Why I love street rods.
December 3rd, 2009
(by Don Godwin)
I can remember walking through my uncle Ansel Godwin’s junk yard as a 10 or 11 year old and eyeing some of “better junkers” and imagine myself owning them. To this day I can still see a 31 Chevy coupe in that junk yard that I longed for.
My 1933 Dodge Brothers Model LD 6
Growing up in Des Moines, Iowa as a teenager (early 50s) we would attend Kessels Raceway on Saturday nights. It was on the S.E. corner of S.E. 14th and Hartford and was a quarter-mile track. Some of the racecar drivers that I remember were Eddie Shinestine, Lefty Robinson, Lee Pinckney, and Earl Wagner.
Ford had V8 engines since the 30s and most race cars at that time used V8s. In the early 50s I worked in the grandstand of the Iowa State Fair selling popcorn and peanuts during the shows. There were sprint car and stock car races during the Fair. The straight-8 Hudsons were competitive but the Fords were the big guns. Chevy didn’t have a V8 until 1955.
In 1953 my seconded car was a 1939 Chevy 2 door. In shop class we had a segment on welding and I choose as my welding project to remove the exhaust manifold from my 39 and “split the manifold”. The goal was to add a second exhaust pipe with glass pack mufflers to make it sound like a racecar or a street rod. Because the engine was a straight six, it didn’t sound that powerful but it was noisy. My Dad was not happy that ruined a “perfectly good” exhaust manifold.
These experiences as a boy are where my love affair with cars began.
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