One For Django
Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:22 am
Visited Glen the other day and his shop was like stepping into a time warp. I'm going to help him find a good (non trackor pulling home) for his Allison which is in beautiful shape!!!
In 1946, Glenn Volz got his first taste of helping others make their cars go faster.
Volz returned from World War II to a 1932 Ford Coupe and used his G.I. Bill to enroll in what is now Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls.
He arrived at the school days before classes began and found a part-time job at a service station.
That put me in pretty good shape then," Volz said. "I was selling speed equipment and fender skirts and Cadillac hubcaps right out of the trunk of my car at school.
"Then I'd go work in the service station and of course, my parts room was right there in the trunk. Somebody come in and looking at the car and was interested, I'd show them goodies, and that's how I got started."
He started the Salem Speed Shop proper in 1950 and 58 years later, Volz, now 81, has the same flat top haircut and still sells speed equipment to hot rodders, racers and people who want to go fast.
He moved the business in 1952 to a building which looks like it has the same paint that it had in the 1950s, when he was turning out lightning fast flathead engines for race cars and hot rods.
Volz says he has been in the business nearly six decades because of, "my love of hot rods and my stubbornness."
Volz never was a competitive driver — he only drove race cars to try to figure them out — preferring to lend his talents to wrenching on the cars.
He never sponsored race cars as such, but would lend his business' name to cars in which he had an involvement, such as a T bucket-bodied, mid-engine roadster that he took to the salt flats of Bonneville, Utah, in the 1950s in land speed competition.
Ernie Hall was the driver and the car was owned by Justin "Jug" George, both deceased, and Volz supplied a Ford flathead with hemi overhead valve cylinder heads.
They never set land speed records, but Volz still has the engine as it came out of the car a half-century ago.
Volz remembers Hall as a one-of-a-kind driver.
"He could make a run and we'd go down to pick him up and bring him back, and he could tell me the RPM at every mile point down the course and he could tell you the temperature," Volz said.
"Everything that was on that gauge panel, just bang, bang, bang. I could whip out a little slide rule and figure and I could tell within two miles an hour of what out time slip was going to be when we went up to pick it up."
Volz's engine-building skills helped many racers during the years, but just as important, he was the source to find the best go-fast equipment.
In the years before finding a set of cylinder heads was an easy task, a speed shop was the best source.
"Glenn, I think, really took pride in if anyone called and they said do you have something, he could say yes," said Randy Ashford, a longtime customer and bench racer.
If you need a set of vintage, finned aluminum Edelbrock heads for a flathead Ford or a dual carburetor manifold for a Nash Rambler, Volz might have it in stock.
When people call Edelbrock looking for long ago, out of production parts, if they don't have it, they often refer customers to Volz.
If you are in the market for an Allison engine for a P38 fighter, he happens to have a new one that comes with a story.
On the drive back from the salt flat races in Utah, he came up with the idea that an Allison engine would be good for a streamliner.
"I finally decided that an Allison, single engine on gas, if it were in a proper chassis, should have the potential of 300 miles per hour, I figured. I finally found it, but the project never got off the ground. I've been keeping it warm and dry ever since."
He thought that a 12 cylinder Allison aircraft engine would make a streamliner scoot right along on the salt. Amazingly, this engine was only run on the dyno new in 1940. It was crated up and sent overseas as a spare for a P-38 Lightning, but was never used. It was returned to the surplus yard, and Glen bought it in '47. He never got around to that project, and the motor still sets on the original wooden stand it was bolted to 60 years ago. Made mostly of magnesium and aluminum, Glen says the thing is amazingly light. I told him that it would bring him a nice chunk of change, and he said he would only consider selling it for a warbird restoration...no tractor pullers!
Dave Walker of Scio started driving to Salem Speed Shop from Roseburg in his 1934 Ford in the early 1950s to find speed equipment he couldn't elsewhere.
He stopped by Tuesday afternoon in the same two-door Ford.
"And then in the 50s, 59 or 60, I moved to Idaho," Walker said.
In about 1987, "... I was working with a friend up here in Salem and I just came by here and seen your lights on. I came in to visit and he asked me, 'Didn't you used to drive up here in a little 34 two door?'
"Since then, I moved up here. Have to stay close to the Speed Shop."
Shortly after opening, a racer was towing down Highway 99 from Portland on his way to race at the Salem Speedway, which was down the street.
He saw the speed shop too late to pull into the parking lot and came to a half on the shoulder of the highway.
Volz said he didn't know the racer, but they got to talking and the young driver mention that he had raced in the Carerra Panamerica recently and won the race.
Herschel McGriff, who would go on to a career as one of the greatest stock drivers to come from the West Coast, was the young racer.
"I pulled off a Floyd Clymer book and laid it out on the counter, and he'd never even seen the Floyd Clymer book that was featuring him," Volz said.
