The Ken Bausert Photo Collection

A photo of Ken with the first iteration of his 1950 Mercury custom in 1961. He was 17 years old when this photo was taken. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Custom Cars November 1958 was the first custom car magazine that Ken ever bought. “Very worn, but still around,” Ken told Sondre Kvipt in 2017. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Ken’s first car was a 1950 Mercury convertible that he bought on May 11, 1959, at the cost of $125. "I was fifteen-years-old and worked on it after school and on weekends. The earliest modifications included shaving the hood & deck, shortening the side trim, making up a custom grille using pieces of discarded side trim, and lowering the tail lights two inches." Ken’s mother is standing by the fence in the photo. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Ken's Piston Pushers club card. "We were supposed to hand these cards out to motorists if we helped them out if their car was stuck somewhere and we jump-started a dead battery or helped get them out of deep snow, or something like that. Quite ironic, because - at that time we made these up - nobody in the club had a driver's license. Hah!" Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Paul Wood's 1941 Chevrolet Coupe. “Woody's first car was a '41 Chevy coupe which he mildly customized with a partial dechroming, adding fender skirts and a two-tone black and red paint job. The engine was a modified 6-cylinder.” Woody had this car before he and Ken met for the first time. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Paul Wood's 1949 Mercury Coupe. In 1958 Woody's Merc started popping up in Ken's neighborhood of Richmond Hill, and it was instrumental in sparking Ken’s interest in custom cars. “The '49 Merc Woody owned when I met him is seen here outside a motel in New Jersey, while Woody and Carol were on their honeymoon. Although no other photos of the car exist, and some modifications can't be seen here, the car had extensive work done to it. The headlights were tunneled, hood and deck were shaved, the outside door handles were removed and replaced by electric solenoids, cruiser skirts were installed, and the car lowered. The most impressive thing was that the coupe was made into a hardtop by removing the vertical posts on the doors and in front of the rear side windows, and new glass cut to fit.” Woody’s Merc was built in the street, in front of his girlfriend's house. Woody had acetylene and oxygen tanks in the trunk of the car that he would roll out whenever he was working on the car. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A more powerful 1951 Cadillac engine and 4-speed automatic transmission eventually found its way into Paul Wood's 1949 Mercury, replacing the old flathead engine. “The Caddy mill ran with trips or dual-quads at various times,” Ken Bausert recalled. Olds and Cadillac engines were popular engines to install in your hot rod or custom in New York back then. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

An early photo of Paul Wood's 1953 Ford convertible developed in July of 1959. This was Woody's next custom after the 1949 Mercury. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

In the 1960s, “Shoebox” Fords were plentiful and cheap, making them very popular for kids with low budgets to customize and soup up in Queens. “A lot of the times we also got the car for free, or real cheap, because it was a relative’s car. Ken Szekretar, a friend of mine in Glendale got a 1949 Ford four-door for free. He didn’t want a 49 four-door Ford, but he got it for free. One of his aunts or uncle gave it to him. Back then nobody would be caught dead owning a four-door car. It had to be a two-door car. After unsuccessfully trying to chop the top on the car and make it into a two-door hardtop, using the roof of a 1950 Chevy, Ken wound up junking the car.” Ken took this photo of Ken with the Ford in 1959 or 1960. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of Ken's little brother Allen next to Ken's 1949 Ford. Ken believes the taillights came from his 1950 Mercury. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

The grille in Ken Szekretar's 1949 Ford was made up of old side trim. When this photo was taken, Ken had frenched and tunneled the headlights on the car. The hood had also been shaved. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Ken's envelope that used to store his photos from the 1960 Hartford Autorama in.

A photo of Anthony Abato's 1954 Oldsmobile Convertible that Ken snapped at the 1960 Hartford Autorama. Anthony bought the car brand new in 1954 and he started to customize it right away. Known as "The Comet," Anthony's Oldsmobile is a well known New Jersey custom that found its way into several magazines. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

“While in high school, one of the other gearheads I met was Doug Maloney, from Glendale. Doug had been building a '32 Ford coupe during the same time I had been working on my '50 Merc. Around the time we graduated, I stopped over to his house to see his car and grabbed some photos.” Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

