| (12-1-08) From Charles Greenlaw:
"I ran across your website this morning, searching for FUBAR Special
items. Dave Dunbar was my brother-in-law.
He bought the car from Cannon Engineering in North Hollywood.
It had been started by one of the McAfee brothers and finished by Ford
Robinson (or vice versa). I remember the day he picked it up.
It had languished outside the shop for some time under a tarp. We
towed it home and worked at trying to start it. The original engine
was a flathead, as you note. I don't recall the exact specs but it
was a stroker with a Mercury crank. Dave got it running and cleaned up
enough to start racing it in local SCCA races -- Paramount Ranch, Goleta,
and Riverside are some that I got to go to with him.
He blew the flathead engine eventually and replaced it with a Buick
nailhead he bought from Max Balchowsky. I think he replaced the transmission
with a LaSalle as well, keeping the torque tube driveshaft. I was
in the Navy by this time and didn't get to see him race this combo.
When this engine came apart, he parked the car and never touched
it again; I have no idea why. When he died (in a small plane accident)
his wife and son decided to resurrect the car and put it back on the race
course. The drivetrain is all new -- 351 Windsor engine, 5-speed,
9" Ford rearend -- but the body remains the same.
It is titled as a 1938 Ford Roadster. The frame and (original)
runnng gear was 1938 Ford. The front fenders were MG-TC (as you observed
on your website), the rear fenders were Model-A. The grill shell
was from a Franklin -- the grill insert from a refrigerator. The rest of
the car was fabricated.
Thanks for preserving these memories. Racing with Dave was one of
the high points of my teenage years."
(12-1-08) From Ron Cummings:
"The McAfees were not related. I am pretty sure that Jack McAfee
had nothing to do with the Faber but it is quite possible that Ernie McAfee's
shop may have worked on it. Ford Robinson was a friend of Big Jack
McAfee and that may be causing some of the association with Jack."
(12-1-08) From Pete Van Law:
"Gotta jump in here. Neither Jack nor Ernie were into Specials,
but Ted Cannon and Jim Sealy were. Whether or not Ford Robinson was involved,
I don't know, but he used to hang around Jack's place, especially in '54,
prior to the fifth running of the Carrera PanAmericana, when I worked there.
I thought he'd been involved with midgets and possibly sprints, but
big bore Specials I kind of question, although he and Jack were good friends
with Ted and Jim.
I used to make periodic trips to Cannon Engineering, hauling parts
back and forth, but other than the Cannon Specials languishing in the yard
- 1st the CR1 and then the Offy coupe - I don't remember enough space to
build anything else, especially inside. Of course, the Fubar could
have been outside, under cover, while the Cannon cars never were.
Regardless, that was a long time ago, and my memory can't always be trusted." |
