It is so easy to take for granted how lucky we are to live in an age where 500 horsepower is just a phone call away. But the great grandaddys of speed didn’t have online stores, speed catalogs, or even much in the way of safety equipment except some goggles and a leather cap. There were many land speed records set in cobbled-together cars built by shade tree mechanics, but many of their names have been lost to time.

Ab Jenkins was just such a man, and he set many land and endurance speed racing records. He was a living legend in his time, an amateur race car driver who set record after record before being forgotten by history. A new movie, The Boys of Bonneville: Racing on a Ribbon of Salt, explores his life as well as the quest of his son to rebuild and race his famous car, “The Mormon Meteor.”

Boys of Bonneville Movie Trailer from Price Museum of Speed on Vimeo.

David Abbot “Ab” Jenkins was a Mormon carpenter in Salt Lake City, Utah. Unlike many rougher racers, Ab Jenkins was kind, a good sport, and often encouraged his competitors (including the Brits) to up the ante. He got into racing as a sort of hobby, and was perhaps the biggest champion of the Bonneville Salt Flats (now part of a Save the Salt campaign.)

The movie follows his son Marv’s quest to restore the original 12-cylinder Duesenberg “Mormon Meteor” and return it to the salt flats where it once set the 24 hour endurance speed record of 135 mph. Ab Jenkins was a man of unbelievable stamina, and possessed what one might call “true grit.” His son is doing right with this restoration of his father’s automobile and we’re putting The Boys of Bonneville on our summer must-watch list.