Frank Kurtis Built It, A Flathead Ford V-8 Powered It, And Wally Parks Drove It At Bonneville. Here's A Genuine Artifact Of Hot Rod History.
Our friend DeWayne Ashmead is a serious student of the automobile. He really, really likes cars, and he knows his stuff. A connoisseur, you can truly say, he owns around 50 cars, currently ranging from a '12 Metz roadster to a '93 Cadillac Allante. Ashmead can quote chapter and verse on the technical features and historical significance of every piece in his collection, but we think we may have identified his favorite. When HOT ROD approached Ashmead to do a story on the car featured here, he sent us a 12-page historical paper followed up by a binder 3 inches thick that includes every word ever published about the vehicle.
Ashmead's fascination with this car is easy to understand. We share it. The car you see here is easily one of the most significant American sports cars in existence--or hot rods, for that matter. A '49 Kurtis, it bears serial number KB003, which makes it the third Kurtis sports car ever built and the first production model. Powered by an Edelbrock-prepared Ford V-8, it was Frank Kurtis' personal car for several years. In August 1949 at the first Bonneville Nationals, Wally Parks, founder of the NHRA and HOT ROD's first real editor, drove the Kurtis to a two-way average of 142.515 mph. From the HOT ROD perspective, this is the very first sports rod--and with a pedigree second to none.
The son of an immigrant Croatian blacksmith named Francika Kuretich, Frank Kurtis was born on the Colorado frontier in 1908. He first learned to work with metal on his father's forge as the family traveled the mining towns. When they moved to Los Angeles, he was apprenticed, at age 14, to the Don Lee Coach and Body Works, which built custom bodies for Cadillacs and other luxury cars. Quickly showing a gift for fabricating, Kurtis created a number of one-off sports versions of production cars for Hollywood types and other wealthy clients. Turning to race cars in the late '30s, he built a Midget racer for Charlie Allen. The car was so exquisitely constructed that racers named it the Jewel Box. Kurtis was the class of the field in the golden age of Midget racing. Over the years, more than 1,100 were built, around 550 by Kurtis-Kraft and another 550 or so from Kurtis-Kraft kits.
In 1941, Kurtis built his first complete Indy 500 entry, an Offy-powered Champ Car for St. Louis racer Ed Walsh. When the war came, he kept busy constructing fake Jeeps for the movies from Model A parts (for a time, real Jeeps were too valuable to send to Hollywood) and a three-wheeled sportster for Joel Thorne, the millionaire race team owner. Later sold to promoter/hustler Gary Davis, it became the prototype for the Davis three-wheeler. After the war, Kurtis picked up where he left off in racing, building Midgets and Champ Cars in his Glendale, California, facility, a mile or two east of Griffith Park.
Teamed with Walsh and driver Johnnie Parsons, Kurtis won his first Indy 500 in 1950 with the Wynn's Friction Proofing Special. He was commissioned to build the Cummins Diesel racers and the Novis, but he is best remembered as the inventor of the Indy roadster--the low, sleek avatars of racing in the '50s. He developed the concept, which used a canted, offset driveline to lower the car's profile and bias its weight to the left, and he personally coined the name roadster as well, it is said. Kurtis roadsters won the Indy 500 five times in six years, dominating with 54 National Championship victories. In 1953, 24 of the 33 cars on the Indy 500 starting grid were built by Kurtis-Kraft.
Teamed with Walsh and driver Johnnie Parsons, Kurtis won his first Indy 500 in 1950 with the Wynn's Friction Proofing Special. He was commissioned to build the Cummins Diesel racers and the Novis, but he is best remembered as the inventor of the Indy roadster--the low, sleek avatars of racing in the '50s. He developed the concept, which used a canted, offset driveline to lower the car's profile and bias its weight to the left, and he personally coined the name roadster as well, it is said. Kurtis roadsters won the Indy 500 five times in six years, dominating with 54 National Championship victories. In 1953, 24 of the 33 cars on the Indy 500 starting grid were built by Kurtis-Kraft.
A total of 36 cars of this type were built, historians have determined. This one is the first production model, third in the series following two prototypes. Originally, Kurtis planned to power the car with the new Studebaker overhead-valve V-8, much like the Cadillac OHV V-8 but smaller and more economically priced. However, his South Bend connections failed to come through. But Benson Ford, son of Edsel and brother of Ford Chairman Henry Ford II, having seen and admired the Buick special, instructed the Los Angeles Ford plant to make sure Kurtis had all the parts he needed. So this car, as well as the succeeding vehicles in the series, was equipped with a Ford engine. This one features Studebaker running gear, while the rest were built mainly with Ford parts.
For the Bonneville speed trials, Kurtis reportedly installed a marine tachometer with a 2:1 drive, so the dial read at half-speed. Driver Wally Parks, apparently never informed of this needful fact, came back to the pits reporting to Edelbrock engine wizard Bobby Meeks that the engine would not pull over 3,500 rpm. After a bit of head scratching, the team realized that the poor little flathead was actually being zinged to 7,000 rpm. The overdrive was engaged and still pulling strong despite the obscene overrevving, and the Edelbrock V-8 propelled the Kurtis to a two-way average of 142.515 mph, taking the Sports Car class record at the inaugural Bonneville Nationals.
While Kurtis was ramping up production, his sports car caught the attention of Earl "Madman" Muntz, the California car dealer and original TV pitchman. He purchased the entire project from Kurtis--rights, tools, and inventory--though accounts differ on the actual cash exchange. Muntz claimed it was $200,000 while Kurtis said it was $70,000. Muntz moved production to Evanston, Illinois, and converted the two-seater into a four-seater by stretching the wheelbase more than a foot and adapting the chassis to Cadillac V-8 power, and later, the boat-anchor flathead Lincoln V-8. Approximately 400 were built in this form between 1951 and 1954, and while still a beautiful car and highly sought after today, the Muntz Jet was more of a boulevard cruiser than a sports car. America's first postwar sports car was more or less designed out of existence. However, Kurtis was not done building hot rod sports cars, not by a long shot. But that's another story.
