| More from John Albi: "I think the car had moderate potential,
but it was plagued with mechanical problems that were not solved due to
my short racing career. The car was not stable at high speeds.
Driving it down the back straight at the Riverside Raceway was a adrenaline
pumping experience due to the instability. I did, however, love powering
out of the last banked turn at Riverside.
I was beginning to form plans to replace the suspension, but was
interrupted by my father's death. It was necessary for me to help
in the dissolution of the family business in Los Angeles. This all
left me little time or funds to work on the car. I decided to complete
my education and get married, so I had to sell the car.
I sold the car in 1962 to Mickey Skinner, who lived in the Arcadia
area, but worked on an oil rig in the Santa Barbara Channel. I did
make it street legal and license it so that he could drive it on the street.
I don't know what he did with the car, but did hear that he took it to
the drag strip with the street tires and clocked in the 12X MPH range.
I also heard, but did not confirm, that the car was sold to someone
that collected cars and rented them for use in movies. Somebody told
me that they had seen my old car in the Pat Boone movie "State Fair".
This may be true since I got a brief glimpse of a car that looked like
mine being driven onto a trailer in the movie; I saw about 30 seconds
of the movie one night when I was "channel flipping." I have no idea
where it is now; that is probably best!" |
