Full Documentary: Rum Runner’s Paradise – Prohibition In The Pacific Northwest

Rum Runner’s Paradise is a full length feature documentary about the Prohibition era as seen through the eyes of the residents of the pacific northwest, particularly Washington State.

Spokane was ground zero for smuggling activities during the 18 years of Prohibition in Washington State thanks to its close proximity to the long and poorly guarded Canadian border.

Motorcycles, cars, boats, and even biplanes were used to get whisky into the United States, where it would be sold with eye-watering markups to a thirsty American populace.

This film was created by KSPS Public TV, a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member television station based in Spokane. The almost hour-long film starts out in the years before Prohibition, following the build up to the passing of the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920, ushering in the era of Prohibition.

Prohibition would be the law of the land for 13 years until the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933 however some states kept the alcohol ban in place for a few years more. Washington State had passed their own anti-alcohol law at the end of 1915, not repealing it until 1933, meaning the state was dry for far longer than most.

Spokane was a hotbed of smuggling activity during Prohibition thanks to its proximity to the Canadian border, and the surrounding wilderness that was ideal for moonshiners.

Prohibition would be an era that would spawn a number of new classes of motor racing including stock car racing, NASCAR in particular. Rum runners would modify their cars to be as fast as possible in the hopes of outrunning the law, they started racing each other for fun, and today it’s a multi-billion dollar industry – ironically often sponsored by companies than make and sell alcohol.

This film is full of true stories from the era, remarkable tales of rum runners using any vehicle they could get their hands on including cars that ran on railway tracks.

In one incident, one of these modified cars collided with a train and had its cargo of whisky bottles scattered all over a field. Rumors of the accident spread to a nearby town and before the police arrived in the morning the field had been picked clean.

If you’d like to read more about Prohibition you can click here to visit the highly detailed Wikipedia page on the subject.

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The 1962 Martin Ford Special: 1 Of 5 Survivors – $8,200+ USD

If you’ve never seen a Martin Ford Special before it’s likely because of the 500 or so bodies originally built, just five are thought to have survived to the modern day. Despite the car’s rarity and unusual history it’s thought to be quite affordable, with a value of $8,200 to $10,900 USD.

The Martin Ford Special is one of those cars that appeared in the 1950s and 1960s to take advantage of the low cost and lightweight material called fiberglass for sports car construction. Many couldn’t afford to buy a new sports car, but they could afford to buy a regular used car and swap the heavy steel body for something much lighter and more aerodynamic.

Fast Facts – The Martin Ford Special

• The Martin Ford Special is built with a fiberglass body on a modified 1939 Ford Prefect chassis, it’s powered by a Ford 100E 1172cc sidevalve engine with twin SU carburetors.
• The body was designed and manufactured by Martin Plastics Maidstone Ltd, a company founded by Frederick E. Martin in 1953.
• It was one of the first companies in Britain to offer fiberglass bodies, likely inspired by similar businesses that were becoming popular across the Atlantic in the United States.
• With its low weight, small size, and simple mechanicals, the Martin Ford Special is a great example of the hand-built sports cars of the era.

The Martin Ford Special

The explosion in popularity of fiberglass in the years after WWII led to an entirely new automotive industry appearing almost overnight.

The good-looking body of the Martin Ford Special is a great example of the kind of custom car bodies being built in places like the UK and US from the 1950s onwards.

Before this time the art of coachbuilding required teams of highly skilled metal workers who could meticulously form steel or aluminum into complex compound shapes. With the invention of fiberglass, almost anyone could create a mould and then turn out body after body with minimal technical skill required.

In the USA companies like Devin, Kaiser, Kurtis, and many others appeared, even Chevrolet would build their new Corvette from the material. The age of composite sports cars had arrived, and it was affordable to all thanks to the low cost nature of fiberglass.

Into this midst of this rapidly evolving scene appeared Martin Plastics Maidstone Ltd in 1953, founded by Frederick E. Martin with one purpose in mind – building lightweight sports car bodies.

Although much of the history is lost to time it’s believed that the company made hundreds of these bodies, many of which would have ended up being turned into cars in people’s sheds and garages across the United Kingdom.

It’s not possible to know for certain however it’s believed that fewer than half a dozen have survived in complete form to the current day.

As you would expect the interior is relatively spartan, there’s seating for two, twin adjustable windscreens, a centrally mounted shifter, and no shortage of good visibility.

The 1962 Martin Ford Special

The car you see here was built on a modified 1939 Ford Prefect chassis and it now benefits from upgraded suspension, with Bowden Engineering independent conversion with Woodhead-Monroe telescopic dampers up front, and a Ballamy-modified set up in the rear, also with Woodhead-Monroe telescopic dampers.

The current owner restored the car a few years ago, bringing it up to excellent condition throughout. The body-off restoration included repainting the chassis, repairing the body where needed, and fettling the other parts of the car to get it back into as-new condition.

