Richard Parks

Gone Racin�

Every year, on the Friday before the Father�s day L.A. Roadster�s Show, the So-Cal Speedshop hosts an open house for hot rod owners and their wives. The city of Pomona cordons off the four-lane road in front of the garage, creating an impressive display of hot rods triple-parked for as far as the eye can see. Pete Chapouris and his staff and friends host this party for the true hot rodder, who enjoys the traditional skills and craftsmanship that has made the So-Cal Speedshop a name brand over the years. The festivities start around 3 p.m. and continues into the evening. Hot rodders come to see what new designs the Speedshop and garages are turning out, and to feast on hamburgers and drinks provided by So-Cal. We met many that had come from across the country to get a close up view of the new cars being turned out by Chapouris and his staff. Then the following day they will go over to the L.A. County Fairplex to see the L.A. Roadster Show. I spoke to Christine Eastman, PR manager for the firm, and she said that they were expecting 500 cars for the open house. Besides roadsters, she was anticipating a wide selection of coupes, muscle cars, and racecars. So-Cal Speed and Machine Shop has three very large buildings, with 25 employees, 3 paint booths and an assortment of all the machinery that is needed to build a customized car from parts or just plans. They take on all kinds of rebuilding and customizing projects, from very old vintage automobiles to the well-loved 30�s roadsters. Bill Lindig, from Houston, Texas, made the trip out here to see the show and to check on the status of his cars, which So-Cal is rebuilding. Bill says he �comes here every year for the L.A. Roadster Show,� and is a close friend of the So-Cal group.

Alex Xydias and Richard Parks reminisce about the early days of SO-CAL Speed Shop.

In front of the HHR are(from the left) Alex Xydias (Founder of SO-CAL Speed Shop), Mark Dickens (GM Project Manager), Al Oppenheiser (GM Performance Division Director), and Pete Chapouris (President of SO-CAL Speed Shop).

Jimmy Shine and Pete Chapouris show off Jimmy�s Bonneville �Charger�.

To understand the importance of this company, it is important to know the history of two men; Alex Xydias and Pete Chapouris. Alex founded So-Cal Speed Shop in March, 1946, while still a member of the Armed Services. As a young man he joined the Wheelers Car Club in Whittier in the �30�s and went to the dry lakes in Southern California. Xydias was working in a defense plant when WWII came, and though he had a deferment, he saw his friends leave to go overseas and he gave up his deferment and enlisted in the Army Air Corp, becoming a mechanic and gunner on the B-17's. After the war, Alex put his heart and soul into So-Cal Speedshop, first on Olive Avenue in Burbank, California, and then moving to Victory Avenue in 1947, where he built a garage to build cars. He faced competition from Carl and Veda Orr�s Speedshop, and from Don Blair�s, Bell Auto Parts and others. 

 So-Cal turned a corner when in January �49 the So-Cal Speedshop Belly Tank was featured on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine, and 10 months later scored another cover on HRM with the So-Cal Streamliner. With the publicity came orders from all over the country and Xydias came up with a catalog that has to this day become a hot rod cult collectible. The Streamliner created quite a stir in the landspeed racing community when it broke the record by 33 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in August of 1949, at the first SCTA/BNI meet ever held there. The next year Xydias went over 208 mph to break Ray Keech�s American landspeed record set in the 20�s at Daytona Beach. Xydias quit racing in 1954 due to an accident to one of his team, and took up filming races in 1955. His archives are huge and include Bonneville, NHRA, Indy 500, sports car and other varieties of motor racing. He closed So-Cal in 1962 to

�Belly Tanks� past to present. SO-CAL�s original is first, and at the far end is the �Ecotec Lakester�, a collaboration with SO-CAL and GM.

The SO-CAL/ GM association is well represented at Bonneville. The roadster in front is another Ecotec powered car.

Pete Chapouris was already a successful entrepreneur and car builder when he approached Xydias in the 1990�s to bring back the So-Cal brand name. This was a name loved by the early hot rodders, and kept alive by a new generation that read the old magazines and collected parts and souvenirs from the golden age of hot rodding. Xydias is a man who is very careful about quality and reputation. He found everything in Pete Chapouris that he saw in himself. �Pete is a real traditionalist,� said Alex, �it�s a real joy to be involved� with the So-Cal name again. He went on to say �it couldn�t have been a better thing for Pete Chapouris to bring back the So-Cal Speedshop.�

Gone Racin� is at www.oilstick.com

A large water tank for cooling sits in the trunk of the rear wheel drive HHR.