The Don Zabel Story

The most legendary of hot rodders, racers, race car builders, and speed equipment manufacturers hung their shop coats in Glendale. Their diversity ran the breadth of motorsports like Ed Winfield, whose high-performance Ford Flathead heads, intake manifolds, and cams were the ones that set records.

Winfield was on the same street as famed land speed racer and subsequent tech writer, Barney Navarro, who machined his heads and intake manifolds for Flathead engines as well. Close by, Frank Kurtis, race car designer/manufacturer (Kurtis Kraft), cranked out over 550 turnkey Midget racers and Indy-winning Champ Cars from of his facility. Not far was A.J. Watson who built winning Champ Cars (seven 500 victories) out of his small garage-he built the last roadster to win the 500 in 1964 driven by A.J Foyt. The Justice Brothers Race Car Repair & Fabrication (Ed and Zeke) plus Bob's Big Boy Drive-In, all got their start in Glendale. "We hung out at Bob's. That's when they had the carhops you know," Don reminisces. "Everyone went there." Get the picture?

When Don was 12, he came home with his first car, a '14 Model T roadster. "The guy down the street had it," he says, "and had nothing but trouble with it. He finally gave up on it, had it half apart, and wanted to get rid of it. I gave him $5.

"My dad came home that night and found it in the driveway and had a fit. But I found out later he said that I, being a dumb kid, would never get it running and he'd never have to worry about me driving it. But I did get it running. At first I drove it up and down the driveway, then around the block, and ..." Don quickly states with a twinkle in his eye, "I never did nothing illegal you understand," he laughs.

Body Beautiful
Don's first hot rod was a three-window Deuce coupe. Naturally, the in-thing (then and now) was a roadster: "There was an older guy a couple of blocks away who had a roadster. He was getting tired of the open car. He used to drive by our house all the time; I was still living at home with my folks, and I kind of wanted to trade him cars. He didn't want to trade his whole car because mine was half hopped up messing around, so we decided to unbolt the bodies and trade them."

"After the military closed Muroc, we experimented with a bunch of other dry lakes. During the war we went to El Mirage, even though we weren't supposed to be racing. Of course there were Harper and Rosamond. We even went to a place called Bicycle Lake (35 miles northeast of Barstow), but El Mirage was the best of the bunch and they're still using it." (The last sanctioned meet took place at Harper Dry Lake July 19, 1942. All racing was stopped in the United States during World War II.)

"Guys we knew from junior high and high school met at Gunderson's folks' house in Eagle Rock to form the club. Several guys came out of the Navy with peacoats and started wearing them. I didn't even have one ... I borrowed one a time or two. I still have a couple of derby hats," Don laughs.

Don's Deuce was larger than his fellow Trompers' A-bones (Don had the only '32 in the club) leading to his handle. "That's where my nickname 'The Admiral' came from because my '32 was bigger than the Model As in the club so they called my roadster 'The Boat'. So I became the Admiral of the Boat," Don laughs. Consequently, Don was stuck with The Admiral handle.

Don joined the SCTA member club the L.A. Gophers in 1945 ... "because I wanted to run El Mirage" (the Trompers didn't become SCTA members until May 1946). "That's where I got tied up with Jack McGrath, Manuel Ayulo, and Connie Weidell."

Rather than be drafted, Don joined the Army Air Corps at the tail end of the war. "I always wanted to be a fighter pilot, but because of my eye-I've worn glasses since kindergarten-I became an aircraft mechanic. Officially I wasn't a pilot, but I did fly because we test-hopped those things after we rebuilt them. I've had a private ticket (pilot's license) for years."

Don was discharged in 1949. "I got discharged at Turner Field in Albany, Georgia, and drove straight through to Indianapolis. I hooked up with McGrath, Ayulo, Don Freeland, and Bob Sweikert, a bunch of guys who came from the old California Roadster Association (CRA began in 1945 but changed its name in 1957 to the California Racing Association) who were racing Sprints and Midgets by that time in the area."

"I stayed at the Wendover Air Field (where the 'Enola Gay' B-29 that carried the atomic bomb was based) ... the military was gone, but we had permission and were told as long as we left the place clean we could stay there. A couple of blankets, or a sleeping bag if you were high class, was all we needed."

Roaring Roadsters
McGrath and Ayulo cut their transmission teeth at El Mirage, but half-mile Carrell Speedway in Gardena and Gilmore Stadium in L.A. were their stepping stones to the big leagues-the Indy 500 big leagues.

Legends Cars and go-karts are the fast-track for aspiring young race drivers today, but 60-plus years ago it was cut-down Model Ts. Track roadsters proved that hot rods were serious race cars just as the purpose-built Kurtis Midgets.

The Ts were the poor man's open-wheel race car because they were cheap to build. They could be raced on the lakes, the circle tracks, and, yes, the street. Make no mistake, Don, Jack, and Manny were hard-core street racers. Street racing was a way of life in the '40s for its sheer convenience. (Dragstrips, on every corner, hadn't come to town yet.) Don jokingly uses the term hooligans, but they were hooligans to Joe Public.

Watson graduated to front-engine Championship Cars with fellow rodder Dick Rathmann as his driver at Indy in 1950. To this day Watson is still building front-engine Offy-powered roadsters for vintage racers at his 25-acre farm. "I remember Don in my shop helping out," 87-year-old Watson says, "and I remember being at Don's shop when he was building the Sprint Cars."

Open For Business
The legendary hot rod racers were never content to work for someone else. Art Chrisman, Ak Miller, Jerry Kugel-they all had general repair garages by day, but the lights burned till O-dark thirty on their race cars.

When Robinson left the business in the early '60s, Don moved his shop to La Crescenta, California, and continued solo until the property was sold out from under him in the late '80s.

When the City of Los Angeles was looking for journeymen mechanics, Don became their heavy equipment mechanic for 12 years until he retired. We're sure the bulldozers had a bit more oomph after Don worked on them.

"I've been fooling around going to races, air shows, restoring old cars, and building hot rods since I retired 10 years ago," Don says, now living in Tujunga, just north of Burbank, California. Like so many of our first-generation hot rodders, Don has never lost his fire. This 82 years young hop-up has gone back to his roots, building a gennie '32 roadster. Don is coming up on 60 years of being married to his wife, Barbara. "I've known what I wanted to do ever since I went to Gilmore when I was 6 years old. I haven't changed my mind yet." It looks like that pollution is still in your system; Don don't change a thing.