Big thanks to Charlie Chops for Black Widow info

[av8]

I've overlooked the "You have messages" line until this afternoon. Opened it up and found and old message from Charlie where he offered to send me a magazine from his personal stash that had an interesting, and as it turns out for me, and important missing piece to a siginficant puzzle in my automotive experience.

I worked for a couple of hours on a reply to Charlie's PM to me and when I submitted I got one of those dreaded admonishements, in this case "Unauthorized session.!" Not wanting to further tempt the PM gods, I copied my reply and am posting it here.
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Charlie -- Please excuse me for not replying sooner. I noticed the "You have xxx messages" for the first time just now!

I received the magazine. Thank you very much! The article helps explain some of the mystery surrounding the situation with the more-numerous BWs involved in drag racing, especially in SoCal. Except for some of the '57 BWs we drag raced being trimmed out as 210 post twodoors, they were essentiall the same as the cars supplied to SEDCO -- H-D suspension and radiator, quick steering, wide 14-inch wheels on 6-lug hubs and large brakes, 20-gallon fuel tank, H-D Positraction (3.90:1) rearend, close-ratio three-speed, and ultra-high compression (11.5:1) solid-lifter cam, and dual 4-bbl motors. There were a few "283-hp"  injected cars competing but they were generally not a match for the BWs.

In late Summer 1956 I was racing a '55 Chevy BelAir two-door post at San Fernando on a steady basis. I'd received the down-stroke on the car, when it was new, as a high-school graduation present for being a generally good kid who got good grades and didn't give my parents any grief. A new '56 210 four-door plain-jane grocery getter showed up one sunday, entered in A/S, where the kick-* Olds 88s, Cad CDVs, Chrysler 300s, and Buick Centurys hung out, and shamed the entire field with ETs a second-and-a-half quicker than the next best and speeds 8-10 mph faster. It got my attentio, and as well as that of many other races on hand that day. I got a pretty good look at the car with the hood up, and the first thing that grabbed my attention was the dual 4-bbl setup.

About a week later I was making my scheduled Saturday morning visit to Andrews & Evans hot rod and custom car lot on San Fernando Road in Burbank, next to Burbank Bob's Big Boy drive-in, to see what treasures had arrived for sale since the previous Saturday, and was attracted to pair of '56 Chevys, a 210 two-door hardtop and a BelAir convertible, both in Sierra Gold and Adobe two-tone, and both with dual 4-bbl motors!  Both were PG-equipped cars which would indicate that they were hydraulic-cam 225-hp motors. Not quite as nasty as the blue four-door but very tasty nonetheless. They were both sold before the week was out.

With what I'd seen so far, plus the usual race-track rumors, I figured something was up so visited my local Chevy dealer a couple of weeks later and talked to a salesman I was acquainted with. The dual 4-bbl 225 was a RPO, but there was no "back-of-the sheet" option for anything like the blue 210. Chevy was rapidly approaching model changeover and special orders were uncertain at best and actually discouraged so late in the model year. So, with promises of greater things to come I cooled my heels for the time being.

Soon after the '57s hit the showroom I checked back with my salesman pal but in spite of the increase in displacement and 20 additional ponies for the hydraulic dual 4-bbl there wasn't much to light my fire. Still, I persisted, and after several months learned that a back-of-the-sheet car was available but it was tough to get and priority was being given to established circle-track racers. Undaunted, I had him write an order for me and settled down for what would be the longest wait of my impatient young life.

I started bugging the saleman at the end of the second week and then called him a couple of times each week thereafter. About mid June he had good news; he had confirmation from Flint, the only plant where this RPO was built, that my order would soon be filled! In early July I arrived home from work one afternoon and before I could get out of the car, my dad, who was mowing the front lawn, hollered "Pollard-Carrel just called! Your car's here!" I was at the dealership in minutes.

The salesman ran out to intercept me before I could get to the area behind the building where they unloaded the haul-aways. "Where's my car?!" I asked, excited to lay eyes on this beauty I'd driven and polished and tuned so many times in my mind. "It's ... well, it's not quite the car you ordered," he stammered.

