Among the celebrations, this is also the time of the year when we reflect on those who won’t be with us next year. We lost some very important, highly influential, and just plain colorful guys from the universe of cars in 2012. In no particular order, let’s take a look at some of the most memorable personalities who died this year.
Carroll Shelby. An American original, with a repertoire in our world as large as his native Texas. Shelby was lucky to survive long enough to invent the Cobra and become a Ford icon. He raced, and won, despite a dangerous heart defect that ultimately forced him from the cockpit and eventually, required both heart and kidney transplants. But while he raced, Shelby was a feared and stellar road-course specialist, his career capped by a win at Le Mans aboard a works Aston Martin in 1959 that he shared with Roy Salvadori, who also passed on in 2012.
Bill Jenkins. Grumpy, as he was immortalized, occupies the pantheon of the most influential Chevrolet racers ever with peers such as Don Yenko and Smokey Yunick. A Cornell-trained (though he never reached his degree) mechanical engineer, Jenkins was one of the great geniuses who developed the small-block Chevrolet V-8 into one of drag racing’s most powerful weapons. He was a Super Stock terror and an early pioneer of Pro Stock. Before the widespread adoption of clutchless planetary gearboxes, Jenkins was a ferocious wielder of four-speeds. According to some accounts, he laid down 250 straight passes without missing a shift.
“Broadway Bob” Metzler. If drag racing is a show – and it is – then this guy was its P.T. Barnum. His wild, over-the-top promotion put his strip, Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin, firmly on the map. Besides huge fields and zany action, Broadway Bob was the only guy crazy enough to sit on the nose of a jet dragster as it did thunderous afterburner pops, waving with one hand, clutching a can of Pabst in the other.
Richard Jones. Here was a man who, all his life, lusted after owning a Tucker. First came a career in the Navy, which began just as the Tucker 48 made its ill-starred entrance. Twenty years later, he gathered himself and 13 other enthusiasts as charter members of the Tucker Club. He later restored several of the cars, which brought him to the attention of Francis Ford Coppola, who hired him as chief mechanic for the cars used in his epic Tucker: The Man and His Dream. He finally achieved his lifelong dream of owning a Tucker: Sadly, it was number 1023, which had been gutted in a warehouse fire and then crushed. Richard bought the hulk and buried it in his yard.
Al Moss. Al was one of the best allies that a fan of British sports cars could ever conjure. The founder of spares supplier extraordinaire Moss Motors, Al bought his first MG in 1948, began racing it, started repairing other people’s MGs at the shop he opened on Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles and then, in 1961, began his parts business. Al sold Moss Motors in 1977, but remained highly active in vintage racing and was a regular at the Monterey Historics. Earlier in his life, he was also the West Coast distributor for both Allard and the Rootes Group cars.
Chris Economaki. Chris stood alone as a pioneer of American motorsport journalism both in print and on television. He published a weekly supplement on auto racing for a New Jersey newspaper that grew into National Speed Sport News, long the racing industry’s most influential publication. A comment in his Editor’s Notebook, especially about an up-and-coming driver or event, was considered priceless. The number of new fans he made for the sport through his honest, incisive commentary, beginning with ABC Sports, is incalculable. Millions became hooked on racing for life just because Chris explained it for them so clearly on TV.
Norm Grabowski. It would be notable if Norm was only a hot rod icon from that wild world’s early era. But Norm also created what has to be the world’s most famous and immediately recognizable hot rod, ever. He shorted a Model T touring body and a Model A pickup bed, then mated them together on the same frame. The fad T, the T bucket, was thus born. The actor Edd Byrnes immortalized it by making it his ride on 77 Sunset Strip. It launched countless imitations that continue to this day.
John Fitch. War hero. Pilot. Inventor. Race track builder. Safety innovator. And beyond all this, John Fitch was both an aristocrat and one of the United States’ great post-war racing heroes. He was a contemporary and team driver with the acclaimed Briggs Cunningham, and his ability was such that he was tapped as a works driver for the Mercedes-Benz sports car team that also included talents such as Fangio, Moss and Karl Kling. John was the Sports Car Club of America’s first national champion. He designed Lime Rock Park in Connecticut and supervised its construction. Plus, he patented an influential design for less-lethal crash barriers.
We also lost luminaries in 2012 including designer Tony Lapine, Butzi Porsche, Motor Trend editor Walt Woron, Sergio Pininfarina, Cotton Owens, Buick historian Terry Dunham, American Car Spotters Guide author Tad Burness, Hoosier Tires founder Bob Newton, Tommy “T.C’ Lemons, Alan Mann, Canadian collector and museum founder Stan Reynolds, street racing legend Big Willie Robinson, the Michigan Madman EJ Potter, Automobile Quarterly founder L. Scott Bailey, and the gregarious Indianapolis 500 veteran Jerry Grant.