When he opened the shop, he was open seven days a week, but found that prevented him from his first love.
"I tried to make it seven days a week and I soon saw that wasn't going to work because gee, I wanted to go to the races," he said.
"I could go to the night races at Salem Speedway, but the drag races were at Eugene then, and so I soon changed that and closed Sunday and Monday."
Volz is one of the few people around who can properly rebuild a magneto distributor or a distributor for a Model T Ford engine. He still has more than a few tricks he can throw at such a component to produce speed. Salem Speed Shop is a Vertex magneto service center. Here is a 1940's magneto machine. Notice the number of gaps along the back...NINE. A lot of the big radial aircraft engines back then had 9 cylinders.
When people need a vintage component for a race car or a hot rod, they still come to see Volz.
"I don't sweat it," Volz said. "I didn't throw any of it out. It's become saleable again."
Glen built a dyno from pieces he found and others he purchased from war surplus. Most of this one is home built. The big dial is from an aircraft dyno. That's 1000 ft/lbs of torque! He says it worked just fine, but he made so much noise running the thing, that he became unpopular in a hurry with the Salem Police. He wants to set up a better muffler system for it.
Glen lays out the louvers carefully before punching them in. A lot of his machinery is WWII surplus. He's got a great place, and it looks like he stays pretty busy on a myriad of projects.
He has a behemoth Magnaflux machine from 1940 that came from Navy surplus. It started out life on a warship and a very old, but still functional Suntune diagnostic machine. Mid 50's
In 1946, Glenn Volz got his first taste of helping others make their cars go faster.
Volz returned from World War II to a 1932 Ford Coupe and used his G.I. Bill to enroll in what is now Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls.
He arrived at the school days before classes began and found a part-time job at a service station.
That put me in pretty good shape then," Volz said. "I was selling speed equipment and fender skirts and Cadillac hubcaps right out of the trunk of my car at school.
"Then I'd go work in the service station and of course, my parts room was right there in the trunk. Somebody come in and looking at the car and was interested, I'd show them goodies, and that's how I got started."
He started the Salem Speed Shop proper in 1950 and 58 years later, Volz, now 81, has the same flat top haircut and still sells speed equipment to hot rodders, racers and people who want to go fast.
He moved the business in 1952 to a building which looks like it has the same paint that it had in the 1950s, when he was turning out lightning fast flathead engines for race cars and hot rods.
Volz says he has been in the business nearly six decades because of, "my love of hot rods and my stubbornness."
Volz never was a competitive driver — he only drove race cars to try to figure them out — preferring to lend his talents to wrenching on the cars.
He never sponsored race cars as such, but would lend his business' name to cars in which he had an involvement, such as a T bucket-bodied, mid-engine roadster that he took to the salt flats of Bonneville, Utah, in the 1950s in land speed competition.
Ernie Hall was the driver and the car was owned by Justin "Jug" George, both deceased, and Volz supplied a Ford flathead with hemi overhead valve cylinder heads.
They never set land speed records, but Volz still has the engine as it came out of the car a half-century ago.
Volz remembers Hall as a one-of-a-kind driver.
"He could make a run and we'd go down to pick him up and bring him back, and he could tell me the RPM at every mile point down the course and he could tell you the temperature," Volz said.
"Everything that was on that gauge panel, just bang, bang, bang. I could whip out a little slide rule and figure and I could tell within two miles an hour of what out time slip was going to be when we went up to pick it up."
Volz's engine-building skills helped many racers during the years, but just as important, he was the source to find the best go-fast equipment.
In the years before finding a set of cylinder heads was an easy task, a speed shop was the best source.
"Glenn, I think, really took pride in if anyone called and they said do you have something, he could say yes," said Randy Ashford, a longtime customer and bench racer.
If you need a set of vintage, finned aluminum Edelbrock heads for a flathead Ford or a dual carburetor manifold for a Nash Rambler, Volz might have it in stock.
When people call Edelbrock looking for long ago, out of production parts, if they don't have it, they often refer customers to Volz.
If you are in the market for an Allison engine for a P38 fighter, he happens to have a new one that comes with a story.
On the drive back from the salt flat races in Utah, he came up with the idea that an Allison engine would be good for a streamliner.
"I finally decided that an Allison, single engine on gas, if it were in a proper chassis, should have the potential of 300 miles per hour, I figured. I finally found it, but the project never got off the ground. I've been keeping it warm and dry ever since."