During the restoration he added a period-correct Ford 100E 1172cc sidevalve engine with twin SU carburetors and some performance tuning, this sends power back to the rear wheels via a four-speed manual transmission.

He believes that the car may have been used for racing at some point in its past as during the restoration process he found a slew of parts that had likely been fitted for competition.

The car is now due to cross the auction block with H&H Auctions on the 6th of October with a price guide of £6,000 – £8,000, which works out to approximately $8,200 to $10,900 USD. If you’d like to read more about the car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of H&H Auctions

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The George Barris Turbosonic Custom Dragster – Powered By A 1000 hp Micro-Turbine Engine

This is the 1964 Turbosonic Custom Dragster, it was designed and built by famed Hollywood vehicle creator George Barris, the man responsible for the original Batmobile, the Munster Koach, the The Beverly Hillbillies family truck, and a Cadillac limousine for Elvis Presley – to name just a few.

The name Turbosonic may not be familiar to you but it was a hot subject of debate in the drag racing world of the 1960s. Turbosonic was the name of a company that offered mail order micro-turbine engines that weighed 120 lbs but could produce up to a (claimed) 1,000 hp.

Fast Facts – Turbosonic Custom Dragster

• The Turbosonic Custom Dragster was built in 1964 by Barris and his team at Barris Kustom Industries in California.
• The vehicle is powered by a Turbosonic mail order micro-turbine engine said to be capable of up to 1,000 hp.
• The three-wheeled vehicle employs a delta wing shape and has a central seating position for the driver.
• Some Turbosonic-powered drag racing vehicles built in the 1960s were capable of 7.3 second 1/4 mile times with speeds of over 150 mph.

George Barris And The Custom Car Revolution

When it comes to outlandish American custom cars there is no name more famous than that of George Barris, a man who had immigrated to the United States as a young child with his brother and father after the death of his mother, and spent much of his childhood working in the family’s Greek restaurant.

Above Video: George Barris talks about developing the first Batmobile.

George and his brother Sam were drawn to cars from a young age, customizing them and selling them on for a profit while they were still in school. In the years after WWII the work of the Barris brothers began to draw more and more attention, and by the late 1950s they were the de facto custom car builders for Hollywood.

Over the course of the decades-long reign of Barris Custom Industries some of the most memorable cinema cars in history would roll out of the workshop, including (as mentioned above) the first Batmobile, the updated versions of KITT from Knight Rider, the Torino from Starsky and Hutch, the Munster Koach and the Munster Drag-U-La dragster, and the truck from The Beverly Hillbillies.

Barris also built personal cars for the rich and famous including matching convertible Ford Mustangs for Sonny and Cher, a gold Rolls Royce for Zsa Zsa Gabor, a custom station wagon for John Wayne, a Cadillac station wagon for Dean Martin, a Cadillac limousine for Elvis Presley, and custom gold carts for Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Ann-Margret, Glen Campbell, and Elton John.

That’s not all that Barris and his team did, it’s just the highlights reel. Perhaps the most interesting client that Barris ever had was NASA, who requested the blueprints to the Moonscope, a custom six-wheeled vehicle with spider-like suspension than NASA wanted to study when they were developing the Lunar Rover.

The Turbosonic Custom Dragster

The Turbosonic Custom Dragster was built in 1964 to make use of the Turbonique micro-turbine, an engine that had been developed by Clarence “Gene” Middlebrooks Jr, a Georgia Tech alumni who had worked with Martin-Marietta on the propulsion system for the Pershing missile program before starting his own company – Turbonique.

The Turbosonic Custom Dragster has a delta-wing shape and was designed to be fully functional.

Turbonique became famous for offering micro-turbines advertised in the classified ad sections in the back of magazines. The turbines claimed to be capable of 1,000+ hp, they ran on isopropyl nitrate monopropellant, and they had the unnerving habit of becoming a bomb if the driver let off the throttle and then reapplied it suddenly.

One of the company’s most famous offerings was the TB-28 or the “Drag Axle,” it was a micro-turbine that mounted directly to the rear axle of a vehicle to supplement the power provided by the engine. The TB-28 drove the axle via a Borg Warner sprag clutch, and due to its “on or off” nature it was intended for drag racing.

The Turbosonic Custom Dragster was designed with an alloy frame and a body made largely from fiberglass with some alloy sections. The design work is credited to George Barris, Les Tompkins, Dick Dean, and Tom Daniels, with Skip Torgeson tasked with driving duties.

The Delta V-shape of the vehicle was rising to prominence due to the military employing such designs in aircraft like the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird which was also built in 1964. The Turbonique micro-turbine engine required that the vehicle be fitted with a parachute and four stabilizer wing flaps.

This vehicle is now coming up for auction with Mecum in January, the listing explains that it comes with vintage photos and postcards as well as the Barris Kustom City news release included. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Carol Duckworth via Mecum

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America’s Most Beautiful Car? The Auburn 851 Boattail Speedster

There can be little doubt that the Auburn 851 Supercharged Boattail Speedster is one of the most beautiful cars of its age, if not of all ages, and it stands as a high point of American automobile design from the pre-WWII era.

