"California is a car enthusiast's paradise. It has everything. It has a wonderfully varied climate and terrain. It has wealth and a booming economy. It has the present and in this century the car and California have become synonymous. In microcosm, the past, present, and future of the automobile in our time can be seen on the roads of California, and it seems always to have been that way... [The car] is treated with intelligence, imagination, and inventiveness. You can do what you will with [the car] and find many to share your bent. You can build, buy, race, change, or restore anything on wheels almost any day of the week. In short, with a car in California, you can have fun."
Where did this quote come from? Car and Driver magazine... in 1962! This was a time when that magazine was published in New York City, of all places. They felt it was the center of culture in the United State, but acknowledged that it really wasn't the center of car culture. What else was going on in 1962 in the California car culture? Let's have a look.
The authors point out that it is a great place to drive a convertible "sports car", and cite the MG Midget, Mercedes 300SL, Jaguar, MGA, and Alfa Romeo. Hmmm. The only ones left are the Mercedes and Jaguar. Some things do change. Pictures show a Rolls-Royce parked in Beverly Hills. That is still fairly common. They show a customized Cadillac in front of a house. While this was a sedan, we do see some custom work on Cadillac Escalades in many places. A humorous picture shows a Ferrari parked in front of a pile of garbage which is in front of a house. That could happen today, but isn't too likely. And then there is a picture of a MG TC, the car that started the sports car culture in the United States. It is long gone, as is the MG brand now.
The sixties were the days when custom cars were really much more common than they are today. This is partly because of cost, but mostly because of safety and emission requirements, coupled with unit body cars rather than body-on-frame cars. A place called "Bruno's Corvette Repairs" is shown. It was doing custom fiberglass work on cars, not only Corvettes. It was on Ventura Boulevard in the valley. I wonder what is there now.
One section is titled "Living is Casual in California, But the Competition is Keen, Sometimes Even Cutthroat." Hmmm. That not only describes car culture, but very often the business environment as well. The picture was taken at Riverside Raceway implying that the competition was car racing. The track is long gone now, but was built in 1957. Another picture shows a race in 1913 on Catalina Island. Wow! It is a picture and a race I've never heard of. Drag racing is another form of car racing that essentially started in Southern California about that time.
Roger Barlow wrote an article in this section of the magazine. He was a key figure in the emerging car culture. He designed and built Simca-based racers. Does anybody remember that marque? He encouraged Phil Hill to race -- and work at his shop in what now is West Hollywood. Other interesting people involved at with him were Clark Gable, James Dean, and Cary Grant. We do know those names. Some more directly connected with racing and not connected with movies were John von Neumann, Jack McAfee, and Sterling Edwards. Sterling Edwards even built his own sports car -- several of them. Note that this was an era before racing started at Laguna Seca outside Monterey. Racing then was on the Pebble Beach circuit among the trees. The Concours d'Elegance was held after the race.
Speaking of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, that is another form of car culture competition in Southern California that continues today. The "best of show" at Pebble Beach is an award that many enthusiasts covet. J.B. Nethercutt won several times, and even Jay Leno seeks the award these days.
In 1962 there were 650 students enrolled at a school called "Art Center School", located at 5353 west 3rd Street in Los Angeles. The school has since moved to a hillside campus in Pasadena (and expanded to a former wind tunnel building in downtown Pasadena). It is still producing car design graduates as well as art and design students in other areas.
Have you heard of the Dolphin America? I don't remember that marque. It was a sports-racing car built in Southern California -- actually in El Cajon. It was a very sophisticated chassis with a Coventry-Climax engine. The price? $7000 and that was a lot of money in 1962.
Then there was a less sophisticated sports racer, called the Thundermug. It was bult using three Maico air-cooled motorcycle engines. It was another one I don't remember.
This was the time when Frank Kurtis was building Indy racing cars in Glendale. He also branched out into production cars, which resulted in the Muntz Jet. That is one that I remember. It was named after the financer who was a TV salesman who made millions selling first TVs to Southern Calfornians in the fifties. Unfortunately neither Kurtis nor Muntz knew much about building cars in real production numbers.
Another name that was familiar to enthusiasts then and remains so is Ed Iskenderian. He was a pioneer in grinding competition camshafts. Many racers and enthusiasts had an Isky cam in their engines. Even Mickey Thompson's Challenger used an Isky cam.
One photo sequence shows something that wasn't so common those days, and isn't all that common, but does happen today as well. It shows a Maserati dealer, Harry Finer, talking to a customer, David S. Perry. The customer sits in a car in the showroom, then signs a $13,000 check for the car.
Other big names in the car culture of Southern California that were well known in the rest of the car world were Mickey Thompson who I have already mentioned, Carroll Shelby who made his cars here, Dean Moon who made many custom parts for cars, and George Barris who still has a shop and showroom in North Hollywood.
Two dealers need to be mentioned who were key players in the car culture here. Unfortunately their names have disappeared from the scene. Otto Zipper and Vasek Polak. Both came from Europe and ultimately brought a lot of cars from there with them. Both of them favored the German marques of Volkswagen, Porsche, and BMW. Otto Zipper also imported Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Zipper's store was in Beverly Hills, and Polak's store was a bit out of the way in Redondo Beach.
This was the time when the reputation of Southern California as the center of car culture was being built. Things haven't changed a lot.
