The NieKamp Roadster was conceived in 1949 , when Bill NieKamp was a halfway - ripened human beings playing a young man ’s game . Forty - three age old at the time , he set out to build a spicy rod he could enter in car appearance and race at Southern California ’s dry lakes .
A torso assembler and painter at the Plymouth factory in Long Beach , California , NieKamp bought a 1929 Model A buggy consistency for $ 15 and canalise it over 1927 Essex soma runway . NieKamp performed most of the work himself , using very basic techniques .
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Whitey Clayton fabricated the bellypan , bonnet , and course nozzle , while NieKamp made the floorboard and nerf legal profession . Under the hood , NieKamp set up a 1942 Mercury flathead V-8 with Evans head , a Weiand intake manifold , a Winfieldcam , and a brace of Stromberg 97carburetors .
NieKamp kept skinny record along the way , and the aggregate cost of the labor came to $ 1,888.72 .
Before NieKamp rush the car , he showed it at the inaugural National Roadster Show in Oakland , California , in lake trim with a passenger - side tonneau and no windshield . The meticulously build rod won the first America ’s Most Beautiful Roadster honor .
NieKamp raced the runabout at El Mirage for three season , culminating with a run of 142.40 mph in July 1952 . Soon thereafter , he turned down a $ 2,800 offer for the motorcar , opting instead to raffle off it off to benefit a racer who had been badly injured at Bonneville .
The succeeder of the raffle , a untested soldier named Dick Russell , drove it as his daily driver and raced it at the Santa Ana Drags before selling it to Delmer Brink in 1958 .
Brink decide to switch in a Buick nailheadengine , but never completed the work , and sold the car to thenRod & Customassociate editor in chief Jim " Jake " Jacobs in 1969 for $ 1,300 . Jake , who had recognise the car as the very first AMBR victor , restored it in a 1971 series of articles in the magazine .
Jacobs ' effort made the NieKamp roadster the first historical hot rod to be restore , a pattern that would come into style 20 days later .
After the flathead Jake installed died in 1975 , he replaced it with a 265 - cidChevyV-8 . The small block stay on in the car until 1997 , when the roadster was invited to contend in the first Hot Rod class at the 1997Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance .
With respect to the car ’s storied past tense , Jacobs restored it to its 1950 configuration , install another flathead , removing the windshield , and adding a tonneau . Now display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles , this hot rodding image is keep up for posterity .