Indeed it wasn't. Instead of a sparkling Sierra Gold DelRay I was greeted by a transit-soiled 210 two-door sedan with an enormous gas stain on the deck lid—from a leaker on the upper deck of the haulaway—no radio, no heater, no rear seat, and no hubcaps (they were in the trunk), exposing those strange wheels, with six lugs like Chevy trucks. After all the months of waiting and dreaming, the disheveled plain-Jane sedan was a huge disappointment. (The salesman's story was that the car had been ordered by a local racer for running NASCAR events, but the guy became impatient waiting for delivery so drove back to Flint, got himself a motel room, and pestered the "factory guys" until he had a car. The story sounded plausible, particularly after waiting several months myself. The plain fact was that the Duntov Chevys were in big demand, and there were limited resources available to build them. All of them were built in Flint, with a great deal of special attention to ensure they received the right pieces, and this at a time when Chevrolet professed to have no interest or involvement in racing.)

"Go ahead, start it up," the salesman said. I slid onto the seat, without much enthusiasm, noting the homely rubber floor mats where there should have been carpet, checked to make sure it was out of gear, lightly touched the throttle and twisted the key, and ...suddenly everything was great! God was in His heaven and everything was right with the hot rodding world!

Never had I experienced an engine explode into life like this one did. It was the most wonderfully nasty motor I had ever had control of and I would have driven it off the lot straight away just as it was, but it would be another couple of days before I'd actually take possession of my "Black Widow", not until Friday and not before the dealership installed a radio and heater, added a back seat, resprayed the deck lid--and shot the wheels in white at my request--and detailed everything to perfection.

Taking delivery of that beautiful and wicked Chevy was one of the more  memorable experiences of my life up to that time. After giving my parents about a 30-second look at the new toy, I picked up my best pal, Bill Williams, and we visited four drive-ins that first night, three of them Bob's Big Boys -- Van Nuys, Toluca Lake, and Burbank -- plus Van de Kamps in Glendale. We were stylin', inheritors of  the reputation the Black Widows had engendered in California drag racing in just a few months.

We spent two years together, the '57 and I, cruising, street racing, drag racing, parking and sparking with girlfriends, with dozens of 600-mile ski trips to Mammoth Mountain added to literally hundreds of tire-lighting starts in the driving mix--44,000-plus miles and not so much as a cough or whimper from any of the Chevy's mechanicals in spite of the hard life it so willingly endured. It was tough on spark plugs (no coolant channel around the plug bores until the next year), rear tires, and brake shoes even with its large truck stoppers. But, it burned no oil between 2,000-mile changes, and it still had its original clutch, transmission, and differential, all in perfect working order when we parted company in 1959. I'll take some credit for its dependability and longevity because I always treated it with respect. For example, when racing, I never once side-stepped the clutch and always shifted at 6,800-7,000 rpm. The '57 never lost a street race and hardly ever missed being in a final round of legit drag racing.

There were several thousand '57 Chevy factory hot rods built and sold, and I've been told that the injected cars greatly outnumbered the carburetted cars. I always enjoyed the endless "discussions" about the superior 1/4-mile performance of the "270-hp" carburetted motors compared to the 283-hp injected version. I heard nothing convincing until the early '80s when I read an interview with a retired special-projects engineer who had been on A-D's staff at the time. As he explained it, fuel injection was Chevrolet's big-deal techno feature and the marketing and sales tub-thumpers built an entire program based on the magical "1-hp/cid"  produced by the injected motors. Fittingly, the less-exciting carburetted motors were said to produced 270-hp/cid, very respectable but certainly not as great as the injected wonders. The retired engineer's version of the situation was a little different and shed some light on the mystery: The 270s were downplayed significantly in favor of the more-glamorous fuelies, he said, and it was common to see dyno pulls of 300-plus hp from the ultra-high compression dual fours in Chevrolet's test program.

