The making of a race car designer ...

   It all began in 1956 when Dad bought a maroon Porsche 1600.
   We entered lots of  rallies in San Diego.  I was only 14, so dad drove while I navigated and learned to do the time, distance and velocity math pretty well.

    Rallying taught me good map reading skills, and to read instructions carefully because the directions were often made ambiguous just to lead the unwary astray.  None of the required average speeds were over the speed limit, so rallying in those days was just a delightful battle of wits played out on the wonderful back roads of San Diego County.  We were a great team and won fourth place out of several hundred entrants in the 1956 Convair Nuts & Bolts rally.  I'll never forget Dad contrasting the Porsche's refinement to the old Buick that brought his family from Ohio to California in 1927 before the entire route was paved  -  less than thirty years earlier!

    My love affair with cars really took off in 1957, when Dad purchased an Austin Healey with a 283 Chevy engine installed by Max Balchowsky of Ol' Yaller fame.  It was the very first such engine transplant, so got written up in Hot Rod Magazine.
    The Healey/Chevy was a real "sleeper" with little to betray what lurked under the hood.  Two weeks before I got my learner's permit, Dad let me drive it and I managed to turn 108 mph in the quarter mile at Paradise Mesa Drag Strip.  We didn't tell Mom, but a steady stream of trophies proved difficult to hide.  "Oh Dear", she fretted "He's going to be a race driver."

    Dad and I also enjoyed local deep sea fishing and occasion trout fishing trips to streams and lakes in the Sierras.  We had lots of good times together, but nothing quite compared with the magic we found late at night on the weekends, when we drove up the coast on Highway 101 to Max's Hollywood Garage.

    Eventually, Max educated us to maintain the Healey ourselves.
    A few months later, I wrangled  a three lap ride around Willow Springs in Max's Buick powered Ol' Yaller.  The backyard bomb held the track record, and routinely beat the fastest Ferraris, Maseratis and D-Jags on the West Coast.  At various times it was driven by Carroll Shelby, Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant.  That ride sealed my fate in life.
    The Healey/Chevy was plagued with a miserable shift linkage that occasionally required awkward roadside repairs.  Even Max found it insoluble, and it finally  happened once too often at night, so Dad began looking for a replacement car.
   We both wanted to continue our father/son hobby of hot sports cars, so it wasn't long until Dad sold the Corvette and bought a beautiful maroon Siata 208S Spyder.  I got to drive it home from L.A. by myself, and remember I had to add a case of oil to make the 100 mile trip.  The idea was to replace it's expired engine with a big Buick V8 like Max used in Ol' Yaller.
    We wanted to do the engine transplant near home in San Diego so I could learn and help with the swap.  Max wasn't interested in simply building engines, so he referred us to Tommy Ivo for a good Buick mill.  That's when we learned there was more collaboration between Ivo and Balchowsky than either let on.   
    Tommy was moving up to a supercharged engine for A-Gas dragster class, so for $550 look what we bought....

Max avoided costly Englebert tires, instead deliberately used Allstate tires to rub it in.  The tires were guaranteed on a pro-rated basis for a year.  Each Monday morning the Sears salesmen would scratch their heads wondering how Max's tires could last only a weekend.

Dad's aluminum bodied Siata 208 Spyder

    The 392 CID Buick engine right out of Tommy Ivo's world record holding B-Gas dragster is shown on the left.  Tommy delivered it in the trunk of his car, and I helped unload it.
    Jim Culbert installed the engine at his shop on A Street, and I'd stop off there after school to learn and help as much as possible.  What an education for an 11th grader!
    We kept the internals unchanged, but the Hilborn fuel injection had to go, because it was useless in a street machine at low speed.  In it's place we used six Stromberg 97 carbs just like Ol' Yaller.  We added a starter motor and fan, and had ourselves something like a "Cobra" several years before Shelby ever thought of one.  The car had a Howard 8-cycle cam, Schiefer clutch, a scatter shield around the light flywheel, etc.

Here's the actual engine we bought for the Siata

    In exchange for my maintaining the Siata, Dad always shared it with me.  Many weekends of my senior year in high school found me cruising El Cajon Boulevard and the local Oscar's drive-ins at night.  Rigid motor mounts made the fenders shake impressively at idle.  Fortunately, premium gas was only 23 cents a gallon in those days.  The Siata turned 112 in the quarter mile, so just like the Healey, it was probably the fastest street machine in San Diego.  Dad and I used to make "runs" up to Warner Hot Springs and Julian just for the sheer joy of it.  Despite the dragster engine, it was a surprisingly reliable car.

    After I left home for college there was little opportunity to drive the Siata anymore.  The car had served its purpose so Dad sold it.  I wish he hadn't, but how else to afford the next one?  Within a couple of years he got a Cobra with an actual factory Le Mans engine complete with Weber carbs - and began to slalom race it.
     I had no thought of getting involved with auto racing because it would have been too much like joining the circus.  Nevertheless, my Father had raised me in the way I would go, and he was always enthusiastic about how my life turned out.
    With fond memories, I dedicate this website to my Father.

                                                Owen Wheeler   1910 - 1988
Dad was a Christian physician who routinely made house calls with his sports cars.
Obviously, he believed that Christians should enjoy life.