Gary Clarke’s 1934 Ford/1958 Chevrolet (1961 to 1963) 

In the spring of 1961, a good friend, Gary Clarke, bought a 1934 Ford 3-window coupe less its engine and transmission. The coupe was an ex-drag race car that Gary and I planned on returning to a street legal hot rod, using a Corvette engine and transmission.

The ‘34 Ford was originally built and raced by the Harman brothers (who also lived in Mountain View), using an Oldsmobile engine, La Salle transmission, and a Halibrand quick-change rear-end. It was in fair condition but lacked most of the street required parts. There were no front brakes, no fuel tank or fuel lines, the windows were plexiglass, no wipers, only one bucket seat, no wiring, the body was in black primer, and the front suspension was jacked-up high for weight transfer.

We definitely had our work cut out. We started by removing anything welded or bolted to the frame that was related to racing. Next, we lowered the front suspension back to its original height by installing a stock transverse front leaf spring, along with having the front axle dropped 4” by the Mor-Drop Company in Oakland.  

The ‘34 came with a Halibrand quick-change rear-end that used a closed driveshaft or torque-tube. Because we planned on using a Chevrolet 4-speed transmission we converted the closed driveshaft to an open driveshaft by removing the torque-tube, splitting the rear wish bones, and attaching them to the side frame rails to act as traction bars. The original fuel tank had been removed for racing, so we mounted an 8-gallon Moon Equipment fuel tank inside the trunk, along with a couple of Bendix electric fuel pumps and a new fuel line from the trunk to the engine compartment.   

For an engine, Gary bought a new 327 cubic inch, 360 hp fuel-injected Corvette engine from our local Chevrolet dealer (less its fuel injection). Because a new Corvette fuel-injection unit was so expensive, Gary bought a used F/I unit off of a 1961 Corvette, and had a friend, Jerry King, rebuild it. Jerry worked for Motor Car Tune-up in Mountain View, and was our local expert on Corvette fuel injection.     

At the time there were a lot of used Corvette fuel injection units for sale in our area because they could be troublesome to keep tuned, and required special tuning equipment. Many owners replaced their F/I unit with a carburetor, sometimes trading the carburetor installation for the F/I unit. Used F/I units were a dime a dozen, with an average cost on the street of around $100, depending on the year the unit was made.

The new drivetrain parts came from one of our local speed shops: a Schiefer clutch and aluminum flywheel, a cast-iron Ansen blow-proof bell housing, custom driveshaft, and a used Corvette 4-speed transmission. To mount the Chevrolet engine in the ‘34 chassis, we used Hurst Company front and rear motor mounts, and I built the exhaust system using stock Corvette 2 ½” cast-iron exhaust manifolds, along with Corvair mufflers.

We had taken most of the sheet metal parts (hood, fenders, etc.) off of the ‘34 while we were re-doing the suspension and installing the engine. During this time Gary was preparing the parts for painting, doing all the body work and painting himself. The exact name of the color orange he picked out is unknown. The coupe started out with black sidewall tires, and its steel rims painted red (this was very popular at the time), later Gary changed to chrome wheels.   The interior of the car had been gutted of its upholstery for racing; luckily the Harmon Bros. had kept the original bench seat, door panels, headliner bows, and stock dash. The interior was re-upholstered in tuck and roll along with an exterior section of the roof. Neither of us can remember who did the upholstery work, or where it was done. We also reconfigured the stock dash for Stewart-Warner gauges and a Sun Tachometer. All the work on the coupe was done either in Gary’s parents’ single-car garage, or outside. We got the ‘34 running sometime in the early part of 1962, about the same time as I was installing a Corvette engine in my 1954 Ford. The finished ‘34 ran very smoothly and had a lot of horsepower, easily able to spin the rear tires in second gear.               

After driving the ‘34 for a couple of weeks we discovered a problem, the rear wish bones we had split had started to bend due to the increase in horsepower. We had unknowingly created the problem when we removed the torque-tube to convert the quick change rear end to an open driveline. With the torque-tube removed, the stock Ford wish bones were unable to handle the rotating torque of the rear-axle housing. Gary solved the problem with a quick, ugly fix, replacing the wish bones with 3” channel iron! Our plan was to replace the temporary channel iron fix with a pair of tubular traction bars, but we got busy with other projects and never did make the change.  

