Vanderbilt Cup Races

Long Island has a ton of stories like this. Love it. You guys are amazing with your research ability. Cool how you attached the “NOW” pics. Good post!

From Update-1/23:The Vanderbilt Cup Race Driver who was Developing a Unique "City" Near the Motor Parkway

Identify the people and compnies involved in this race car
Preston Tucker, Harry Miller, Gulf Oil Company

Who was the driver of this race car and in which race(s) did it compete?
Al Miller in the 1947 Indy 500

What other race cars are associated with the Mystery Foto racer?
The Tucker/Ford cars in 1935

From Mystery Foto #3 Solved: The #66 Tucker '48 Special Racer at the 1947 Indy 500

Ditto to Joe Oestrele’s comment.

From Update-1/23:The Vanderbilt Cup Race Driver who was Developing a Unique "City" Near the Motor Parkway

Thanks for the historical research.  That area was not very far from where I lived as a child in the 1950’s.

Ken Harris

From Update-1/23:The Vanderbilt Cup Race Driver who was Developing a Unique "City" Near the Motor Parkway

Special interest to me:  Area is less than 3/4 mile from Billy Joel"s early Meeting Lane, Hicksville home, and less than mile from my childhood Heather Lane, Levittown home.

From Update-1/23:The Vanderbilt Cup Race Driver who was Developing a Unique "City" Near the Motor Parkway

No clue - but where do you FIND these fab. things, Howard?  Sam, III

From Mystery Foto #3 Solved: The #66 Tucker '48 Special Racer at the 1947 Indy 500

Lest any other curious LIMPers also get confused, the Frisia was purchased from the RHL Line by the Hamburg-American Line ca. Jan 1922 (and was reportedly to be renamed Holsatia, after the 1868-1916 ship of that name).  Sam, III

From William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.'s Yacht: Tarantula II (1913-1918)

Re the Transactions document, 06 Apr 1920, Lots 176 and 178, my ex and I each worked with a Fippinger (related to each other) ca. 1970-90; I’ll see if I can track either one down.  This could prove interesting.  Sam, III

From Update-1/23:The Vanderbilt Cup Race Driver who was Developing a Unique "City" Near the Motor Parkway

This is one of 3 cars Gulf Oil had Harry Miller build in a partnership with Preston Tucker. They were built in 1938 and ran at Indy in 1939, 1940 and 1946. George Bailey was one of the drivers. This car currently has a Jaguar 6 cylinder engine with a ZF automatic trans. Originally they had a Miller supercharged Six. Miller and Tucker also partnered building the 1935 FWD Ford Indy team.

From Mystery Foto #3 Solved: The #66 Tucker '48 Special Racer at the 1947 Indy 500

Your site gets better and better.
Did you get to meet Steve gettle.an in great neck.he drives a open car that was owned by the vanderbilts
You two have to meet.
I mentioned you to him at one show and he said you had not met yet.
This was last year.
I hope you have met by now.
If not let me know a d I will get you two together.
Jim barnes

From William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.'s Yacht: Tarantula II (1913-1918)

Thanks again.  Your crew never seems to fail when it comes to highlighting lost bits of history.  I love posts like this.
-joe o

From Update-1/23:The Vanderbilt Cup Race Driver who was Developing a Unique "City" Near the Motor Parkway

My parents collected antiques.  I am in the process of cleaning out my 92-year-old fathers home and I found an envelope attached to the back a dresser that my parents had bought from an antique dealer. In the envelope is a note hand written by Gladys van Ausdall stating that this highboy Dresser belonged to her father. It states the dresser never left Coldspring Harbor since the middle 1800’s and had been at their home on Grove Street as well as in the roadhouse. We still have the dresser and if I can figure out how to attach a picture of the note and the dresser, I will.  The note is signed by Gladys and dated 1966.

