On the subject of driving, and love, it should be remembered that the demand for motor fuel, for cars, trains and planes, is what has driven the success of the Texas oil industry since the dawn of the 20^th century. But first, there was a peculiar detour of automotive history; the fastest sprint car in the world in 1905 was steam powered. In 1904 the White Sewing Machine Company of Cleveland, Ohio built a steam works racing car named the “White Flier” but more commonly known as the “Whistling Billy” for the howl from its burners when racing. The car had a 20 horsepower steam engine, with a water boiler fueled by kerosene. This car was transported by rail to various auto races across the country, including a race held at Dallas Fair Park at the Texas State Fair in the fall of 1905. Pictured here is a color tinted postcard photo of the car, winning that race. 

Its world speed record, of nearly 75 mph, had just been established at a July 4, 1905 race held at Morris Park racetrack in Westchester County, New York. The car’s driver, Webb Jay, bested a competing driver named Louis Chevrolet, who was driving a Fiat 90 HP car (verify). This was a 5.5 mile race, at which Webb made one mile in 49 3/5 seconds, beating Chevrolet’s record of 52 1/5 seconds. The White Flier was able to win this race because its direct drive motor enabled far higher torque, and thus much faster acceleration from a standing start, than the best competing Fiat model. On Youtube you can see an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage Show, where he gives a mechanical explanation and demonstration of his White Steamer, taking it out for a spin. The problem dooming this line of automotive innovation was lack of driving range, and difficulty of operation. Forever after 1905, the fastest car in the world would be gasoline-powered.

Texans were fully swept up in the national mania for cars and car racing which followed. The first races were held on beaches, since there were no long paved roads at the time. From 1909 to 1914 the Galveston Cotton Carnival featured a wildly popular auto race, on a track which ran 2.5 miles down Galveston beach, enabling a 5 mile circuit race, or if repeated, a longer race. The races were held a low tide, after a team of horses dragged railroad rails broadside down the beach, to smooth the racecourse and clear out debris accumulated from depositions of flotsam at high tide.  (say one more sentence, what were winning models and speeds). In 1915, the beach was abandoned in favor of a specially designed half mile oval dirt track. From Galveston, car racing spread across Texas. Pictured here is the starting lineup at a 30 mile dirt track race held in 1921 at the West Texas Fairground at Abilene, Texas. By the late 1920s, Texas “moonrunners” transporting liquor illegally manufactured during the Prohibition era (“moonshine”) had come to value fast cars, in order to be able to outrun law enforcement officers. From this need arose a new technology, of modifying stock (standard manufacturer) cars in various hidden ways to improve their speed. Their drivers were engaged in a game of cat and mouse with Federal ATF agents seeking to shut down hidden distilleries and delivery runs. By the 1930s Americans had become enchanted with speed, and streamlining to increase it. In 1937 a fourteen year old Texan named Carroll Shelby walked out of a DPS office with his first driver’s license, and on his inaugural licensed drive that day was pulled over by a Dallas police officer for exceeding 80 mph on East Pike Drive. “It was the best street”, he would later remember.

The 1940s were difficult times for automobile enthusiasts in Texas, because the production of new cars for civilian use was suspended after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. The national supply of gasoline and rubber tires for existing cars was severely rationed for the duration of the war, and pleasure driving was considered frivolous and unpatriotic. Both Chevrolet and Ford released their first post-war styles in 1949, with completely different appearances from the prewar look, and customers came to the showrooms in droves. These two companies together produced 2.12 million automobiles in 1949, compared with 1.26 million the year before. America went car crazy in 1949; the newest advertising jingle was “See the USA in your Chevrolet”, soon made famous by Dinah Shore in commercials now immortalized on Youtube. You could not really see the USA easily by car in 1949, because the Interstate Highway system had not yet even been proposed. 1949 saw the organization of NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing), a group devoted to the “hacking” of standard manufacturers’ cars to boost their speed far above their design.