The Harry Warner '33 Ford Roadster

By Chris Shelton

You might not recognize Harry Warner's name offhand. You might not even recognize his car, for that matter. But one thing's for sure: if you're even remotely familiar with six-cylinder performance, you certainly know of Warner's influence. This is his story.

Part I: The Origins
The thrust of this yarn starts with a certain coal-black '33 Ford roadster that Harry purchased, brand-new, in Chicago, Illinois. Warner used the car for daily transport (even honeymooning in it with his wife, Helen) and eventually made the trek to Los Angeles with it. He was headed West to work for Lockheed Aircraft as a mechanical engineer just before WWII.

The Southern California performance environment must've proven irresistible to Warner; in 1940, he revamped the car, gusseting the frame and fitting it with a Columbia two-speed rearend, juice brakes, and a '39 Ford transmission with Zephyr gears--highly contemporary goods back then, mind you. He also made a move that set the precedence for the car: he swapped a '39 Merc mill in place of the old 21-stud boiler--a portent of things to come.

According to the extensively detailed and incredibly informative work compiled by Herbert Hall for Inliners International's The 12 Port News (www.inliners.org), just before WWII Harry Warner worked alongside fellow engineer Wayne Horning, who'd started the Western Mechanical Development company. Evidently, after the war, Harry moved back to Chicago, but still maintained a rapport with Wayne and his business partner Jim Borger. Harry also followed their burgeoning design: a 12-port Chevrolet cylinder head. This is key.

Then came a big transition: Borger moved on and started his own shop. According to Dan Warner, Harry's son, the Warner family moved from Chicago back to Los Angeles in either late-1946 or early-1947 so that Harry could work with Wayne at Western Mechanical Development. Upon arrival, Dan said Wayne and Harry yanked out the '39 Ford gearbox Harry installed before the war in favor of a 12-port-headed Chevy.

Then came part two of the transition: between late-1947 and early-1948, Wayne and Harry changed the name of the shop from Western Mechanical Development to Wayne Manufacturing Company--the manufacturers of, you guessed it, Wayne Chevrolet (and eventually GMC) inline-six cylinder speed equipment.

According to Hall's work, an ad in Hot Rod combined with the chronicles of Marvin Lee's B-class streamliner, The City of Pasadena, raked the business in. After all, 160 mph from something not much larger than a stock Ford flathead just after the war meant something.

Then again, the burgeoning success didn't exactly keep things together; Horning and Warner split up in early-1950. The divorce proved confusing since Wayne kept building engines under the Wayne F. Horning name at the old address while Harry assumed Wayne's patterns, jigs, fixtures and, most importantly, the Wayne Manufacturing Company name. That finalized the transition.

The success, especially after the split, really turned the spotlights to Harry since Bill Johnson successfully ran a 12-port Wayne Chevy at Indy in 1951. Two years later, Harry and the roadster appeared in the Mar. '53 Hop Up, where he outlined the Chevy-powered Ford's development (Consequently, Hop Up "revisited" the car in 2002 with an article by Drew Hardin, who did a fine job of documenting the car's history). At this point, the exposure cemented the image of Harry Warner's '33 roadster as a test bed for Wayne Manufacturing Company--the roadster even appeared in the Wayne Manufacturing catalog.

In the late-'50s, Harry and a then-teenage Dan pulled the earlier inline in favor of one of the later 261-inch Chevrolets. It used one of Warner's new and very low production cast-iron 18-stud cylinder heads, and, according to Dan, "we couldn't keep a head gasket in it. Someone had milled nearly 3/8-inch off the (block's) deck. It had something like a 18:1 compression ratio!" Dan said he also remembers the car's color changing to '55 Buick Titian Red at about the same time.

