Midweek Matinee: Farther Faster Safer, 1934-ish

All photos are frame grabs from video below.

We’re aware that the land-speed exploits of the awe-inspiring Ab Jenkins and his Boys of Bonneville salt-flats compatriots have appeared here previously, and also in print, but we found quite a lot to love in this 11-minute Pennzoil-sponsored short.

But first… the film’s mandatory one-minute introduction that serves as “A Brief History of Transportation, from Primitive Cultures to the Enlightenment of Modern Times,” at which point we get to experience the cumulative expression of civilization’s best and brightest achievements in moving from Point A to Point B: Drumroll, please.

And this is what took us two millennia to accomplish, folks: Ab Jenkins, aboard an Allis-Chalmers Model U farm tractor (sporting those newfangled Firestone pneumatic rubber tires at a time when steel wheels were still the norm on farm implements) running at 65.45 MPH. On a residential street, and Ab in street clothes and a leather helmet. Yee-haw!

Although undated, the film references 1933 records in the past tense, and features Ab setting a slew of new records in the V-12 Pierce-Arrow Special. That particular A-C tractor stunt (there were more to come) was set in September, 1934, and by 1935, Ab was piloting the supercharged Model J Duesenberg Special. We’re pegging this film as a late-’34 or early-’35 creation.

The narrator tells us, “In 1933, Jenkins drove a special Pierce-Arrow over the salt beds of Utah for 24 hours at an average speed of 117 MPH to establish 66 records. Now he’s back again to gain more records.” Insert Pennzoil product shots here. “We expect to do about 130 to ’31 MPH…” What Ab did was to set multiple records at better than 132 MPH, culminating with a run of 3,000 miles in 23.5 hours averaging 127 MPH.

All of which he accomplished wearing a casual white shirt and goggles, and zip for safety gear. A quick bottle of milk and he’s good to go.

The airplane-to-car filming segments are particularly fascinating, given the procedure’s impressive opportunities for success or disaster. Too bad Ab didn’t carry a cell phone to record the camera operator hanging out of the fuselage recording him. He did, however, scribble notes on sheets of paper affixed to a small clipboard, ball them up and toss them to the crew as he passed the pit area.

Public domain archival footage courtesy of the Internet Moving Images Archive, in association with Prelinger Archives.

We’ll vouch for the Farther and Faster portions of today’s title, but the Safer aspect seems to be limited to lubrication of vital engine and transmission parts of the on-screen vehicles, as befits the primary focus of the film’s sponsor. The driver’s safety, maybe not so much.