Gary’s ‘34 was pretty typical of the hot rods of the day; a hot engine with a firm ride that was driven locally only in good weather, and almost always at night. The ‘34 with its signature fuel injection hissing sound, and the sound of its quick change rear end always turned heads at the local drive-in restaurants. Gary never did any street racing with the ‘34, other than punching-off with someone at a stop light.   

We always took it for granted that Gary’s ‘34 was faster than my ‘54, mainly because his ‘34 was close to 500 pounds lighter than my ‘54. But a couple of weeks after I first ran my ‘54 Ford at Fremont drag strip, Gary got curious about the ‘34’s performance and took it to the drags. After making several runs, its best elapsed time was 13.01, at just over a 102 mph, Gary was a little disappointed. It should have outperformed my ‘54 Ford, which ran that same day with a time of 12:85, at 106mph. Other than the weight difference, both cars basically had the same mechanical parts, except for the ‘34’s stock exhaust manifolds and its fuel injection. We made a few changes to the ‘34’s tune-up that day but nothing seemed to make any difference in its performance. We left that day not really understanding why the ‘34 wouldn’t perform better.

Looking back after all these years, and now with years of drag-racing experience, I think the ‘34’s horsepower was part of the performance problem. But more than likely its final gear ratio was the real problem. The rear-end gear ratio in my much heavier ‘54 Ford that day was 5:20 to 1, and so was Gary’s ‘34. With the ‘34’s weight approximately 500 pounds lighter than my ‘54, I now think its final gear ratio should have been 4:20, or 4:30 to 1. Too bad we hadn’t thought about that then, it would have only taken us 10 minutes to change the gear ratio to find out if that helped the ‘34’s performance. By the fall of 1963, after driving the ‘34 for a couple of years, Gary wanted a more practical, all weather, girl-friendly car, and decided to sell the ‘34 (to an unknown buyer).  

The More Practical Car (1963 to 1964)

The more practical car ended up being a 1958 Chevrolet Biscayane, with a six cylinder engine, and a three speed column shift transmission. Gary’s plan was to make the car into a comfortable cruiser, using a low horsepower V-8 engine.

After driving the car for about 6 months, Gary had enough money to replace the engine and transmission. But when he got around to buying the engine, he had changed his mind about a low horsepower engine, and instead bought a new 327 cubic inch, fuel-injected, 360 hp Corvette engine just like the one he had in his ‘34 Ford, also less its fuel injection. This time he used a dual four-barrel Corvette intake that I had previously used on my ‘54 Ford.

For the running gear, he bought a factory Corvette clutch and flywheel, 4-speed transmission, and a 4:56 positraction differential. And just like his ’34, we used Corvette cast-iron exhaust manifolds along with a pair of Corvair turbo mufflers. Corvair mufflers were very popular at the time, they were quiet and had very little back-pressure. It took us about a week to remove the old engine and transmission and replace it with the new Corvette running gear.  

The Biscayane turned out to be a fast, comfortable street car. Gary used the car as a daily driver and nightly cruiser for a year or so, and then decided to sell it. The car was never street raced or tested at the drag strip. He sold the car to one of our high school friends, Jim Lyngar, who was selling his Chevrolet powered 1936 Ford coupe because he also wanted a more practical street car.

Not long after Jim bought the car from Gary, Jim and I took a road trip to return his visiting aunt to her home in the Phoenix, Arizona area. Before we left on the trip we changed the 4:56 rear-end gear ratio to a 3:54 ratio for gas mileage reasons. The car ran perfectly during the trip, delivering his aunt on time, and in one piece. Before we left for home, we spent a night cruising Phoenix’s main drag, checking out the local cars. The dry, July, 103-degree evening temperatures, combined with the car’s high rear-end gear ratio really affected the engine’s performance. The car was a dog, and could hardly get out of its own way.

Most of the trip was hot, and like most low-priced cars of the day, the Biscayane didn’t have air conditioning. But at the time, we didn’t know any difference. Nobody we knew had A/C in their car, so to us, this was just a normal hot summer trip. This was the second road trip Jim and I had taken together. Our first was to Yosemite Park and Bass Lake in Jim’s hot rod 1936 Ford coupe. We stayed in Yosemite for a couple of days and were able to watch the ‘firefall’ at Glacier Point before the park stopped the nightly event. Our trip to Bass Lake was cut short because of a fairly large gathering of outlaw bikers that made us feel very uncomfortable. Jim used the car for his daily transportation for several years before selling the car to an unknown person.