Los Angeles may be best known for making great movies and producing great movie stars, but in its day it also made some of the greatest race cars ever to turn a wheel. This notion formed the basis for the new exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum, “Legends of Los Angeles: Southern California Race Cars and their Builders.”
For the next 12 months, the Petersen Automotive Museum’s Charles Nearburg Family Gallery will be packed with some of the coolest race cars ever made anywhere, with entries from Frank Kurtis, Harry Miller and Fred Offenhauser to a real Dan Gurney AAR Eagle. There is even a real Old Yeller from Max Balchowsky. There are 12 cars in all in the new exhibit, arranged in a circle in the gallery, all centered around the Shelby Super Snake dragster once piloted by the great Don Prudhomme.
It’s quite a sight.
Parnelli and Judy Jones, sons PJ at right and Page at left. Grandkids in between.
To kick off the year-long exhibit, the museum paid tribute to another Los Angeles legend (Torrance and Palos Verdes, actually, but who’s complaining?): Parnelli Jones.
To get an idea of the respect Jones still commands among racers, consider the other racers who showed up to listen to Parnelli: F1 and IndyCar driver Stefan Johansson, IndyCar and Formula E driver Oriol Servia, Trans-Am great Tommy Kendall, IndyCar racer and team owner Chip Ganassi, five-time Baja 1000 winner Larry Ragland, at least a couple of Arcieros, desert racer Walker Evans, SCCA Trans-Am champ John Morton, engine builder Ed Pink and probably many others. They had all come to hear from and pay tribute to Jones.
Why? Because Parnelli Jones seems to have won races in just about every kind of car he ever sat in. He may be best known for winning the Indy 500 in 1963 driving a front-engined car, one of the last to ever win at the Brickyard. He came within three laps of winning the race in 1967 driving one of the infamous turbine cars, but something broke on lap 197. He won there as a team owner twice, 1970 and ’71 with Al Unser Sr. driving. He won the Trans-Am title in 1970 in a Ford Mustang and won the Baja 1000 twice in a Ford Bronco he’d named “Big Oly,” after his beer sponsor Olympia.
And that night Jones was there to tell a few stories, prompted by event emcee Tommy Kendall. For instance, how did Jones learn to race, in the days before driver training and giant computer simulators?
“We used to buy old cars for 10 or 15 dollars,” Jones said. “I’d fix ‘em up so they’d run, then I’d go out there and wreck ‘em.”
Times were different then.
From that he graduated to what was known as Jalopy Racing, which mostly consisted of ’32 and ’34 Fords “all gutted out.”
“It was a cheap form of racing,” he said.
It was going pretty well, but there was one thing holding him back.
“I had a lot of desire but no talent,” he said.
Jones credits wife Judy with calming him down enough that he could finish a race.
“Every Sunday when we raced, 200 cars would show up. They only took 16 for the main event. Once I got a hold of myself and stopped wrecking in the first turn, I started winning races.”
And he didn’t stop.
Kendall asked him how things are now that he’s hung up his helmet.
“First of all, I haven’t hung it up yet,” he said.
The crowd cheered.