Soap Box Derby Racer (1930s)

Last crawled date: 3 years, 2 months ago

A Soap Box Derby racer, designed, built and piloted by Bud Lane of Gary, Indiana during the early days of the sport. This was a compact, well-constructed yet familiar design of the day, with a narrow aerodynamic body that duplicated the look of full-sized motorcars. It featured flared metalwork over the leading edge of the cockpit to shield the driver, and axles that ran through the body of the car. Many cars at the time ran them underneath. The interior was upholstered and had a seat. I had to guess at components that were missing in my research, particularly the rear end, as the one photo that I had to work from showed the car as incomplete. It had no axles or wheels. Why I chose to construct this model, inasmuch as I had no information on its history, was the sad state that it was in in the photo, and my desire to restore it to how I thought it might have looked. Ah, the power of SketchUp! The livery shows the car's sponsor, Grant Street Lumber and Supply, and the driver's name. I estimate this racer to be from 1936, so I added the appropriate official entrant's certificate on the rear apron. The car features the then new Derby issue Goodrich Silvertown pneumatic wheels, which were superseded the following year by the more familiar solid rubber wheels. 1936 was the only year that the pneumatics were issued by the Derby. The steering wheel, also a guess, is a scaled down version - so it would fit - of one taken from a Ford Model T. Dimensions (estimated) Overall length - 63 1/4' Overall width - 30 7/8' Overall height - 23' Wheelbase: - 43' Body width - 13' Ground clearance: - 4 5/8' Cockpit opening length: - 17 7/16' #Bill_Wrigley #boîte_à_savon #caisse_à_savon #Gary #gravity_racer #seifenkiste #Soap_Box_Derby #ソープボックス