An old business card from Fitbrite Manufacturing Company, the place where Ken had the new convertible top on Mint Julep I installed. Ken believe they upholstered the seats too. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Ken Szekretar with a hacksaw, ready to cut the roof off his Shoebox. "He drove, or towed, the car to the yard by the garage I was renting up the street from my house to perform his top chop," Ken remembers. Ken Szekretar was a year older than Bausert, so he had his license a year earlier. The photo was taken around 1960 - 1961. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of the dashboard in Ken Szekretar's 1949 Ford. Ken Bausert laid down the scallop paint job. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of Ken Szekretar's 1949 Ford taken during the chop. This was the end of Ken's shoebox, and it was dragged to the junkyard shortly thereafter. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

"The Midnight Ride" was a poem that Ken wrote in high school. It was published in his high school literary publication called “Dome,” that was published each semester. "This issue was the January 1961 issue. My senior year." Ken's poem starts out where Woodhaven Blvd crosses over the Belt Parkway and becomes Cross Bay Blvd. "The Belt Parkway, going west, takes you to Brooklyn and eventually to New Jersey. Since there were always people who thought they had the fastest cars, I envisioned this guy in a Ford from Jersey coming over to meet the guy in the Chevy to settle the question." There were several popular areas for street racing in the Queens and Brooklyn area back in the 1950s and the 1960s. "One was Cross Bay Boulevard. Woodhaven Blvd runs North/South in Queens, from the Long Island Expressway to the Belt Parkway in the South. After the Belt Parkway, it becomes Cross Bay Blvd, and it runs through Howard Beach before crossing over a bridge known as the “first bridge.” Then it continues as a three-lane road, needed to handle beach traffic on hot summer weekends, through Jamaica Bay Wildlife Preserve, hence the name “Cross Bay,” and, because you were driving through an uninhabited area, there were no traffic lights or side roads intersecting it until you reached the town of Broad Channel, a sparsely-inhabited area, a couple miles further, and then the bridge taking you over to Rockaway Beach area, “second bridge.” Cross Bay Blvd. was ideal for drag racing because it was lightly traveled at night, there were no side roads or danger of other cars crossing in front of you, and once you drove down it to be sure there were no cops hanging out, you were pretty sure you wouldn’t get busted!" Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of Woody and mutual friend Sal Consiglio in front of Woody’s 1953 Ford. “Back in the day, Woody had no garage and often worked on the car in the street. This was shot on 116th Street, just north of Liberty Avenue, in Richmond Hill, around 1961.” Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Woody’s 1953 Ford ran a Carson-inspired padded top. Other modifications included frenched and tunneled headlights, the usual dechroming, and shaved door handles. "The rear fenders were extended and flanked a Continental kit in the rear. The hood had louvers punched in, and scoops were molded into the rear quarter panels." Custom accessories included dual spotlights, skirts, and 1957 Cadillac hubcaps. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Ken completed the first incarnation of his "Mint Julep" 1950 Mercury custom by the time he graduated high school in 1961. "The car was lowered two-inches in the rear, custom accessory tail lights had been added, '57 Merc Cruiser Skirts were installed with '54 Merc chrome teeth and lowered side trim to match. The car was painted mint green, and I added black scallops.” Ken did everything on this version himself. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

The MAD MERC from RICHMOND HILL! Ken's green book from 1961. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Ken and 5 of his buddies moving a flathead engine. At one time Ken installed a 1949 Oldsmobile engine in the Merc. It didn’t run well, so he ended up trading it to a friend in high school for a 1951 Mercury engine. The day this photo was taken, they pushed the engine 22 blocks on a dolly through the streets of Queens to do a swap under a railroad trestle. The friend lived close to the trestle, so they pushed the friend’s 1951 Mercury under the trestle and swapped the engine in his Merc before they pushed the Merc engine 22 blocks back to Ken’s house. Left to right: Ken Szekretar, Jim Campizi, Tom Kuhlman, Eddie Velardi, who owned the '51 Merc that it came out of, Bob Sporing and Ken, bending over. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