From Mystery Foto #59 Solved: The Van Ausdall's Hotel in Cold Spring Harbor, NY Circa 1914

Mystery Foto #3… Famed race car designer Harry a. Miller was commissioned by Gulf Oil to build a trio of mid engined cars for the 1938 Indy 500. (all-wheel drive, inclined six cylinder, supercharged Miller power) Only one car got to Indy but not in time to qualify. One of this trio qualified in 1939 and two in ‘41. Post-war one of these Miller designs, now entered as the Preston Tucker Special or the Tucker Torpedo Special, showed up at Indy in 1946 and ‘47. The driver was, I believe, George Barringer. In the ‘46 race it qualified 24th and ran 27 laps before a transmission failure. Too bad these cars were never fully developed. Perhaps we could have seen race cars on a par with the great Grand Prix Auto Unions.

From Mystery Foto #3 Solved: The #66 Tucker '48 Special Racer at the 1947 Indy 500

Dave - pertaining to Levittown and why the Motor Parkway area hasn’t until now been developed, living in Levittown I’ve done some research.  I can’t tell you why Levitt never purchased the Motor Parkway property (perhaps the aviation field didn’t want to sell), but over the years its been at the center of a long protracted legal battle between the developer who was able to buy the property some 25 or 30 years ago (Josato at one time) and the Town of Hempstead.  The property changed hands in what appeared to be a sweetheart deal ($80,000) with the developer thinking he was going to be able to build homes.  However, when Levittown was created, there were a number of zoning covenants/requirements (i.e. building of sub-developments, lot sizes, front and side yard area, etc.) built into the deeds that were even more restrictive than the Town zoning laws. 

These covenants were set to expire in 1975 but probably at the request of Levittown residents, the Town Board adopted Resolution No. 1781-1975 on Dec. 9, 1975 that created a new zoning district within the Town’s Building Zone Ordinance named the “Levittown Planned Residence District” (LPRD).  This kept some of the original building requirements and has been used over the last 30 years as the basis for the legal battles between the community and developers and up until very recently has held up. 

From my website which obviously needs updating. 
http://www.freewebs.com/limparkway/levittown2012.htm

From Aerial advertising kites flying near the 1909 Vanderbilt Cup Race grandstand

Preston Tucker had and enjoyed many ventures with cars and his racing was with several names such as Al Miller, George Barringer and Harry Miller. This race was at Indy in 1946 or 47.  Unless you do a lot of research reading it is all so very interesting !!!

From Mystery Foto #3 Solved: The #66 Tucker '48 Special Racer at the 1947 Indy 500

It makes no sense to me that for over 100 years somehow the LIMP location at this grandstand location was not built on. In a town that is so nationally famous for its amazingly aggressive construction somehow this exact location avoided construction. There has to be a reason. It just makes no sense. Maybe something was planned at some time for this spot? Some sort of recognition? Well as we all know there are new houses up on this location now.

From Aerial advertising kites flying near the 1909 Vanderbilt Cup Race grandstand

Very Cool to see. Seeing stuff like this just makes me think how cool of a spot this grandstand location was and how there is zero education/appreciation/knowledge about this Levittown spot from the general public. I had many friends in Levittown growing up and nobody knew about this.

From Aerial advertising kites flying near the 1909 Vanderbilt Cup Race grandstand

Very cool info Howard, thanks! Thoroughly enjoyed reading about Samuel F Perkins. I’m sure others will as well.
_______________________________________

Howard Kroplick

Brian, thanks for the feedback! I first saw a Vanderbilt Cup Race “flying banner” photo years ago. I finally decided to research this Very unusual advertising media in 1909.

From Aerial advertising kites flying near the 1909 Vanderbilt Cup Race grandstand

Tarantula? Curious name for the vessel. I remember reading that Willy K wanted to enlist in the Navy, but was denied because of health reasons ( also read that he was frequently sick as a child ). This didn’t seem to discourage him. He offered/donated some of his vessels to the Navy to support the war effort?

From William K. Vanderbilt, Jr.'s Yacht: Tarantula II (1913-1918)

Made me smile with enjoyment.  Thanks for posting this and for the determined & successful detective work complete with photos.

From VanderbiltCupRaces.com Exclusive: The Lost East Wing of the Long Island Aviation Country Club