Vanderbilt Cup Races

GS: When working on the Alco, is there any history that you and your team learned or came across about the car that wasn’t known prior to your first time wrenching on it?

Rob: We never knew anything about the Black Beast or the Vanderbilt Cup Races prior to working with Howard. But once we stated working together, I started to read the Vanderbilt Cup Races website articles and discovered how meticulous Howard is about preserving and documenting the history of everything related to Vanderbilt Cup Racing and especially the Black Beast. I love learning about new areas of automotive culture, and I absorb as much as I can whenever I can.

Photo caption - A throwback photo of the Black Beast while getting some work done at Ida Automotive. - 

GS: How does your work mindset differ when you are working on a hot rod or a muscle car as compared to the Black Beast? Do you approach it in the same way or are there key differences?

Rob: Working on the Black Beast is similar to working on a hot rod, but a little different than working on other cars, like muscle cars, for example, or other types of cars that we get in the shop. If I’m looking at an old hot rod that was built in the late 1930s through the 1950s, those cars are primitive and have lots of character in the way they were built and, in the techniques, used and passed down from reading and learning about pre-war race cars like the Black Beast. The Black Beast formula consisted of trying (and succeeding) to be is the smallest and lightest body possible with the most powerful engine possible in as lightweight of a car as possible. This is the same DNA that hot rodders used when building their cars century’s after the Alco competed and dominated in the Vanderbilt Cup races. When working on the Black Beast it feels so similar to hot rods in the regard of being purpose built for speed but yet its so diffident from hot rods because of how everything mechanical is just bigger and beefier like the incredible 11.6 Liter 680 cubic inch straight-six engine and the tall wooden spoked wheels.

Photo caption - A close up of the massive straight-six engine of the Black Beast. -

GS: What was the preparation experience for getting the Black Beast ready for the 2021 Race of Gentlemen?

Rob: When we take a car to race, no matter what type of racing it is - Road racing, Drag Racing, and so on - there’s always a lot of pre-race preparation going into the race car. In this case we are drag racing on a sandy beach next to the ocean for the Race of Gentlemen in Wildwood, New Jersey. The Black Beast is not a typical car with an enclosed transmission and driveline. Instead, it has chains and sprockets that are the drive linkage that converts the power from the engine to the rear wheels, and those mechanical parts are all out in the open air. If sand or salt water gets in the chains and sprockets, we will have a big problem. So, our solution to protecting the exposed mechanical driveline of the Black Beast was to create an enclosure that protects the sprockets and the chains. The enclosed isn’t air-tight, but it keeps the sand out. We did not want the enclosure to look like a modern alluvium aircraft-inspired add-on to the Black Beast. Instead, we created a removable leather enclosure with snap buttons. We weathered and aged the black leather to make it look as old as the Black Beast. We also paint matched, and weathered the snap buttons so that they would not distract you from the rest of the Black Beast. The Black Beast was a crowd favorite at TROG, and if it weren’t for the leather enclosure, it wouldn’t have lasted very long on the sand. 

Photo Caption - The Black Beast racing at the 2021 Race Of Gentlemen. 

GS: What is the driving experience like when driving the Black Beast? And how does it compare to other cars you have driven before?

Rob: Well, it's deftly unique, with its massive wooden wheels and ginormous steering wheel, and you have to start the car in a unique manner compared to your average non-racing, focused classic car. However, most race cars have a unique way of starting up and driving them. So, with that mindset, I am very much prepared and familiar with what I am about to drive when I get behind the wheel of the Black Beast. But say if you come from only having experience driving modern cars (even modern supercars), you will find yourself in another world regarding what it means to drive when driving the Black Beast. The vehicle I own closest in terms of how it feels behind the wheel compared to Howard's Alco is my 1932 Ford Roadster Hot Rod that Gene Winfield built. Both cars capture that sense of sheer power and torque in a lightweight car while holding on to a large steering wheel and hearing the engine sing its songs of power. 

Photo caption - For ease of visual comparison, I made a simple side by side comparison between the Black Beast and the 1932 Ford that rob mentioned above - 

GS: Since you have worked on multiple cars of Howards such as the Alco, and Tucker are there any similarities between the Alco and the other cars within Howards collection?

Rob: They share very few mechanical similarities, but both are unique, and the Howard Kroplick car collection is undoubtedly focused on extraordinary historical cars - and that’s what I, too, am all about: unique and historic cars. If you put me in a working relationship with a car collector with typical collector cars, I would enjoy it and get very efficient about maintaining the vehicles and getting the work done. But that gets boring and our niche is on the challenging world of unique and one-of-a-kind collector cars, and Howard has quite a taste when it comes to his collector cars. Now, in terms of comparing Howard’s Tucker (or any Tucker) to the Black Beast, the Tucker’s shifting mechanism is the opposite of all other manually shifted car transmissions, all thanks to the Cord pre-selecting shifter equipped on the Tucker cars. The Alco is more “normal” in its shifting mechanisms compared to the Tucker, but it's still quirky and not the ideal vehicle to learn how to do manual shifting. Do I lose time learning how to adapt to each of the quirks of these rare and unique cars? Yes, I do, but I genuinely enjoy learning new things and especially taking on a challenge in preserving and restoring automotive history. The engineering part of my brain enjoys the challenge, and certainly not the business side of my brain. The business side of me knows that working on very uncommon cars results in the countless unpredictable hours it may take to solve each unique and potentially uncharted challenge we will face when working on the cars. Everything takes a bit of research when working on vehicles like the Black Beast and the Tucker; that’s the most significant similarity between them and the other iconic cars that Howard owns. Doing research goes a long way when working on these cars because the more we know, the more we can learn and problem-solve as quickly and efficiently as possible for each task we face at the shop.

Photo Caption - This photo is from our open house car show where Rob Ida talked about the Challenger III and the restoration that himself and his team preformed on the car Note the Black Beast in the background. - 

GS: I'm very curious about how the Black Beast preformed on the Dyno back in January of 2021? And what is the back story as to how the idea to do it came about?

Rob: The idea behind getting the Black Beast on the Dyno was, I believe, Howard's idea! And this was the Black Beast's first time on a Dyno. There was nothing really different in preparing the Black Beast compared to other cars we used on the Dyno machine. To explain a Dyno machine in the simplest terms, a Dyno is a stationary rolling roadway that calculates the vehicle's power from the drive wheels. To strap the car down, you place straps down over the wheel drums and chassis and have a large fan placed in front of the car for airflow cooling. When conducting each pull, you put the car in a higher-up gear so there are no shifting/ changing gears while the power calculations are being made. We aren't measuring speed; we are measuring power and torque. With the Black Beast, since the wheels are made of wood, and the tires are tall and skinny. These factors are the only things that made this Dyno pull different from other cars we have had on the Dyno in my shop. It was so much fun to see and hear the Black Beast on the Dyno, and it performed well, too! Without tuning or adjusting ignition timing, the Black Beast produced 50HP at 167 ft LBS of Torque at 40 MPH through the rear wheels.

Photo caption - The Black Beast on the dyno machine at Rob Ida's shop. - 

Throughout my interview with Rob Ida while talking about the Black Beast, Rob had a huge smile on his face and I could clearly tell just how much passion he has for the Black Beast as well as the other cars within Howard's car collection. We discussed more than just the Black Beast so be on the look out for more articles with of my interview(s) with Rob Ida.

Thank you again Rob for your amazing craftsmanship and friendship!