This 1947 Ford convertible belonged to a friend of Ken from the 116th Street Garages. "On the west side of the 116th street and Atlantic Avenue in Richmond Hill was a repair shop called "Doggler's Repair Shop." A couple of my friends in the area worked there. A lot of the houses that were on Atlantic Avenue had garages on the east side of 116th Street. My friends would rent those garages to work on their cars. One of them was always there working on their cars, so people would often stop by there to have a look or hang out." Built to go, the 47 Ford was powered by a late model Buick OHV 8 engine. Ken snapped this photo on his way to the Westhampton Drags. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of the first incarnation of the "Mint Julep," taken at Westhampton Speedway in 1961. Back in the 1950s and the 1960s, anyone with a hot rod or custom car on Long Island headed to a dragstrip at Westhampton most Sundays. Westhampton Speedway was a ¼ mile track where cars raced in classes outlined by the car's type and weight, engine size, and extent of modifications overall. Billy Stein and Ed Talerine are sitting in the Merc in the photo. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

John Consiglio in a 1934 Ford coupe project. “One of the guys at the 116th Street garages had the coupe and had started to work on it. He was in the process of chopping the top, but the car was just a body shell not even attached to the chassis and needed a ton of work, the guy just wanted to get rid of it. He was going to tow it to a junkyard so Sal, John and I chipped in $5 apiece and bought the thing for $15. After that, we didn't know where we were going to store it and what we were going to do with it so, in a week or so, we wound up towing it to the junkyard.” Ken believes this photo was taken in the autumn of 1961. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

An in-progress, later incarnation of Woody’s 1953 Ford featuring scooped and canted quad headlights, a new grille cavity, and a pancaked hood. Taken in 1962, this version did also run a 1955 Buick engine. “Woody wound up having the most customized cars in our neighborhood. The problem was that he never finished his cars. The 49 Merc never really got done. He sold it before it was finished. He then bought the 1953 Ford that he did a lot of work on and sold. Woody also did a lot of work for other people, including me.” Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of Sal Consiglio's 1955 Ford taken in 1962. “Sal was one of my best friends in high school, and he was with me the night I got my Merc on the road. The '55 Ford was John's, Sal’s brother’s, car, but he gave it to Sal when he bought a new Chevy 409. Sal was a perfectionist and painted each panel of the car only after he made sure it was perfect. The rolled pan and license plate treatment were all Woody's welding and fabrication, and then Sal was finishing it. Another car that never got done! Sal sold the car and bought a new Pontiac Bonneville convertible shortly after these photos were taken.” Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A rear end shot of Sal Consiglio's 1955 Ford taken in 1962. The rolled pan and license plate treatment were all Woody's welding and fabrication. Other modifications include a shaved deck lid and 1955 - 1956 Mercury station wagon taillights with custom lenses. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Sal Consiglio next to his in-progress 1955 Ford custom. The photo was taken outside his house on 125th Street in 1963. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A Pequa Cams Hot Rod Club courtesy card from Ken's collection. Ken's buddy, Sal Consiglio, had a cousin who lived further east on Long Isand, in Massapequa, and the card belonged to him. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A business card from Richmond Hill Auto Parts Company, or Cheap Mike's Wrecking Yard, as Ken and his buddies called it. This was where the kids from Richmond Hill bought parts for their cars, such as the Oldsmobile grille Ken ran in his Mercury. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of Richie Daus’ 1954 Buick taken in 1962. “Richie was a friend of mine who lived on Hillside Avenue, off Sutphin Blvd. in Jamaica, Queens. Garages for those apartments were in the middle of the block, in a big courtyard. Richie worked on his car there.” When Ken took this photo, Richie was in the progress of installing 1956 Chrysler taillights on the Buick. Unfortunately, the car got smashed up by a “bad” taxi driver in his cab. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Richie Daus’ 1954 Buick as it appeared after it got smashed up by a "bad" taxi driver in his cab. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Billy Stein's 1950 Mercury four-door. "Horrors! That Merc was dechromed, the rear outside door handles were removed, and it had 1955 Ford taillights. The engine was the original flathead, and the car was painted orange. It was sitting in a wooded area in Centereach, Long Island, at one of his relatives' house, for a very long time. One day, we took a ride out there and spent hours getting it running but I don't remember whatever happened to it." Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of Ken O'Neil's 1949 Chevrolet Fleetline taken around 1961-1962. The car was partially dechromed with 1958 Chevrolet Bel-Air taillights. Ken lived of 97th Avenue, in Richmond Hill. "It was painted white, with some pinstriping, and somebody painted these little footsteps from the gas filler cap area to the lower trunk edge. I had gone through elementary & high school with Ken and, knowing of my scrapbook album of everyone's car photos, he gave me this photo to add to it." Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of Herb Passburger's 1950 Mercury that Ken took in the parking lot of the White Castle in Brooklyn in 1962. "That's where we used to hang out. It's a mild custom, nosed and decked, with a 1949 Oldsmobile grille, and painted a dark brown. It might have been an original factory Merc color, but one of my faves. One of the few cars that anyone actually "finished" back in those days! I sent that photo in to one of the car magazines that used to have a section in the back for "readers' cars," without Herb knowing it. When it was published, I got a copy of the magazine and showed up at his mother's apartment one morning, they lived a few blocks away from the White Castle. When Herb opened the door, I held the magazine open to the page with his car; he took a look at it and was so excited, he jumped up & down and hugged me." Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Ken with the second incarnation of the "Mint Julep" in 1962. “After an accident involving some damage to the front end, I began remodeling the car again. Twin radio antennas were mounted in a two-inch deep recessed oval on the right door. The '57 Merc Cruiser skirts were welded to the body & molded in. A radiused opening to match the front wheel opening was cut into the skirts to access the rear wheels. A scoop was cut in the front edge of the skirts and a slim piece of chrome molding extended into the opening of the scoop. The rear of the Cruiser skirt was extended and wrapped around into a rear grille cavity on each side of the license plate. 1962 Pontiac Bonneville tail light assemblies were installed in each rear cavity.” Woody did all the welding on this incarnation of the car. Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Eddie Buckston’s 1960 Chevrolet Impala of Richmond Hill, New York. The photo was taken in front of Ken's parents house on 95th Avenue. “I went through grammar school with Eddie's younger brother, Pete. By the time we got into high school, the Buckston house was a meeting place for a lot of Eddie's friends who were starting to get into cars, so I hung out there a lot. Those were some of the guys I would hop in a car with and ride around and hope that I'd get home for bed before my father thought it was too late.” Painted black, Eddie's Impala had been fitted with 1959 Pontiac Bonneville taillights. The car is running 1962 license-plates in the photo, and by the time the photo was taken Eddie had moved out of the house and was living at 123-22 103rd Ave, several blocks south of his mother's house. Ken remembers another story about Eddie's Impala; "When Eddie ran the car at Westhampton drag strip, the clutch blew up and most of the pieces came straight up through the cowl in front of the windshield. That's why certain classes at the strip require a "scatter-shield."" Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

