Hi Gang…
Recently shared the exciting news in a story last week revealing two significant “finds:”
- The Jim Potter collection of Woodill Wildfire photos – unseen for nearly 60 years and stewarded by his son Jim North
- The story of Ed and Phil Cox building a Wildfire sports car – a part of the collection noted above
Click here to review the story sharing this great find on Forgotten Fiberglass
Today, as before, I’ll let the photos and captions do the talking. Let’s review part 2 of a 3 part story that photojournalist Jim Potter completed nearly 60 years ago today.
Click here to review part 1 of this story
Ed & Phil Cox Build a Sports Car: The Woodill Wildfire (1956)
Another Source of Photos Revealed:
Upon close inspection of the story above you’ll see that Jim Potter used another set of photos of someone else building a Woodill Wildfire – in the story today and throughout all three parts of the story. Jim’s captions tell that “neighbors” were helping, but the real story actually was about Bert Newport building his Woodill Wildfire.
Summary:
What a great find this was and I’m excited to be able to share this story with you here at Forgotten Fiberglass. Great thanks again goes to Jim North – Jim Potter’s son – for the permission to share this story here with all of you.
And some more great news for those of you who celebrate the history of Woodill Wildfires and vintage ‘glass. It looks like Phil Cox and his wife Linda are in the planning stages of joining us at the 2015 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance where we may have not 1 but 2 Woodill Wildfires on the field.
Be sure to encourage Phil to join us at Amelia in March, 2015 by leaving your thoughts and comments in the “comments area” below. Let ’em know you want him to come to the show gang! And each of you should join us at Amelia too 🙂
And be sure to stay tuned to Forgotten Fiberglass for the next part of this story.
Glass on gang…
Geoff
These articles are great, having the pictures is wonderful.
I really like the the chainfall hooked to the branches of the walnut tree when they were dropping the flathead in.
I do have to say, they are a few steps above being called shade tree mechanic’s
Great Story Geoff,it makes me want to get another Glasspar G2
Regards, Dennis Gerdes
@Bob O’Meara. Most of the full-size specials (100″ wheelbase) in the 50s used Ford mechanicals. The driveshaft rotated inside a tube called a “Torque Tube.” This tube was filled with “rotating driveshaft” and oil and ran from the differential to the transmission where it was sealed. Buick’s used this same configuration through the late 1950s too. Hope this helps….Geoff
OK- I just have to ask – call me stupid or whatever – (no, that was not really an invitation for all of you to do so)…. In picture No. 23 it says they are bolting the radius rods to the brackets welded to the driveshaft…..Now, how does that work? Doesn’t the driveshaft rotate round and round – how can they be bolted to it? Yet it also appears to be bolted to the differential – is that just a tube for the actual driveshaft?
(This comes under the category that the only dumb question is the one you didn’t ask….)
Bob
I love this story, you can follow the build by the sub-titles but you can also examine every picture in detail to see the frame build, body mounts,and gussets. Thank you for sharing all this with us fiberglass freaks.