While they tweaked the car, Harry still manufactured parts under the Wayne Manufacturing name and ran a full-time speed shop until about 1959-60. According to 12-Port Registry steward Pat Swanson, Harry sold the Chevy head patterns to Bob Toros in 1958-59. He also sold the GMC patterns to Bill Goldman at about the same time, thus ending his involvement in the project. All said and done, Harry manufactured between 125 and 150 numbered Chevrolet heads before moving on. Unfortunately, he never numbered the GMC heads, so nobody has official production numbers.

After he ceased cylinder head production, Harry dabbled in the go-cart industry and maintained a general machine shop through the '60s under the Wayne Manufacturing name. In the early-'60s, Harry, in conjunction with Dick Layman, even cast a few small-block Chevy timing covers with integral magneto and fuel pump drive bosses. Even though the covers never attained full-blown success, they indicated a shift in the Warner philosophy: the small-block was the new way, and it would play a large part in the car's next 20 years.

As you'll recall, Dan mentioned the bigger six's sealing problems. So, in 1962, Harry built a 283 Chevy, mated it to an early-'50s Ford overdrive transmission, and dropped that into the car. Dan said he remembers Harry adapting the '39 Ford transmission's shifter to the new trans. While nobody's quite sure of the exact date, it would be logical to assume that's when Harry installed the '50 Oldsmobile rear axle to work with the open-driveline overdrive transmission. Sadly, nobody remembers what happened to any of the old inline engines or heads.

In 1964-65, Dan said both he and Harry painted their cars a '64 or '65 Pontiac GTO green (possibly Gulfstream Aqua Metallic, although Dan remembers it as a non-metallic). "I had it on my ('64) Riviera," he said. "We both ran 15-inch American Racing wheels--I'd bought him those for his birthday."

Harry retired in 1969-70 and gave up his professional shop on Victory Blvd. in Burbank for a hobby shop in Saugus. Of interesting note, Larry Cresse of Tri-C Engineering, worked for Warner during this period. "He drove the car every day to Saugus from La Crescenta (Harry's home)," Dan said. "It was a real Gray Baskerville story; it was his everyday car. He'd load the car up with dogs and take off." He ran the shop in that manner until his death in 1982 at age 71. At that point, Dan loaded the car up and stored it at his Canoga Park house.

Part II: The Return
Enter La Canada, California's Bill Swanson (no relation to 12-port Pat). "I knew of this car in the '50s and I knew the owner," Bill said. "Harry Warner was a true hot rodder." So enamored was Bill, he tried several times to procure the car, but to no avail. According to Dan, "He'd wanted the car for 20-plus years. The car deserved the proper attention, and I knew I didn't have the resources to do it right." So, in what must have been a tough decision, Dan let Bill have the car.

"Once I got the car to my shop, disassembled, and sorted out, I decided that this car had to be done to exacting standards in order to compliment its history," Swanson said. For that, he embarked on a nine-year restoration that demanded impeccable work and original parts from "all the guys in Southern California that I knew and thought were the best." First and foremost, he enlisted the services of Art Fernandez' Restorations. Without Art, Bill admits, none of this would have happened. Swanson also noted that Pete Eastwood sorted out the chassis.

Over the car's life with sixes, the roadster ran the '40 Mercury transmission and Columbia axle combo. As you can imagine, the six's length required setting the engine/trans combo back some distance. According to Pete, Harry left the X-member's bottom intact, cut the member's top and sides out, and fabricated the remaining section--a "well-planned and executed modification," according to Pete.

As you'll recall, that arrangement made way for the overdrive Ford gearbox and '50 Olds rearend when Harry installed the shorter 283, but it wasn't until Pete restored the X-member that it would take the '39 Ford transmission Bill scared up. Incidentally, Bill McGrath supplied the N.O.S Lincoln Zephyr gears to bring the Ford gearbox up to the roadster's glory days. He also supplied the N.O.S 3.54:1 gearset that Eric Vaughn fitted to the '33 rearend.