Ken went to high school with a kid named Andy Turano. Andy’s older brother, Phil, owned this in-progress 1954 Mercury custom that Woody fit with Packard taillights. "Phil and Andy lived over a store on Jamaica Avenue, near 113th Street, also in Richmond Hill. That photo was taken while it was parked on the street of my parents' house, probably around 1961 or 62. Phil and Andy's father owned a store, possibly a butcher shop, and he had a '55 Chevy station wagon that he used for the business. It was a 265 V8 stick shift and pretty fast 'cause the stick station wagons had 4:11 rear ends in them, I think. So, Phil and I are in his dad's car one night on Cross Bay Blvd., and Phil is trying to race anyone who came next to him. Suddenly, he sees a police car coming after him so he turns down a side street where lots of houses are, and pulls into someone's driveway between two houses, and tells me to duck down in the passenger seat, he does the same in the driver's seat, and we lay low while, we hope, the police car passes by. Well, it must have worked 'cause they never stopped or caught us." Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

A photo of Phil Turano's 1954 Mercury as it appeared after it had been painted. Ken can't remember who painted the car. "It could have been Sal Consiglio, as he did my Mercury, but for some reason, I think Phil’s brother Andy had it painted somewhere. Andy drove the Merc a lot after Phil either went in the service or got married.” Photo courtesy of Ken Bausert.

New York City is known as the city that never sleeps. A melting pot of people from all corners of the world. If you have ever seen the movie “The Lords of the Flatbush” with Sylvester Stallone and Henry “The Fonz” Winkler, I’m sure you have an opinion about how it was to grow up in New York City in the 1950s. Set in 1958, the Lords spent their days chasing girls, stealing cars, playing pool and hanging out at the local malt shop. Ken Bausert grew up in a two-story house in Richmond Hill, New York’s borough of Queens. A 25-minute drive on the Belt Parkway separates Richmond Hill from the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn. Queens is the easternmost and largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City. It is geographically adjacent to the borough of Brooklyn at the southwestern end of Long Island and to Nassau County farther east on Long Island.

