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our resources, largely acquired from cashing in discarded returnable soft drink bottles for 2 cents apiece, and purchased a beat up 1949 Ford.. Best I can recall it cost us the princely sum of $25.00. Billy lived on a farm with plenty of cornfield space and once our parents came around to our way of thinking they allowed us to keep the car and drive the roads between the rows of corn (they were to control the keys but we had duplicates made). I learned to drive in that car and it wasn’t long before we were timing ourselves to see who was fastest around the field. I know I nearly rolled that car a time or two but eventually I could manage a heck of a four wheel drift. Yee-haw!
At age 15 I met Joe, who had recently graduated high school and was on his way to a career in auto mechanics at a local gas station and garage. Being a couple years older and having the resources Joe had acquired a 1932 Ford 5 Window Coupe he wanted to Hot Rod. Being enthusiastic, and the fact that I would work for free, Joe put me to work on the project. We became good friends as, with a pile of Hot Rod magazines for guidance, we went about dismantling, chopping, channeling and ultimately installing the running gear out of a junked 1957 Chrysler New Yorker. That’s right, the engine was a 392 Chrysler Hemi, which we topped with six of those sacred Stromberg 97 two barrel carbs. Sweet!
At the time the Interstate Highway system was under construction and there was a section of I-295 less than a mile from the shop that was largely complete but not yet open. When we got the car running we needed to see what she would do and that stretch of Interstate was the perfect test road. Wide, straight, smooth and deserted. The car wasn’t licensed (neither was I) so we tested late at night, moving the barriers aside to gain access and pushing that Deuce to speeds neither of us had ever before experienced. For my efforts, and for which I will forever be grateful to Joe, I got my turn to drive. There I was, not yet of legal driving age in an unlicensed hot rod driving at breakneck speed on a stretch of freshly paved closed and deserted Interstate It was scary (we were more worried about the police catching us than wrecking since we were immortal at the time) and it was the most exhilarating experience of our young lives. We loved it and we were literally off to the races.
Fortunately, Atco Dragway, one of the first in the east, was about a half hour away. During the summer of 1963, between my junior and senior years in high school, we raced the Deuce at Atco. I was 16 and just shy of the legal driving age of 17, so I had no license. When we ran the car through tech inspection Joe designated himself as the driver, but when the car came to the line nobody actually paid attention to who was driving, so during time trials we took turns making as many passes down the strip as we could. The deal was whoever cut the fastest time in time trials drove in eliminations and I was behind the wheel most of the time.
Of all classes in which to have to compete they put the car in B/Altered. There was some mean competition coming out of Philadelphia and the region from far more experienced builders than ourselves. Taking a trophy home depended largely on who showed up on Sunday. To this day I vividly recall our nemesis, an early ‘30’s model B pickup, also Hemi powered, with big holes drilled in the body everywhere. The name on the car was Swift Cheese, and it lived up to its name. But, trophy or not we never failed to have a great time at Atco.
I later acquired my own Deuce, a 3 Window Coupe, which never quite got completed due to military service followed by marriage and a family. The day I reluctantly sold that car I promised myself I would again someday own another. This year, at age 60, I made good on that promise. Not having the time or facilities to build myself I purchased a pro built 3 Window, a photo of which accompanies this story (sorry, I can only wish I had a photo of those 1960’s cars). During this past summer I thoroughly enjoyed reliving my youth attending, along with my wife Heather, numerous cruise-in’s, vacationing with it at the beach and participating in the Deuces Are Wild exhibit at the Goodguys Southeast Nationals. The highlight of that event was having the opportunity to take four laps around Lowes Motor Speedway and being able to let her rip a good bit down the back straight and into the high banks of turns three and four. It was at night and it immediately took me back to 1963 and those testing nights on that closed stretch of I-295 in south Jersey.
Ah yes, these are the good old days once again. Long live the Icon of Hot Rodding. Long live the Deuce!
Tom Klein
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