So-Cal Speed Shop Roadster Makes Return Debut At Race Of Gentlemen

If you’ve ever more than ventured into a hot rod shop, you’ve heard of the famed So-Cal Speed Shop, and for good reason. Steeped in tradition, Alex Xydias’ So-Cal Speed Shop was first opened in March of 1946 following Xydias’ discharge from the Army Air Corps. Though he struggled to keep the doors open some months, Xydias built his speed shop up to be one of the most famous in the country. And the cars that came out of there were and remain legendary even to this day, including the multiple record-holding Morris Brothers So-Cal Speed Shop roadster. Now many years after it was built, the roadster has returned to competition, according to Hemmings Daily.

Just last month, the famed Morris Brothers roadster made its return debut to competition, a rather familiar territory for the hot rod with records once set on the streets of Los Angeles, drag strips along the coast of California, and even at the famed Bonneville Salt Flats.

Built by the Morris brothers and campaigned from the late 1940s through the 1980s, the roadster originally wore the colors of Xydias’ So-Cal Speed Shop before moving on to various liveries. Though the ’31 Ford was never really an official shop car, it is the So-Cal paint scheme and connection that remain one of the car’s most notable features.

Over the years the roadster was run with various engines, a supercharged flathead V8 being responsible for the car’s 166.975 mph and 174.757 mph B Roadster speed records and a later supercharged Chevy V8 being responsible for the roadster’s 215 mph run at Bonneville. However, when the car was restored back in 2010 by then owner Dave Tanimura, it was a period-correct pre-1949 Mercury flathead V8 that was chosen to power the rehashed beast.

Some enthusiasts might think it blasphemy that the Morris Brothers So-Cal Speed Shop roadster is back to its competitive ways, but what are the chances you’d actually get to see the car if it was in a museum or private collection instead?

Tanimura sold the roadster in 2012, at which time “Legendary Lars” (Lars Mapstead) of Legendary Finds purchased the hot rod.

Once again painted in its dark red and white So-Cal livery, the roadster maintains its Mercury flathead today, topped off with Edelbrock heads, an Edelbrock intake and four Stromberg carburetors, in addition to an Iskenderian camshaft. The roadster also boasts a correct 1937 Ford transmission and Halibrand quick-change rearend.

Now, some folks may say that the Morris Brothers roadster should be in a museum somewhere, to which they have a good point. But Lars believes in keeping with what the car was actually built for and that was competition. So much so that over the weekend of October 3rd, Lars raced the roadster at The Race of Gentlemen in Wildwood, New Jersey.

Certainly some folks will hate, but others will rejoice in the fact that the famed So-Cal car made its way back to where it belongs–on the sand tearing up the competition. Lars certainly believes he’s doing the right thing for the car and we tip our hats to him for that!