Growing Up in Richmond Hill

Our first introduction to Ken was through a story named “Mint Julep” in Gasoline Magazine 3/2009. “Mint Julep” was Ken’s first car, a 1950 Mercury convertible that he customized while he was in high school. Ken’s ancestors emigrated from Germany in 1866. Ken was born in 1943, during WWII. Richmond Hill was a middle-class suburban area close to major transportation, shopping, and recreation sources. “My neighborhood was a mixture of people that came from other places. On my block, I had an Irish family next door to me. On the other side, I had another German family. Right around the corner was an Italian family. There was a little bit of everything,” Ken told Sondre Kvipt of Kustomrama in 2017. As a teenager, Ken grew an interest in automobiles. His mother was a housewife, and his father was an electrician. Ken's father wanted Ken to be an electrician as well, but Ken told him that he didn’t want to become an electrician, he wanted to be a mechanic. His dad told him that if that’s where his heart was, that’s what he had to do.

Woody

Ken believes the first hot rods and custom cars in the area started popping up after the War, in the late 1940s. By the mid-1950s it had become quite a popular thing. “I became really interested in custom cars and hot rods by 1958, the year I bought my first Custom Cars magazine. Around that time, I started seeing a particular car that caught my attention as I walked down 129th Street, in my neighborhood of Richmond Hill. It was a '49 Mercury coupe, always parked in front of the same house. It was getting really radically customized. It was a sedan that had been built into a hardtop, and every time I saw it, it had new and different modifications done to it, but I never saw anyone working on it. One day, I finally lucked out and met the guy who was customizing the car: Paul Wood. Paul was only about 17 or 18 years old. He was in the Navy at the time but was dating a girl who lived in the nearby house with her parents. He only worked on the car while he was home on leave and, because I was still in high school, I kept missing him... until that day. When Woody got back, he would open the trunk of the car. In the trunk, he had acetylene and oxygen tanks. Woody would roll the hoses out and start working on the car in the street, in front of the house, since they had no driveway or garage. When he was done, he would pack all back into the trunk. Shut it, and go back to the Navy base.” Ken and Woody became close friends, and Woody helped Ken with some of the modifications on Ken’s Merc when he got out of the Navy.

First Car

Ken bought his first car, the 1950 Mercury convertible, in 1959. “It was only 125 dollars. Even though 125 dollars was a good amount of money back then, my mother had put money away for me as I was growing up.” Ken was 15 years old, he couldn’t drive, but he wanted to buy a car he could work on, so his mother told him he could use the money to buy the Merc. “I was fifteen-years-old and worked on it after school and on weekends. At 17 I got a junior license, but I could only drive with an adult in the car and my car wasn’t yet registered. When I was 18, my junior license became a full license. The first version of the car was completed shortly before I turned 18. I turned 18 at 12 o'clock midnight, on July 25, 1961, so two of my friends joined me at about 10 PM on the 24th, counting down the hours & minutes. I cheated and drove away at about 11:45 PM, visiting the several White Castle restaurants in Queens and Brooklyn, showing the car off to other guys that hung out there. We then crossed the Marine Parkway Bridge from mainland Brooklyn over to the Rockaway Peninsula. We drove by the amusement park area of Rockaway and then north on Cross Bay Boulevard, stopping at the Bow Wow, hot dog/hamburger place, and Pizza City. Both important places for guys with cars to hang out. We then stopped by New Park Pizza before heading home. I had been going there for the last year and a half with friends that were older than me. I used to hang out with guys that were older that already had cars and licenses.”

