Graham liner restoration
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Today (April 22, 2010) I went to the shop belonging to Butch Graham and did some shooting and interviewing. Butch is the son of Athol Graham, a former Mormon missionary, designer, inventor, builder and driver who was killed on the Bonneville Salt Flats almost 50 years ago.
Here's a little background.
Athol Graham designed and built the "City of Salt Lake" streamliner from his own plans, in his own shop and with his own money; that is until he got some support from Firestone and Andy Granatelli.
According to Butch, the liner was the first car that STP sponsored. AND according to Andy Granatelli, it IS the first LSR car that STP sponsored. Butch showed me a fantastic advertising poster that displayed the liner and touted the speed that had been achieved to that date: 344 mph and a few decimals.
This was when the current land speed record was at 394 and had been set in 1947 by John Cobb's Napier/Railton.
© 2010 Ray the Rat