“We want to congratulate AHRF supporting member, hot rodder and racer extraordinaire, Rob Manson, on taking the win for our July AHRF Hot Rod of the Month” so reads the American Hot Rod Foundation newsletter just out. “Not your usual flathead roadster, Rob’s car is what is often referred to as “an American Special” or a “Sports Special.” We like to think of it as a hot rod that does corners and stopping better than most but, either way, we were delighted to see that our membership chose to honor this important and historic car. Known as the Baldwin Mercury special, this car was designed and built by Willis Baldwin in his Santa Barbara home garage during the late 1940s using mostly salvaged Ford passenger car parts.
“Following the design of his first creation, the Baldwin-Payne special ( built in 1946 ), the car was based around a low-slung chassis and ran a full race flathead Ford V8. During the early days of its construction, a young kid and budding hot rodder in the neighborhood spotted the chassis in Baldwin’s driveway and asked if he could help work on it. Seeing no harm in this, Willis Baldwin put the young teen to work and quickly realized that he’d stumbled on a talented fabricator. This was only topped by Baldwin’s discovery that this young kid had an enormous gift for driving fast and smooth on the winding roads around the neighboring community Montecito and he not only enlisted him as the test driver but put him behind the wheel of the car for its debut outing at the 1950 Palm Springs road races. That kids name was Lee Hammock (https://ahrf.com/lee-hammock-may-2022-member-of-the-month/) and it was his three-man roadster club, The Santa Barbara Acceleration Association, that would organize and run the very first quarter mile drag races the world would ever see. Although a miscalculation from Baldwin would take his new sports special out of the running for the 1950 Palm Springs race (after the underage Hammock, driving under a fictitious name, set fastest lap of the event!) , he and the car would go on to compete at major sports car races throughout California during the early 1950s, including the 1952, ’53 and ’54 Pebble Beach Road Races. After a long slumber the car was restored in the 1980s and has since been vintage raced in California, England and New Zealand by its thoughtful caretaker, Rob Manson.
“We thank Rob for not only preserving this wonderful piece of American motorsports history but for continuing to use it as Willis Baldwin and Lee Hammock had intended.”
More at https://ahrf.com/1949-baldwin-mercury-special-rob-manson/
All of us in the Del Monte Trophy Group Race congratulate Rob on this accolade from his peers.
Posted by Marcus Bicknell 29 August 2023