The Piston Pushers

While in high school, before Ken and his buddies could drive, they formed a car club named the Piston Pushers. “We basically just got together and talked about cars. Sometimes we also helped each other out with the cars we were working on.” When Sondre asked Ken about how his teenage days were, compared to the Lords of the Flatbush movie, he told him that there were a lot of guys that formed car clubs. “It was very similar to Lords of Flatbush, just not as dramatic. Most of them were not gangs or anything like that. They just all got together and formed car clubs. There were probably at least six car clubs in Queens. We didn’t steal cars. Although I knew a couple of guys that would steal cars. I didn’t steal cars, but once in a while someone would steal a car, but it wasn’t that widespread, especially amongst the guys that were working on cars.” As far as Ken can remember, his buddies didn’t even steal hubcaps. He does remember that a couple of the guys he hung out with once stole a pair of fender skirts though, “they were older than me, and they were already driving before I was driving. One of the guys bought a 1959 Chevy. It was a black car, and he wanted to get fenderskirts for the rear. He couldn’t afford the fender skirts, so he and his friend went out one night to find black fender skirts on a 59 Chevy that they could steal. The only thing they could find was a red 59 Chevy with fender skirts. So they stole the 59 red fender skirts. He was gonna bring them home and paint them so he could put them on his Chevy. Before they got home, they suddenly came across a black 59 Chevy with fender skirts, so they took the black fender skirts off and installed the red fender skirts on the black car. The next day when that guy woke up he found his black 59 Chevy with red fender skirts on,” Ken laughs. Another time, some friends of Ken stole a turkey. “They went to a Diner after being out, hanging around all night. While they were at the Diner, the chef brought out a big turkey that he put on the counter for the next day. While my friends were sitting there, one of the guys got the idea to steal the turkey. The Diner had the main door on the front. There was also a side door that you could go out. While one guy was paying for whatever they had, the other guy went over, took the turkey and went out the side door. They all met at the parking lot, jumped into the car, and drove away. They got maybe half a mile away when they were stopped at a light. They did a u-turn. A cop car saw them and made a u-turn to follow them. They thought that they were gonna get busted for stealing the turkey, but the cops were busting them for the u-turn. They started to drive away with the turkey in the car, and one of the guys suggested they should get rid of the turkey, so the cops didn’t bust them with the turkey in their possession, so they threw it out the window of the car. When the cops finally caught up with them, they asked the cops what they were stopping them for. One of the cops told them about the u-turn. Not knowing about the turkey, they asked the kids about what they were throwing out the window of the car?” The whole story sounds like a scene from American Graffiti, and Ken could tell that life in Queens in the 1950s and the 1960s was actually more like American Graffiti than Lords of the Flatbush. "Except for the winters and snow! You had the tough guys, some gangs here and there, but mostly just guys with their cars trying to pick up girls. We used to go places. If you had a weekend coming up, you just hopped into the car and took off. We drove over to Jersey and spent the weekend there. Or Connecticut. Just driving all over the places. It was total freedom. After I came home from work, I would have dinner. Then take off in the car and just drive around. One of the things I used to do, late at night, if we had nothing better to do, was drive south on the Van Wyck Expressway into Idlewild Airport and cruise around there, sometimes parking to watch the jets take off and land. The airport had a perimeter road around the outskirts that actually crossed one of the runways! You could be driving along and, all of a sudden, have to stop at a red light while a big jet took off in front of you.”

The Mint Julep

Ken believes there were more nice cars in California because of the weather. “12 months a year the kids in California could cruise around and fix their cars.” By the time Ken graduated high school, the first incarnation of “The Mint Julep” was completed. “I have mixed feelings about the car. The first version represented a very special time in my life since it was the culmination of my dream to build my own customized car. The second incarnation is different in the sense that it represents a more sophisticated yet radical approach.” Ken restyled the first version of "The Mint Julep” on his own. He did everything on the car himself. “I didn’t need to do much welding because I used fiberglass and bondo.” After he smashed the front end on it, Woody offered to help Ken do some welding on the car. “Woody did the scoops on the rear fender skirts out of round rods and sheet metal. He also did all the welding on the rear pan, while I finished it off. He was a real nice guy, and he didn’t even charge me for the work!”

Street Racing

There were several popular areas for street racing in the Queens and Brooklyn area back in the 1950s and the 1960s. “One was Cross Bay Boulevard. Woodhaven Blvd runs North/South in Queens, from the Long Island Expressway to the Belt Parkway in the South. After the Belt Parkway, it becomes Cross Bay Blvd, and it runs through Howard Beach before crossing over a bridge known as the “first bridge.” Then it continues as a three-lane road, needed to handle beach traffic on hot summer weekends, through Jamaica Bay Wildlife Preserve, hence the name “Cross Bay,” and, because you were driving through an uninhabited area, there were no traffic lights or side roads intersecting it until you reached the town of Broad Channel, a sparsely-inhabited area, a couple miles further, and then the bridge taking you over to Rockaway Beach area, “second bridge.” Cross Bay Blvd. was ideal for drag racing because it was lightly traveled at night, there were no side roads or danger of other cars crossing in front of you, and once you drove down it to be sure there were no cops hanging out, you were pretty sure you wouldn’t get busted!”

