Watkins Glen Memoirs Part 6: 1952

We had never seen a Squire. Few had. It was rare. A picture of one had appeared in the SCCA Sports Car magazine in, I would guess, 1948 and was a car to be reckoned with, its beauty was supreme.

The car that Dad saw advertised was for Squire X101, the prototype. It had a 1 1/2 liter Anzani engine, 1500cc, twin-cam, supercharged and with a Wilson pre-selector gear box. Coachwork was Vanden Plas. It was the ultimate British sports car of the 30s. A phone call followed by months of correspondence secured the deal. It seemed that with each contact the price went up. Finally a price of 850 £ was agreed upon and the car shipped to the docks for the voyage to America.

I was ill at the time and I will always regret that I couldn’t go with Dad to pick up the Squire. So, Dad with some tools in his bag set off alone for New York on the train. A taxi took him to Pier 80 on the West Side where the little gem was sitting among crates. He was not able to secure any help getting it off the pier so he pushed it approximately one quarter mile to land where he then had to negotiate a busy four lane intersection to get to a gas station.

Fortunately the previous owner had carefully listed all the instructions on how to mobilize the car. How many clicks of the spark advance, how many clicks of the throttle, how many pumps of the Kigas. After filling it with essential fluids he used the crank (as advised) for the initial start. The Squire fired up right away and Dad set off towards Detroit through New York traffic. The car was a tight fit. It was awkward at best and the only way to gain any room was by letting the air out of the bladder that was the seat cushion. He was now sitting on the floor.

He got a speeding ticket on the New York Thruway for running at 75 mph in a 50 mph zone. That was encouraging; at least it would exceed the speed limit. Then rain added to the woes. The wipers didn’t work, the side curtains were not included and the top was so ugly that he left it down.

A fender came adrift and that necessitated a stop at a tractor repair shop for some iron mongering work to get him home. Aside from getting lost, the trip was uneventful. Oh, how I wish I had been along to ride shotgun. In 1963 our friend, the late David E. Davis did a wonderful story in Car & Driver about Dad and his Squire. David E. said that it was one of the best stories he had ever written. He was a one of the garagists (as Dave Davis) before his climb to fame.

The Squire and our garage became a center of interest. The car became so well known that a letter arrived at our house addressed, “To the owner of the Squire, Birmingham, Michigan.” It spent at least one winter on loan to the Henry Ford Museum.

Dad participated in a number of rallies and one race in the summer of 1952. It was also used to take Dad to work. That was perilous as the car had no fan and sitting in traffic would bring the water temperature to the danger point very quickly, but he developed a system. By staying in the right hand lane of Woodward Avenue he could, when necessary, turn right on to a side street and go fast enough for the two water pumps driven off the front of each camshaft to do their jobs.

One evening a cabbie pulled up next to him at a stop light and shouted, “What’s the matter with that goddam thing, it sounds like a tractor?” Since there were so many mechanical noises beginning with the very radical cams, roller tappets with 40-thousands clearance, helical gears driving the camshafts, the blower whine and the exhaust, that was a fair comment.

Dad entered the car in one time trial held at the Studebaker Proving Grounds in South Bend, Indiana. It was raining and as we drove I was manipulating the wipers by hand; the top was at home where the ugly thing belonged. We were stopped at a red light and the car behind us ventured too close and his front bumper touched the rear of the Squire. It would have been right on the crisp line where the aluminum was folded over the wooden sub frame. Any dimple in the car would have been a disaster but right there would have been catastrophic. My Dad was by any measure, an even tempered man. But, in this instance he erupted. He grabbed a screwdriver and leaped out running to the back of the car. He screamed, “You stupid sonofabitch, if there is so much as a scratch on this car I will run this screwdriver through your hood and then through your heart!”

Fortunately there were no marks.

The time trial was the next day and excessive night running had drained the battery. Dad was forced to execute the required LeMans-type start by using the crank to spin the Squire to life. He received a round of applause.

As beautiful as it was, the Squire was nonetheless 17 years old and while it had been the ultimate in its day, Dad realized that it was not going to be a racing car. Therefore, the car was entered in the concours at Watkins Glen rather than the race itself. The Squire had to go to the Glen, it belonged there!

This was also the fall that I was off to university and, most likely the end of the times when I would be able to be part of all the automotive fun with my Dad. Dad wanted to take Mom this year so he asked me if I would do the unimaginable; drive the Squire to Watkins Glen while he and Mom drove her Ford. How could I say no? In reflection I think it was his way of sending me off to new adventures with a great memory. Plus, I would estimate that I am the living driver with the highest number of Squire-miles under his belt. I soon became the master of the pre selector gear box. It was simple enough to use and certainly a positive feature on such a rare beast.

The events at Watkins Glen were horribly over shadowed by the tragedy that happened at the start of the feature race. Fred Wacker went just a little wide at the entrance to the first turn. Crowd control was spotty at best and his left rear fender sliced into some spectators who had been allowed past the rope barrier. A young boy was killed, the race was stopped and street racing at Watkins Glen came to an end.

However, the previous races, the Seneca Cup and Queen Catherine Cup events were loaded with a promising future.

John Fitch won the Seneca Cup race in a C-Type Jag. An OSCA driven by Bill Spear won the Queen Catherine Cup race followed by Jim Kimberly in another OSCA. A magnificent Simca special entered by its builder Californian Roger Barlow was third. (seen in the lead photo at beginning of article) Porsche made its Watkins Glen debut. There were numerous Siatas and a Giaur to add interest.

The tragically shortened main event featured the new Cunningham C4Rs and C4RK driven by Cunningham, Phil Walters, and John Fitch. Phil Hill was there driving a C-Jag entered by Charles Hornberg, the West Coast Jaguar distributor.

Watkins Glen was now a national event and what a pity it had to end as it did. But sports car racing had come of age, and despite the tragedies, would adapt and grow across the United States.

Being there for those early years was special for me, my father and my family. It was like a Woodstock event for car lovers with the crisp exhaust notes of racing cars filling the autumn air. At first it was cars that came out of WWII-induced moth balls. By the time 1952 rolled around there were purpose-built sports racing cars on the scene and drivers who would go on to national and international fame.

Cars, drivers and spectators were able to mingle unrestrained by ropes or rules. Rare and exotic cars were parked everywhere. They were just part of the wonderful scene that was generated at Watkins Glen.

Below are just a few of the cars that attended the Watkins Glen Road Races in the post war era, taken by Frank Shaffer.