San Diego Excursion celebrates automotive authenticity and vintage velocity

Wrist fractures from manual engine cranks were so common in the early days of automobiles that they became known as “chauffeur fractures” — a term that remained in use long after the physically challenging devices were replaced by electric engine starters.

An old manual crank was visible at Balboa Park on Sunday morning, attached to a 1914 Ford Model T, ready to be turned over, no matter the orthopedic risk.

This Tin Lizzie was among more than 100 venerable vehicles lined up in the parking lot outside the San Diego Automotive Museum, ready to roll through the second San Diego Excursion. The event celebrates the San Diego Exposition Road Race held in 1915 to promote the just-opened Panama-California Exposition, a two-year event that put San Diego on the international map.

Sponsored by the La Jolla chapter of the Horseless Carriage Club of America, Sunday’s event was open to all unmodified cars and trucks made in 1942 or earlier. And the emphasis was truly on faithful restorations rather than reimaginings.

Original 1932 Fords? Sure. Hotrod Deuce Coups? Nope.

Some attendees, like retired Carlsbad attorney Craig Correll, are extremely faithful in their adherence to that “unmodified” requirement.

Arriving in period 1920s dress, bowler hat and leather vest in place, Correll prepared to turn the crank on his ’14 Model T, fully aware of how the term chauffeur fracture came to be. Keeping things stock matters, he said, even if doing so is much less convenient and potentially painful.

“These cars are time machines,” Corrrell said. “Most people, when they look at a car of this vintage, they’re looking at them in a museum, in a static display, and we’re actually going to go out and use them for the purpose for which they were built.”

That includes original acetylene headlights, which require hand lighting a flammable liquid and come with built-in chimneys to vent exhaust fumes. It’s easier to drive this type of vehicle during the day. And it’s particularly fun to do so in places where people congregate during daylight hours.

“We particularly enjoy going through Del Mar where there will be Maseratis and Lamborghinis,” Correll said. “But when we come through, they’re all looking at this antique.”

After gathering at the park, this rolling and highly functional automotive museum gently headed out, taking surface streets, some vehicles moving under 40 miles per hour. The procession passed through Hillcrest and Mission Hills, circling Presidio Park then entering Point Loma, arriving at Rosecrans and Canon streets.

From there, the parade followed the same streets indicated by promotional materials for the 1915 road race. San Diego’s Automotive Research Library indicates that the original race followed a nearly 6-mile course on Rosecrans, Chatsworth Boulevard, Catalina Boulevard and Canon.

While the parade planned to make two circuits before retiring to Liberty Station for a vintage car show, the original event covered 300 miles, about 51 laps.

Dave Ness, chairman of Sunday’s event, couldn’t contain his excitement at what the scene would have been like in Point Loma as race cars ripped through usually quiet neighborhoods.

“The winner averaged over 65 miles an hour on dirt roads, on wooden spoke wheels in 1915, you know, no seatbelts, they were doing 100 down Rosecrans, it was crazy,” Ness said.

Most of the vehicles in the commemorative excursion had nowhere near the ability to keep that kind of pace. But there were a few real race cars in the group that looked capable of delivering vintage velocity.

Brian Blain brought his two race cars, a 1911 National that won the Indianapolis 500 in 1912 and a 1912 Packard with a similar large-wheeled, open-cockpit race stance. He travels the nation participating in vintage races with colleagues who call themselves the Ragtime Racers, keeping their cars in the same shape they would have been in if they were awaiting a checkered flag in Point Loma in 1915.

The National likely could have provided a true look at the pace of that long-ago race had a city not grown up around what were just dirt tracks 111 years ago.

“It’s pretty quick, I’ve had it up to 100 miles an hour back at the centennial at Indy in 2011,” Blain said.

He wore white coveralls, tucked into hard leather leggings like shin guards, gear that would have been standard for racers in the early 1900s.

Keeping cars this old in racing shape requires a level of dedication that would be overboard even for the most obsessed hotrodder. The National’s engine, for example, is a long-obsolete design with T-shaped cylinders and a leather clutch.

It would have been so much easier to go with more modern parts. Even gear from the 1940s would be significantly easier to maintain and source replacement parts. But this crew will go to any lengths to keep everything as it was. In some cases, blown engines have been used to create castings capable of producing new-old replicas from molten metal.

A 1911 racer kept in a barn for a century is among those most recently reborn.

“It’s like archeology,” Blain said. “You know that, if you can get it running again, you’ll get a chance to step back 100 years in time and sit in a seat that somebody sat in 100 years ago.”