The 1320 Crusaders

“After I graduated high school, we formed another car club called the “1320 Crusaders.” It wasn’t a big club. We were just a bunch of friends that used to hang out. We had some plaques made, but we never had club jackets or anything like that. Most of the guys in the club drove mild customs.” Ken was known for having the hottest cars in the area. Especially the Merc. Nobody had a car like Ken’s Merc at the time. “A lot of the guys just drove around with primered cars. Then they got tired of it and sold it off so they could buy something else. Sometimes the new owner would complete the car, but most of the times, the cars were only halfway done. We were all working. We had a job. Then we had girlfriends, or got married, and didn’t have as much time as we wanted to spend on the cars. We got tired of it, and wanted something newer. In the beginning, the early Shoebox Fords were what we could afford. A lot of the times we also got the car for free, oreallyal cheap, because it was a relative’s car. Ken Szekretar, a friend of mine in Glendale got a 1949 Ford four-door for free. He didn’t want a 49 four-door Ford, but he got it for free. One of his aunts or uncle gave it to him. Back then nobody would be caught dead owning a four-door car. It had to be a two-door car. A coupe or convertible. Then you had to do a little something to it. At least nose and deck it. Then you had to do something to the engine, to make it a little bit faster. We were all trying to be fast and cool. Later on, when you had a job, you could afford a newer car, like the 1955 Chevy. Some of the guys that had good jobs, and were making good money, went on to buy Corvettes. They were still living at home and didn’t have rent to pay. They weren’t married yet and didn’t have a family to support. By 1961 a few of my friends had started to buy production cars. One bought a 1959 Chevy with a 348 engine and three carbs. That was the beginning of everyone looking at each other saying “That’s cheating! You can’t go out and buy a car like that. You’ve got to do it yourself.” When the first 409 engine came out, a friend of mine bought a brand new 1961 Chevy. We all saw him at the candy store when we were hanging out. We all looked at the car. We then looked at each other, and then we said “No. No! This is wrong. You can’t do that. You can’t buy a factory-made hot rod.” That was the beginning of everyone saying why get my hands dirty? I’ll just go out and buy a 409 or something. In spite of that, there were still a lot of guys that would build their own cars. From then on there were two types of crowds.”

The S&S Speed Shop

Ken and his buddies used to hang out at S&S Speed Shop on Atlantic Avenue. Run by a fellow named John, the shop was located about 14 blocks from Ken’s home. Ken couldn’t afford to buy anything from the shop, “they were more expensive than anybody else, but all the guys that had cars that knew the guy or bought stuff from him used to come there. You would see cars parked in front of the place and around the side streets, and there were always cool cars around there. John was a nice guy, but he was expensive, so a lot of the time me and my friends would buy our stuff from JC Whitney, Moon or Honest Charlie mail-order ads in custom car magazines. You sent a check or money order, and there would be a big package coming for you in the mail. A lot of stuff was also bought and sold between guys that knew each other. I only hang out at the speed shop because it was a cool place to hang out. I couldn’t afford to buy anything from that guy.” John’s son Richard helped out at the counter. John had a 1949 Ford pickup truck with a supercharged Oldsmobile engine tucked under the hood. “It was really cool. That was one of my favorite vehicles.” The shop was still in business in 2017, run by Richard and his brothers.

Westhampton Speedway

On the weekends, mostly on Sundays, anyone with a hot rod or custom car on Long Island in the 1950s and the 1960s could be found at a drag strip in Westhampton. Westhampton Speedway was a ¼ mile track where cars raced in classes outlined by the type and weight of the car, size of the engine, and extent of modifications overall. “Two cars at a time started from a standing stop and those with the lowest elapsed time won each “run.” By a process of elimination, one car in each class would emerge the final winner.”

Family Life

In 1965 Ken got married and moved to Elmont. “I still worked a regular job in Forest Hills, Queens, and a part-time job in Richmond Hill. This had me back in the old neighborhood quite a bit, so I kept in touch with many old friends. By 1973, we had two children and moved further east. I got a job closer to home and gave up the part-time job in Queens. As a result, I didn't have the time to get back to the old neighborhood much and slowly drifted apart from many friends.” Luckily the memories and stories still remain, along with Ken's detailed scrapbook.