Keeping true to the vintage theme, Swanson and Eastwood located some genuine Bendix-action '46 Lincoln brakes (the car ran '39 Lincolns early on according to the Mar. '53 Hop Up article). To finish the front, Eric fit the Lincoln rear backing plates to the '37-41 spindles and helped sort out the brake system. Since the mod pushed the front drums out further, he cut the bands off the front wheels and repositioned them for proper offset. They broke away for a few modern concessions like Pete Eastwood-fabricated hairpins, a Magnum dropped axle, tube shocks, and Vega-boxed cross steering.

Surprisingly, especially considering the car's test-bed status, "all the original sheetmetal and wood on the body were in remarkable--almost time warp--condition," Bill said. The fenders needed some help, as did the gaping notch in the firewall to accommodate the six, so Art Fernandez ("a meticulous craftsman," Bill boasts) worked the panels perfect. Once arrow-straight, Art shot the exterior in some 20 coats of vintage PPG lacquer. Vern's Plating refinished the bumpers and trim, Bill McGrath came up with N.O.S cowl and headlights for the freshly finished body, and Bob Kennedy brushed out one of his incredible woodgrain dash appliques.

Bill then commissioned Lynn at Thornton's Top Shop in Santa Ana for the top. As it turns out, Warner chopped the top decades earlier and Bill and Art leaned the windshield posts back so the refitting process "didn't go easy," Bill said. "I knew the top would be a challenge. What color? What material? How do you cut it so it will look just right?" For the interior, Sorenson's Top Shop in Pasadena trimmed the seats and panels in maroon leather. They also covered the floor in German square-weave carpet--a job Swanson describes as "magnificent!"

You should recall that this story started off about Chevy sixes--specifically this car's particular six. You should also recall that by the time Bill Swanson owned the car, that six was long gone. Acknowledging the car's history, "I knew the drivetrain had to be really special," Bill said. On the other hand, "knowing Ford never put a Chevy engine into one of their cars, I had to put a special Ford drivetrain into this car." Yes, it's a move that might have raised an eyebrow or two on a few die-hard inliners, but temper that move with the fact that Warner ran a '40 Merc mill early on.

That special Ford mill: an Ardun-headed flathead that John Wolf offered to the project. With the engine in Bill's possession, he and Ernie Murashige (of M&V Automotive fame) pulled it apart. During the reassembly, Art Chrisman and John Wolf lent technical advice and machining input and Jerry Jobe sorted out the Strombergs that eventually landed on the Ken Austin intake manifold. With the new engine, the car doesn't boast the same clever baffled/open pipe combination Harry Warner ran decades back (twice pipes like a V-8: one side muffled, one side open with a cap). However, Pete Grossi fabricated a full-length exhaust system complete with lakes plugs that could rival any hot rod exhaust of the day.

After assembly, details, and tuning, Bill finally hit the road in the veteran hot rod. Or, as Bill put it, "after only nine years and an enormous sum of money, we were done."

But the drive was relatively short lived. Elsewhere in this issue, in Ken Gross' coverage of January's Barrett Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, you might recognize the blue roadster. That's right, this is the car Tom Cantrell purchased. Don't fret, however; Cantrell's a diehard, making the trip and the auction specifically for that car. According to Gross, Cantrell even mapped out a savvy bid plan. In other words, he wanted this car...bad.

If you need even more to ease your mind, consider that Cantrell's also a die-hard purist: he's co-owner of a real and incredibly intact '62 Ford Galaxie lightweight and personally owns a litany of musclecars, including several Super Cobra Jet-powered examples. Best of all, he's looking for a Wayne-headed inline six. He's also smart: he's not tearing the Bill Swanson/Art Fernandez restoration apart to accommodate the engine--he'll display it next to the car for reference.

While it's the end for this particular story, there's certainly no end in sight for Harry Warner's personal test bed. After all, with Harry Warner's 60 years' influence on the car, Bill Swanson's restoration quest, and Tom Cantrell's preservation, Harry Warner's roadster just reached its powerband.