outcome. "I got put with this big tall guy who thought he knew everything. I told him that we had to stay together and work the air as a team. Well, he took off and was riding at a sprint pace and screwed the whole thing up. I guess he just wanted to show them how fast he could ride by himself. Well, that wasn't the idea. I knew who a lot of the other guys were that rode in this because I'd seen them in my bicycle magazines. I knew I could out-ride almost all of them at that time. I was fast, and I was really good on stamina when other guys would wear down. If I'd had the right guy to ride with for that trial, there's no doubt I'd have made the team. But, because of what he did, neither of us did." Sparks would go on to have a very impressive career in bicycle racing and continue to win races well into his 60s.”
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I knew him in his later years,him and his wife were some really cool people! Always treated me nice! Have met alot of people who knew him and they all said he was really low key, a behind the sceen kind of guy but always a big part of what was going on.
so gross! The VW Thing has some character and doesn’t try too hard to be cool or take itself too seriously
Quite the sleeper as it had a 304 V-8 Jeep engine in it, somewhat meaty tires on the back. I bought it while stationed in Tennessee, drove it back to CA where it disappeared while I was out on the carrier on workups. Looked something like this but primer gray:
I was tempting him with course deviations when we stopped to chat with @Old&InTheWay at Four Corners.
