First off, a little background is in order for those of you who do not know the history of this car.

My late grandfather (and my namesake) Bill Bronson purchased this 32 Roadster in October of 1953. It was given away at the 1951 Indianapolis Auto Show at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. It was formally owned and raced by the late Dick Kraft. The 32 roadster pictured above is the car Dick raced during the 1948 SCTA season, clocking 7.44 seconds at 120.96 mph on 10/31/48 at El Mirage.

Photo used as my avatar is of my late father Larry at age 12 at my late grandfather, Bill. August – 1957. (Note: for additional info on the dragster, see link in my signature below)

I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Kraft on several occations about the car before his passing earlier this year and the story of how the car came to be given away goes something like this.

Pre-Bronson History
Dick was friends with Ralph Potter. Ralph and his wife worked at Long Beach Douglas Aircraft during WWII. Later, they would own Potters Muffler shop on Pennsylvanie Ave in Indy. Ralph was a big car show promoter in the Midwest in the early 1950′s.

Potter contacted Kraft about locating a ‘nice’ car to give away to promote his 2nd annual Indianapolis Auto Show. While the first annual show had gone well, he thought a give away car would be a way to bring more success to the event.

Kraft located this 32 Roadster in the LA times Antiquest and Classifieds section for sale and recognized it as one he had raced in 1948 with a Winfield Cam.

While Dick could not remember the owners name, he did recall that he worked for the then infant Hot Rod magazine. Dick recalled that this was the last 32 he raced (he preferred 24 T’s due to their lower weight).

A deal was struck for $2500 for the car and Mr. Potters son, Jr. Potter, drove the car back to Indiana.

You can read the whole article here. You might need to register to get access. It’s free and there are many more photos of Dick and the hot rods he created!