Tag: Joe McCollough

Built With Speedway Motors: Rollin’s 1948 Ford – Joe McCollough @SpeedwayMotors

Built With Speedway Motors: Rollin’s 1948 Ford – Joe McCollough @SpeedwayMotors

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Rollin Willingham (pronounced “Raw-lin”) has a whole fleet of old cars that are ready to hop in and cruise, and each of them has its own soul and character. He calls this ’48 Ford Super Deluxe his “classy grocery getter.” But it wasn’t always that way.

Rollin’s ’48 has come a long way from being a multi-colored, barely running beater.

When Rollin got the sedan, it was anything but classy. He had just lost another of his classics to an accident that totaled it when a friend offered up this grungy sedan at a good price. Rollin snatched it up to fill the newly empty hole in his lineup. But the car he brought home was barely running, and really ugly. The body was covered in old red primer, and the fenders were a different color. “I like patina,” says Rollin, “but this thing was ugly.”

Rollin is a professional car builder by day, and he got to work immediately on his new sedan as his busy schedule allowed. With friends and club members by his side, he began to sort the car out mechanically. The 239-inch 59A flathead stayed under the hood, but Rollin used a Speedway Motors kit to add an alternator which, along with a replacement wiring harness, converted the car to run 12 volts. The stock driveline lives on behind the flatmotor, but everything was tweaked, tuned, and repaired by Rollin to make the car a reliable driver. The stock stance was brought down in the rear with longer spring shackles, and the radial tires on steelies help it to run straight down the Phoenix freeways.

The stock flattie lives on, even in the desert heat, thanks to a good fan and excellent maintenance.

Rollin straightened out the body and shot it with a fresh coat of hot rod flat black. A few dings and imperfections remain to remind him that this car is meant to be a driver and not a showboat. The effect is that of a classy car that can be driven anywhere without losing sleep over rock chips, door dings, and rogue shopping carts.

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Historic Indy Engines – Joe McCollough @SpeedwayMotors

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2022 will mark the 106th running of the Indianapolis 500. Before we watch 33 drivers in their cutting edge wings on wheels scream around the track at 230mph, we always love looking back on how we got here. In this case, we’re going to focus in on a few engines from the Museum of American Speed that highlight a few of the incredible technical advances that have taken place over the years.

Miller Flathead Ford (1935)

This engine lived in what were among the most beautiful cars to ever lap the Brickyard. We’ve talked about the ‘35 Miller Fords before, but we never get tired of looking at the hopped-up flathead Ford that ran Indy. These engines used finned aluminum Bohnalite heads and three-carb manifolds and were remarkably similar to the engines that hot rodders were beginning to stuff in their cut-down T roadsters and Deuce coupes.

We all know how this story ends. In their haste to develop the cars before the ’35 race, the crew managed to overlook a steering knuckle that was perilously close to the exhaust, which eventually took them out of the race. A sad engine for an otherwise great story and a few exceptionally beautiful cars.

Novi (1941-1966)

According to Andy Granatelli, “The Novi did everything but win races.” In fact, they developed a reputation as being cursed; regularly that fastest and most powerful thing on the track, but never actually winning Indy. That didn’t stop them from becoming fan favorites, in large part because these things absolutely screamed. Literally. Not only did the massively oversquare 4-valve DOHC V8 have a sound all its own, but that huge centrifugal supercharger was turning more than 5-times the speed of the engine. That worked out to a 40,000-plus rpm siren that could be heard for miles.

Before it was called the Novi, the platform was developed by businessman Lew Welch, along with engine mastermind Leo Goossen and Bud Winfield. Interestingly, the engine’s first appearance at Indy was in a refugee Miller-Ford (see above). In 1941, this monster was making 450 horsepower, way more than a contemporary Offy, and also more than the old front drive Millers could handle.

Many attempts were made to tame the Novi for Indy, ultimately culminating in the monstrous, 700-horse Granatelli four-wheel-drive cars of the mid-60’s. Crashes and bad luck continued, and the last appearance for a Novi at the Speedway was ’66.

Studebaker Special

More Leo Goossen magic, this time perched atop a stock Studebaker V8 block. We might not all think of exotic, high-winding Indy engines when we think of Studebaker, but Indy legend J.C. Agajanian saw potential and commissioned Goossen to develop this beautiful design. The DOHC heads were designed by Goossen and bolted to the 274-inch stock block Stude. Straight-cut gears spun the cams and it was topped with a Hilborn injector.

The engine was fitted to an Eddie Kuzma chassis with Allen Heath in the driver’s seat. Unfortunately, the rig didn’t get very far; the starter broke the snout off the crank during qualifying.

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