My uncle was Big LeRoy. Brother to my mom. Spitting image of his dad, a full blood Cherokee. Big LeRoy Welch (Ugama and/or Tracking Wolf) was only a couple of years older than me, but when I straggled into the world I got his name for some unknown reason. Anyway, I’m telling you this because Big LeRoy was way into cars.

He loved them. He became a body/fender man, like my stepdad, a profession he followed most of his life, the majority of said life revolving around Bakersfield, California. I think I told you that the first three words a baby born in Oklahoma learned were Mommy, Daddy, and Bakersfield!

So, while my family was living up in the Berkeley area, there was a ton of hot rodding going on around the San Francisco Bay Area. We had street rods everywhere (we drove those cars to death. They were, after all, just used cars.), once in a rare while what we now call Classics would rumble down the road, and many of the street rods were often used for weekend duty as roundy rounders. Big LeRoy found a kind of Classic and hot rod and custom combined when he drove by one day to take me for a ride in his sort of new/used three window l939 Lincoln Zephyr. Nothing but a big Ford, but the body seemed to overflow in every direction. It was long and swoopy, it looked much lower than it really was, and with a flathead V-12 engine, it was fast, after awhile, and it would stop for sour owl crap.

Well, not fast by today’s standards. But back then, it could peg that big center mounted speedo at over l00. And with a longer leg for second gear, a fact the hot rodding world learned early on.

Back in the day, it was all the rage to see who could make the fastest trip between Berkeley (official start/finish was front door of the Albany Motors body shop, which was right across the road from the police department) and Sacramento. For a brief time, Big LeRoy had the quickest time up to Sacto, but like everything, guys who owned rods with big arms (cranks) got into the deal.

Somewhere Big LeRoy came up with a set of teardrop fender skirts, and although they were always coming unlatched, we were really killer cool through the drive-in’s. Eventually, some teardrop spots were added, which he made fully functional to the dismay of the cops across the street. I should add here that one morning when we got to the body shop, there was a ’46 Ford coupe waiting. One of the cop cars, and the police boss was very anxious for us to get the car inside, where he wanted us to fill the several bullet holes in the trunk lid and top. Seems the car had been involved in a highspeed chase through Oakland and Albany (as fast as a stocker could go back then) and we needed to get it all repaired during the day. So as to avoid a resultant embarrassment. Like, I mean, questions as to who was shooting holes in the back of a police car that was in hot pursuit????

Through the years, I kept in touch with Big LeRoy, who moved over to east Bakersfield (which came to have a less than savory reputation) and stayed there for several decades. The last time I saw him he was excited to show me a restored Chevy he had recently completed. Once a car guy, always????????

Oh, and about the spelling of LeRoi(y). Early on in my schooling, I read where LeRoi was the French word for king. So I changed the Y for an I. Big LeRoy didn’t care. A true real hot rodder attitude.