The proof of this pudding was evident at San Fernando Drag Strip when the cars were new and heavily campaigned. There were a couple dozen SF regulars, myself included, and almost all the Chevys were carburetted. Injected cars would show up from time to time, take a drubbing and go elsewhere. I'd always thought the "Black Widow" moniker grew out of the majority of the cars being black. There were a couple of DelRay two-door hardtops, but most were 210 and 150 two-door sedans and business coupes, with the 210s outnumbering the 150s in SoCal. Then, I read the neat historical piece in the copy of Muscle Cars magazine you sent me and I have a much better understanding of a piece of history of which, I'm proud to say, I was a participant.

Initially, the Black Widows ran in A/Stock where they absolutely dominated the class. San Fernando was an innovative track, so they put them in newly created Super Stock, even before the NHRA did. To give you an idea of how competitive this class was at San Fernando, most of the losing cars on any given Sunday were running quicker (low and mid 14s) and faster (96-102 mph) than Nationals-winning times and speeds elsewhere. For the doubters out there, let me add that San Fernando was not known for "squeezing" its lights.

Judged by the oh-so critical standards of many young rod builders today I was a bought-rodder, an early-day gold chainer. I didn't engineer the car, and I didn't build it. But I did pay for it by doing valued work in another field, I learned to drag race with it, I learned how to make it better, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. And on top of all that there was that involvement in a bit of automotive history. How 'bout that *?!

Thanks so much for the magazine, Charlie. I owe you big time.

Take care.

Mike Bishop

[HotRodLadyCrusr]

GREAT story Mike!  With your way of communication, I always feel like I'm right there in the middle of the story.  I do remember the outline of your story from some time back.  It certainly is tough to forget our first loves.  Let me ask you a question though, why did you only have the car for 2 years.  What happened to it?

[av8]

GREAT story Mike!  With your way of communication, I always feel like I'm right there in the middle of the story.  I do remember the outline of your story from some time back.  It certainly is tough to forget our first loves.  Let me ask you a question though, why did you only have the car for 2 years.  What happened to it?

Thanks for the kind words, Denise. I sold the BW when I quit drag racing to go motorcycle dirt tracking. I didn't completely forsake hot rods, however. My daily driver after the BW was a '39 Ford Deluxe coupe with a 283 Power-Pack SBC, a *' little car I shared with my dad in exchange for the use of his '50 Ford F-1 on race days. Good dad that he was, he let me personalize the truck, repainting in my racing club's colors -- white with red wheels and striping, and of course big and little wide whites! Except for the color, I'm doing my current '48 F-1 in the spirit of my dad's '50.

[Charlie Chops 1940]

Mike,

You are certainly welcome. I had hoped you would like it.  The price of admission to a great Chevrolet history lesson was dirt cheap. I only had to give away one old magazine (LOL). Now, that may not sound very important in the over all scheme of things hot rod, but I started buying car mags in my teens and I'm now 61. I believe  that I can honestly state that I have never thrown out a car magazine. And this may, indeed, be the first one I ever gave away! What better home for the particular magazine.

I had one of those plain jane '51 210 posts when I got married...black and white, wide whites, but alas, just a 265 with a powerglide. Indestructable car. It went to my Pop when I stepped up in about 1964 to the first '61 Impala in a long run of '61 Chebbies.

THanks again Mike,

Charlie

[av8]

Mike,

The F-1 sure looks good with the changes you have made

Thanks, Tony. Still more changes planned -- a bit of drop all the way around, shiny rear bumper, and a fresh Canadian Merc with a Mustang T-5.

If all goes well with Speed Week I'm thinking about heading for MOKAN for the HAMB drags and then heading south through Oklahoma, then West through the Texas panhandle, New Mexico, and Arizona where I have a couple of old pals, both hot rodders since we were kids and still involved. Gonna visit the Grand Canyon and maybe do some sailing on Lake Powell for a few days. My oldest pal has a *' trailerable sloop, and we have a shared boating history that's almost as long as our involvement in hot rods.

Lots of miles, but the T-5 should help me get my fuel consumption into the low 20s with the torquey flatmotor I'm putting together.  Probably not a good time to plan such a long road trip, but at my age I don't see any point in waiting around for a dime reduction in gas prices.