Goals - Dreams and a little piece of automotive history

Goals, dreams and a little piece of automotive History

There are goals and there are dreams.

Achieving goals is critical to success in business and life. Most people who clearly define goals and dedicate time?each day towards achievement will move forward in life. Looking back at a series of wins and losses. We celebrate the wins and we gain experience and wisdom from the losses.?

-now don’t worry, I’ll get back to this…...

Back story:

Many years ago, I bid $800 for a car based on a singe photo. It was listed on Ebay and sitting in a field in Tennessee. I won the auction, it cost me more the ship the car (or what was left of it) to my warehouse in Syracuse NY. It sat for a few years, then I started the work.

I removed the body form the chassis and tried to asses what I had.?I also started doing some research. Looking for anything I could find on the car. A 1956 Almquist Sabre. There was not much to go on but what I did find started me on a path of exploration and discovery.?

The Sabre played an important part American automotive history and started a “craze”….?then an industry.

A brief history:

Ed Almquist was a self taught automotive engineer. In 1946 he published the first widely distributed book (Speed and Milage)?on how soup-up engines and cars for better performance. I can be argued that the Hotrod movement in?southern California spread to a national phoneme because of his book. He then started Almquist Engineering the first mail-order hotrod parts business in America. It was a very successful company. Most of the big names in early drag racing got parts and speed equipment from Almquist.?

No sports cars on America

The troops returning home form Europe after the war, had been exposed to sports cars in England and France. As there were no cars like this made in America. Many enthusiasts imported European models. This was expensive and difficult.

In the early 50’s a discovery - Fiberglass,?was being touted as a new wonder material. It was strong very light and could be moulded into almost any shape.?

Birth of the kit car industry

Ed Almquist working with Clearfield Plastics and early fiberglass producer, designed the Sabre as an affordable sports-car body. The first car was built and shown at Watkins Glenn during a grand prix weekend and received rave reviews. Almquist began selling the bodies in his hotrod parts catalogs. This was the first “Build you own sports car” product on the market. The bodies sold for $275 plus shipping.

It is not known exactly how many bodies were sold. Most of the records were destroyed when Clearfield plastics folded.

There were many young entrepreneurs that thought the fiberglass industry would take over the automobile world. Within a few years there were scores of companies building a marketing all sorts of crazy fiberglass cars and bodies.?

About 5 years later, all but a few went bust. The excitement and enthusiasm for these affordable unique cars could not offset the reality that most buyers, did not have the skills to properly build a car nor the 1000+ hours it took to complete the job.?

A few companies did survive by offering complete kits with frames, suspensions and real directions. These kits did not require advanced engineering skills and cut the build times down considerably.

The little Almquist Sabre and a brilliant set taught engineer Ed Almquist?are likely responsible for the launch of the kit car industry.

Nobody knows where all the Sabre bodies went. There were several hundred sold. Today, my car is the only road going example I know of.

There is an original vintage racer which was recently sold to a collector in Chicago

and an H-Modified vintage racer just completed in California with a new body pulled from Molds made from mine.?

Our build:

When I considered the history of the Sabre and my skills and time available, I made the decision to let the Pros rebuild the car. I sent the Car the JR Speed Shop in Venice FL and off we went.

Authenticity was the critical drive force. Our goal was the build this Sabre as if we had just purchased the body in 1956 and had access to only 56 and earlier parts.

Chassis:?The car came on a badly rusted Crosley frame which had to be scrapped. We found plans for a Kurtis K500 Indi-car?chassis that was marketed back in the 50s to “build your own race car”. The plans were modified slightly to fit the wheel base of the Sabre and the chassis was build.

The Engine

When I got the car (or what was left of it) there was no motor. However it did have motor mounts that were set up for a early Ford Flathead V8-60. This is the smallest V8 every produced in America (1936-1941). The engine became very popular in midget sprint car racing in the 50s and 60s.?

Finding a V8-60 today proved difficult. Most of the blocks were heavily abused by the sprint car racers so finding one that was not cracked took several years. We ended up with 3 engines, disassembled and built into one good unit.?I was able to find rare Edleboch racing heads and we sourced a reproduction Eddie Meyers dual carb intake and a hot race cam to complete the engine build - estimated 110HP.?

The chassis features front and rear solid axles with a watts link centering setup. 4 wheel Lincoln drum brakes and a 1955 Chevy 10 bolt rear with 3:55 gears and a?positraction diff.?

All wiring is period correct cloth braid. The instrument cluster was sourced form a 1950s Kaiser Manhattan.

The only modern pieces on the car are the transmission (Borg-warner t5) and the fuel system. For safety reasons we opted for?an electric fuel pump and regulator with emergency shutoff. We opted for the T5 as this car will be driving in events through the northeast and the original 3-speed transmissions were dreadful.?

Paint is early Ford “Washington Blue” this was a popular color in the early hotrod days. Matching steel wheels and reproduction Ford V-8 hubcaps complete the look.?

Back to goals…..

I was beyond excited when the car was invited the the Amelia Island Concours de’Elegance this year. This is one of the premier car shows in the world. We made out travel plans and headed the Florida. The guys at JR Speed Shop brought the completed car over from Venice.?

We had rented an Air BNB on the coast, arrived in the evening and sat out on the 7th floor Ocean view balcony sipping some white wine. My wife Julie looked over at me.?"You did it….?Do you remember what you said when we lived in Burbank?”? ---We got married in 87, I was a guitar player and she worked as a Bank teller. We had no money and lived in a tiny apartment in a not so good neighborhood. We barely got by-----.

“We were walking by that vintage car place on Ventura Blvd” she continued, “looking at two Jaguars, We were dreaming about the future and You said: someday we’ll have car in a one of those big shows…..?You made your dream come true”.

It really hadn’t hit me until that moment. This was not a goal.?It was a dream. There is a difference. Every year, I achieve many goals in my life. We all do. But dreams? Most of them simply fade away. As we get older we forget about our dreams and focus on our goals. It’s easier.?But I can assure you from first hand experience, achieving a dream… is different,?goals, lead to new goals, dreams lead to a simple satisfaction.... and it feels pretty damn good. I thank my wife for sticking around though all the ups and downs and reminding me of what we achieved.?

Amelia Island Concours de'Elegance

This is one of the worlds top car shows. People go to great lengths and distances to get a car into this show. There were cars from all over the world and most of the great automobile museums had cars here. Just getting the invite was the win for us. This year they had a class called "Fiberglass Dreams" to show off this unique bit of automotive history. One of the advisors to the show was following my restoration and got me the invite.

We were shocked and excited when we were awarded 2nd in class!

Most of the cars in our class came from museums and were trucked in and out. We drove ours in and took it for a nice spin afterwards.

Ed Almquist who designed the car passed away in 2015 at the age of 94. While he never saw the completed car, his son John and grandson made the trip down to Amelia to meet and see the car.

So now, I am back home, the snow is falling and I am focused on achieving my personal and company goals for the first quarter. I feel fortunate for the opportunity to save a piece of history get to the show.

The little Sabre is in Florida until May, when we will bring it up to NY. We'll hit a few shows and cruise the beautiful finger lakes region...

.......and maybe not get too caught up on goals... Maybe we'll dream a little too.