50 Years and Counting

In 2004, I read a story on Oldrace.com by Bill Pitts about his trip to Italy in search of the Hawaiian FED. Through the ’70s and ’80s I made numerous trips to Italy to the Turin Auto Show, which was one of the world’s important auto shows because of the city’s coach-building heritage: Bertone, Pininfarina, Zagato, etc. For some time the show was held in the old Lingotto Fiat factory, the one with the test track on the roof immortalized in the first “The Italian Job” movie.

I’d seen the Hawaiian in what was then the Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia museum. At that time, the late-’70s, the dragster was not that old—20 years—so I didn’t give much thought as to why it sat there, forlorn and slightly out of place. Only when Pitts’ story appeared did I question its location, as had Pitts.

Fast forward to 2016. I’m on the 50^th anniversary world tour with Ron Hope’s Rat Trap AA/FA and we’re racing in Hockenheim, Germany, which is relatively close to Turin. The Biscaretti, now the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile (The National Automobile Museum), had completed a full restoration in 2011 and it had to be worth a visit.

I had made an appointment through the obliging director, Rodolfo Gaffino Rossi. Being August, he was on vacation, but Giancarlo would be there to look after me. I got there early, and Giancarlo, who didn’t speak English, and his team were positioning the car and wiping off the dust. It seemed they had only just pushed it out of storage.

It was akin to meeting an old flame and realizing we both had grown old. The Hawaiian, compared to the impeccably restored Ferraris surrounding it, appeared to have been driven hard and put away wet, which is exactly what it had experienced. Upon returning home, I interviewed Roland Leong for the American Hot Rod Foundation and this article.

In 1967 Roland parted with the car that had given so much. What happened, he recalled, was that Ray Brock of Hot Rod Magazine, asked if he wanted to sell the car. Leong was okay with that because he already had a new car. It was to go to a show promoter in Europe. Leong planned to clean it up, but the buyer said no, he wanted the car as it was when it last raced. And, off it went to Italy.

A bit of history: born in 1945, Leong moved to California in 1962 to work for Dode Martin and Jim Nelson at Dragmaster in Carlsbad. In 1964, he built himself a blown front-engine dragster, his first fuel car. Unfortunately, on its maiden outing at Lions, he failed to find the ’chute pull and went off the end of the track, running an 8.01 at 191 mph. He was unharmed, but his mom, Teddy, who was also his sponsor, suggested that since he now had a wife and baby daughter, maybe it was time to rethink his situation. He took the mangled dragster to Kent Fuller and had him front-half the car. Meanwhile, he’d met Don Prudhomme while he was driving the Greer-Black-Prudhomme car. When Keith Black parted with the G-B-P car, he suggested Prudhomme drive for Leong.

The following year, the pair won the Winternationals, working their way through the 32-car field to a final 7.76 at 201.34 mph. It was Prudhomme’s first national event win. This prompted a U.S. tour culminating at the Nationals where they won again. At the end of the year, Prudhomme inked a deal with B&M and its TorkMaster joint venture with Milodon.

Leong’s new shoe was Mike Snively, and damn it if they didn’t repeat the previous year’s success, winning the 1966 Winternationals and the Nationals at Indy. They went on to win the 1967 March Meet then parked the two-time champ for a new Don Long car that won its first ever race at Riverside setting Low ET and top Speed.

Returning to more current times: upon its arrival in Italy, the thread of the story gets loose. When I saw the car in 2016, there was no one to ask regarding its history on the continent. Pitts says it was donated to the Museo in 1969 by the Fiat Motor Company after being displayed at the 14^th Triennale di Milano, a design and art expo. I Googled it and discovered four images of the Hawaiian on display there in 1968.

Upon my visit, the Hawaiian was intact but indeed sad. The Cerny paint was in good shape except for a few ouches on the Tom Hanna-formed nose and around the cockpit on the beautifully formed ’chute box. The Keith Black Chrysler Marine Hemi looked complete but appeared to have received only cursory attention.

So, what does the future hold for the Hawaiian? Will it sit all but forgotten in Italy for another 50 years? From what Leong and others shared, various people have approached the museum to purchase it to no avail. Under Italy’s laws, any object over 50 years of age is classified as a cultural asset and may only leave Italy after having been registered with the Belle Arti department of Italy’s Heritage and Cultural Activity Ministry. Even items that leave Italy temporally in order to be exhibited in another country or sold at auction require official approval.

Sad, but there it sits for the foreseeable future.

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