He thought that a 12 cylinder Allison aircraft engine would make a streamliner scoot right along on the salt. Amazingly, this engine was only run on the dyno new in 1940. It was crated up and sent overseas as a spare for a P-38 Lightning, but was never used. It was returned to the surplus yard, and Glen bought it in '47. He never got around to that project, and the motor still sets on the original wooden stand it was bolted to 60 years ago. Made mostly of magnesium and aluminum, Glen says the thing is amazingly light. I told him that it would bring him a nice chunk of change, and he said he would only consider selling it for a warbird restoration...no tractor pullers!
Dave Walker of Scio started driving to Salem Speed Shop from Roseburg in his 1934 Ford in the early 1950s to find speed equipment he couldn't elsewhere.
He stopped by Tuesday afternoon in the same two-door Ford.
"And then in the 50s, 59 or 60, I moved to Idaho," Walker said.
In about 1987, "... I was working with a friend up here in Salem and I just came by here and seen your lights on. I came in to visit and he asked me, 'Didn't you used to drive up here in a little 34 two door?'
"Since then, I moved up here. Have to stay close to the Speed Shop."
Shortly after opening, a racer was towing down Highway 99 from Portland on his way to race at the Salem Speedway, which was down the street.
He saw the speed shop too late to pull into the parking lot and came to a half on the shoulder of the highway.
Volz said he didn't know the racer, but they got to talking and the young driver mention that he had raced in the Carerra Panamerica recently and won the race.
Herschel McGriff, who would go on to a career as one of the greatest stock drivers to come from the West Coast, was the young racer.
"I pulled off a Floyd Clymer book and laid it out on the counter, and he'd never even seen the Floyd Clymer book that was featuring him," Volz said.
When he opened the shop, he was open seven days a week, but found that prevented him from his first love.
"I tried to make it seven days a week and I soon saw that wasn't going to work because gee, I wanted to go to the races," he said.
"I could go to the night races at Salem Speedway, but the drag races were at Eugene then, and so I soon changed that and closed Sunday and Monday."
Volz is one of the few people around who can properly rebuild a magneto distributor or a distributor for a Model T Ford engine. He still has more than a few tricks he can throw at such a component to produce speed. Salem Speed Shop is a Vertex magneto service center. Here is a 1940's magneto machine. Notice the number of gaps along the back...NINE. A lot of the big radial aircraft engines back then had 9 cylinders.
When people need a vintage component for a race car or a hot rod, they still come to see Volz.
"I don't sweat it," Volz said. "I didn't throw any of it out. It's become saleable again."
Glen built a dyno from pieces he found and others he purchased from war surplus. Most of this one is home built. The big dial is from an aircraft dyno. That's 1000 ft/lbs of torque! He says it worked just fine, but he made so much noise running the thing, that he became unpopular in a hurry with the Salem Police. He wants to set up a better muffler system for it.
Glen lays out the louvers carefully before punching them in. A lot of his machinery is WWII surplus. He's got a great place, and it looks like he stays pretty busy on a myriad of projects.
He has a behemoth Magnaflux machine from 1940 that came from Navy surplus. It started out life on a warship and a very old, but still functional Suntune diagnostic machine. Mid 50's
Re: One For Django
Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:33 am
Thanks Jack! Great read. Sounds like someone I would LOVE to meet if given the chance! 
Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:44 am
WOW! Thats awesome, Jack.
???
Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:13 pm
You guys would love this place!! Old car race photos/ trophys/knicknacks galore. It's the oldest speed shop in the US
The Allison is in beautiful condition and well cared for. 100% complete still with the desiccant plugs in it!.
Still attached to the bottom part of the original crate. Dry and dusty.
The Allison is in beautiful condition and well cared for. 100% complete still with the desiccant plugs in it!.
Still attached to the bottom part of the original crate. Dry and dusty.
Wed Nov 26, 2008 1:20 pm
I can't really say where this is... but look at this impressive collection. Real nice guy in his 80s. I took these pics 3 years ago.
http://www.hotrodhucksters.com/chad/privatecollection/
http://www.hotrodhucksters.com/chad/privatecollection/
Wed Nov 26, 2008 2:35 pm
Wow Chad, that is a treasure trove!
Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:25 pm
THere was a P-47 canopy hanging from the ceiling too. I don't think I got a pic of it though. We walked around with our mouths on the floor the whole time! 
????
Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:41 pm
BTW I forgot to mention that the current issue of Hot Rode mag has a article about Glen.
Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:40 pm
Django wrote:I can't really say where this is... but look at this impressive collection. Real nice guy in his 80s. I took these pics 3 years ago.
http://www.hotrodhucksters.com/chad/privatecollection/
Wow...I don't know what most of the stuff in that place is, but that's amazing. What is this?
???
Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:43 pm
Looks like a Needlefish or a Gar 
Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:51 am
Wow....that is serious collecting to say the least.
Amazing what you sometime stumble upon.
Tks for sharing Django
Amazing what you sometime stumble upon.
Tks for sharing Django
Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:45 pm
What's the dash on the engine?