Roar With Gilmore

Tuesday morning my husband and I found ourselves some forty-five miles from Yosemite Valley---why would we not take such a detour?  It was a beautiful winter's morn, warm and dry enough not to make icy roads a big issue.

It had been some twenty years since I drove this stretch of CA 41.  It's one of the few remaining 1930s highways that hasn't been 'improved', with deeply banked curves to cradle a car along its way.  At its other end, between Atascadero and Morro Bay, CA 41 has recently been upgraded---which means it was nominally widened and the curves flattened.  I haven't the faintest idea why the latter is an improvement, since anyone who drove it regularly before (I had) and since notices that a car now wants to lean more towards the shoulder on a curve than it used to.  The natural track of a car is forward, and a flatter surface is only going to encourage that---much to the danger of bicyclists that supposedly most of the improvements were made for.

Back at the other end of the highway, we climbed over several 5 to 6,000 foot passes on our way to Yosemite Valley.  The declines between each pass are fairly small until the last, so the overall effect is a considerable gain in elevation from the floor of the San Joaquin Valley.  It's by no means a toilsome drive---unless it's high summer and there are a million other cars coming and going---but it is a mild to moderate workout for any car.

 1937 Hudson on Highway 41 during the Gilmore-Yosemite Economy Run

Which reminded of the 1930s Gilmore-Yosemite Economy Runs from Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles to Yosemite Valley.  Gilmore was a Southern California petroleum company, and like most oil companies of that era they associated themselves with aircraft and race cars---Gilmore so much so that they built a stadium where CBS Television City now stands and invented midget car racing.  Hence Roar With Gilmore.

Starlets Betty Grable and Lucille Ball in a midget

racer at Gilmore Stadium, c. 1935 

Once you've drained your audience of all their adrenaline, you might as well soothe them with the purr of a motor off on some vacation.  However the Gilmore-Yosemite Economy Run wasn't a May Day drive but a January adventure over roads then minimally maintained in winter---at least for the last 45 of its 306.5 miles.

Sedans of each model from each auto manufacturer were used. For example, in 1936 Studebaker entered their Dictator (a name that would be changed in 1938 for obvious reasons), Commander and President.  After each car was inspected to insure that it was strictly factory stock, the hood was sealed shut---a thought that surely sent a chill down the spine of many 1930s motorists.  Then each car was loaded with passengers and luggage---after each piece and person was weighed.  This was an economy test that was the antithesis of our modern EPA computerized testing.

1939 Packard.  

Earle C. Anthony was not only the biggest Packard dealer in Los Angeles, 

he also owned the powerhouse radio station KFI.

The passenger in the front seat of each car was from a competing manufacturer so to police the driver against actions like coasting, although it's unclear whether cars equipped with free wheeling were allowed to use the feature or not.  Free wheeling was an automatic vacuum clutch that essentially put the car into neutral any time the foot was off the gas, putting such an equipped car at a gas-saving advantage.

1939 Willys-Overlands lead the way out of Gilmore Stadium

Climbing the three lane Ridge Route Alternate (US 99)

The cars already faced two minor passes, the Caheunga and Newhall, before they reached Castaic on US 99 and the formidable Ridge Route Alternate.  Opened in October of 1933, it was a huge advancement in motoring to Bakersfield, but it offered its own perils---mainly long relatively straight gradients at up six percent.  Keeping pace while climbing Five Mile Canyon was probably the biggest challenge of the trip.  That pesky front passenger and check points along the way made sure any one car wasn't dropping behind to save a little gas.

The Ridge Route Alternate had already been widened from two to three lanes---the third being the infamous Suicide Lane down the middle, used to pass slow moving traffic in either direction.  Within a few years the Grapevine section would be widened again to four lanes with the mother of all concrete freeway barriers down the middle to keep runaway trucks and cars from plowing into oncoming traffic.

Down the three lane Grapevine and cruising towards Bakersfield on US 99

The long gentle downgrade from the Grapevine to Bakersfield undoubtedly recovered the miles per gallon lost in the previous hundred miles.  The drive was very economical up to Fresno, where all cars stopped to be refueled and calculated before heading into the Sierras on CA 41.

Above Oakhurst the cars again faced relatively steep grades, but the curves and weather conditions didn't allow for the top speed of 45 MPH.  Lost traction on slippery roads and variable speeds while climbing would do their best to rob the cars of their miles per gallon.

Entering Yosemite at Wawona Gate on Highway 41

Studebaker rolled into Yosemite Valley and out with the Gilmore-Yosemite trophy cups in the three major categories in 1936.  Their six cylinder Dictator averaged 24.24 MPG, the larger six cylinder Commander 23 MPG and the eight cylinder President 20.35 MPG.  These were good numbers for the era, but they weren't the highest miles per gallon rated in the run.  Gilmore chose to award by the old fashioned, railroad-centric ton mileage moved per gallon, giving larger fully loaded cars an advantage.  The small for its era four cylinder Willys had the highest mileage at 33.21 MPG, while both the six cylinder Graham and Chevrolet averaged over 25 MPG.  In the end, the public was more interested in the initial cost of a car and how much it cost to operate (miles per gallon), not how efficiently it moved its own weight plus a load.  Depending on how a car fared, a manufacturer could claim a win either by the trophy it received or the actual mileage it attained on the run.  Studebaker could finally do both in 1940 when their new lightweight six cylinder Champion with overdrive attained 29.19 MPG while their Commander and President once again won trophies.

Gilmore was bought out in the summer of 1940 by Socony-Vacuum (Mobil Oil) and the event was revamped into the Mobilgas Economy Run, a much more ambitious three day event from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon via Death Valley, Las Vegas and Boulder Dam.  By the late 1950s the route was stretched all the way to Kansas City, and the event was rife with corporate politics and shenanigans.  Professional drivers had taken over years before and the back seat passengers and their luggage were left on the side of the road.  The heavily larded Big Three (GM-Ford-Chrysler) were so embarrassed by Studebaker and Nash-Rambler's vastly superior mileage that they successfully lobbied to put those cars into their own condescending class.  The proliferation of imported cars in the 1960s further eroded American automakers confidence in the event as good publicity and so the concept  was abandoned after the 1968 Economy Run.

Studebaker Wins The 1952 Mobilgas Economy Run