| (6-24-08) From car owner Ed Savin's son Mike Savin:
"That photo of the Morgan
could not be from the same weekend -- though it certainly could be 1957.
Dad was driving the Morgan on the street after the AC arrived. And
the
Morgan was
raced up until the AC arrived. Dad drove the Morgan on the street
for some time -- it had a locked rear end, and dad delighted in taking
it around corners on two wheels -- scaring the hell out of me.
LA Times sports editor Steve Dredge wanted, and purchased, the car.
I believe he raced the Morgan for some time. Much to my surprise, I recently
read Andy Granatelli's autobiography, "They call me Mr 500" -- and Steve
is mentioned near the end of the book: he became Andy's publicist.
The AC was shipped from England in a crate on the deck of a freighter.
When it arrived at the docks in San Pedro, the car was covered with bird
shit. Dad's men cleaned the car
and drove it to the East LA shop.
As purchased, the car was white with black interior. As Bill
states, it was raced only once with the original paint job. The next
outing, Sacramento, the car had its new livery.
Bob Oker took first in class and first overall at that event at Goleta
-- something he was to repeat a number of times. He was giving the
drivers of 300SLs, Jaguars, Austin-Healeys, etc. fits -- as Bob was
driving a 2-liter car, beating cars with more displacement and more
horsepower.
There had been other ACs in the US prior to this one, but this was
the first AC ACE with a Bristol engine in the USA. Later AC Bristols
had a "Bristol" tag as part of the AC logo -
this one had only the AC logo.
Again, from an article I read years ago, Shelby mentions that he
had been impressed with the performance of an AC - and I believe it was
this one.
I also inserted a short Vignolle article - mentions Ed Savin's challenge
- this has to do with a certain race at Palm Springs. Oker and E
Forbes-Robinson (Austin-Healey) had run
1-2 in an earlier production race. The officials allowed them
to start at the rear of the Big Bore production race -- with Dr Dick Thompson
on the front row. Before too long, Oker and E F-R were passing and
headed for the front of the pack -- the officials evidently black-flagged
Oker and E F-R to avoid embarrassing Thompson with his factory-backed Corvette.
Oker would likely have won the race." |