Designed by the legendary Gordon Buehrig, the Auburn Speedster is a car that’s every bit as fast as it looks thanks to its inline-eight cylinder, 4.6 liter flathead engine mated to a Schweitzer-Cummins centrifugal supercharger – total power output is 150 bhp.

Fast Facts – The Auburn 851 Supercharged Speedster

• Released in 1934 as a successor to the Speedster 125, the Speedster 851 featured stunningly beautiful bodywork styled by designer Gordon Buehrig.
• Unusually for the time, the supercharged Speedster 851 was capable of exceeding 100 mph, and each car came with a plaque on the dashboard to guarantee to this ability.
• The 1930s were an exceedingly difficult time for American automakers, particularly those who made high-end luxury cars. The Great Depression has caused widespread financial ruin, and many car companies didn’t survive.
• Born into this tumultuous time, the Auburn Speedster 851 managed to mark up approximately 150 sales over its four year production run, though Auburn did succumb to bankruptcy in 1937.

The Boattail Speedster 851

The Auburn Eight Supercharged Speedster, more commonly known simply as the Speedster 851 or simply as the Auburn Boattail, was released in 1934 to universal acclaim. Heralded as a masterpiece of automotive design, the sweeping lines and boattail rear of the car hinted at its high-speed ability.

The boattail rear of the car has been winning the 851 fans for the better part of a century.

A classic Gordon Buehrig design, the 851 and the subsequent 852 were among the fastest production cars of their age. By this time Buehrig was already a celebrated designer, having penned the Stutz Black Hawks that competed at Le Mans and the beautiful Duesenberg Model J.

After the Speedster 851 Buehrig would style the Cord 812 (and 810) which were similarly lauded for their good-looks and high-speed performance.

Like many cars of the era the Supercharged Speedster used body on chassis design with non-independent suspension front and rear on leaf springs. Power was provided by an unusual flathead straight-eight engine that was built in unit with the transmission.

The swept capacity of the engine is 280 cubic inches or 4.6 liters (4,585cc), it was fitted with a Strombreg downdraft carburettor feeding through a Schweitzer-Cummins centrifugal supercharger.

Thanks to the fitment of the blower the engine was able to turn out 150 bhp at 4,000 rpm, a marked increase over the 115 bhp of the naturally aspirated version. The power is sent to the rear wheels via a three-speed manual transmission and a two-speed rear end, effectively giving the car six forward speeds.

With all that power on tap the car needed the best brakes that were available, so Auburn fitted each Speedster with hydraulic Lockheed drum brakes front and rear.

In a stroke of marketing genius, each Auburn Speedster came with this plaque on the dashboard attesting to its high speed capabilities. 100 mph was an impressive figure for a production vehicle in the 1930s.

Each 851 came with a plaque on the dashboard that said:

“This certifies that this AUBURN AUTOMOBILE has been driven 100.1 miles per hour before shipment.”

It was signed by land speed record holder David “Ab” Jenkins, though of course he didn’t personally drive each car to over 100 mph it was a successful marketing tool and modern Speedster owners love to show the plaque off.

The reason for the addition of the plaque was that the 851 Speedster was the first American production car in history to average a speed of 100 mph over a 12 hour period in an endurance test.

Remington Steele And The Faux Speedster

Decades after the Speedster 851 left production and the Auburn Automobile Company went bankrupt the car suddenly shot back into the public conciousness thanks to the American television series Remington Steele starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan.

Brosnan played a smooth talking conman in the series who played the part of Steele, the role would later help catapult him into the most famous role of his career, that of James Bond.

In season two of Remington Steele the detective agency acquires what appears to be a 1936 Auburn Boattail Speedster which was used in a number of episodes. The truth of the matter is that the car was actually a replica, however it looked real enough to fool all but the most experienced eye.

A very early version of the Batmobile is said to have been drawn based on inspiration from the Speedster, seeing one in black from the side like this makes it clear why it was chosen.

The 1935 Auburn Eight Supercharged Speedster Shown Here

The can you see here has had its history traced back to the early 1950s at which time it belonged to Dr Fred Zaidan of Pennsylvania.

The doctor and his family kept the car in their possession for 46 years in total, not selling it until 1998 when second-generation Auburn and Cord aficionado Hal Bjorklund acquired it. Bjorklund then hired Auburn specialist Mark Clayton to fully restore the car back to original condition.

After its restoration the car took Primary First Place at the ACD Club National Reunion in Auburn, Indiana. It would later be awarded Senior First Place and Best of Show at the Club’s West Coast Meet, and it was Certified Category 1 by the ACD Club.

It’s now due to roll across the auction block with RM Sotheby’s on the 8th of October with a price guide of $700,000 – $900,000 USD, and it’s being offered with no reserve. If you’d like to read more or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Alex Stewart ©2021 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

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