How on earth does someone with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin become known as “Wacky?” Apparently, a young Stanley Howard Arnolt II purchased the rights to a small marine engine from a manufacturer who went bust during the Depression – more on that later. Arnolt felt that he needed to draw attention to the usefulness of his small engine, so he set out one foggy, windy day from St. Joseph, Michigan, in a 13-foot rowboat powered by his Sea-Mite engine. His four hour journey, and arrival at the Navy Pier in Chicago, was mentioned in the Chicago Daily Newswhich used the headline “Wacky Comes Through the Fog; Crosses Lake in 13-Foot Boat,” after the reporter heard someone on the pier hail him with “Hallo there, Wacky!” as he appeared out of the fog. It stuck. And he apparently liked the nickname.
Stanley Howard “Wacky” Arnolt II
Wacky Arnolt was all American. He was tall and full figured, often wearing a cowbot boots and hat.
Arnolt was born in 1906 or 1907, depending on which source you believe, in Chicago to a family of bookbinders. As he grew, he found that he was much more interested in mechanical things than bookbinding, so he entered the University of Wisconsin where he received a degree in mechanical engineering, in 1930. His goal was to go to Detroit and work for one of the automobile manufacturers as a designer. But as the Depression deepened, no one was hiring a young, inexperienced mechanical engineer. He worked at whatever jobs he could find and ultimately went to work for the Waukesha Engine Company. One of the company’s products was a small marine engine called the “Sea-Mite.”
A small marine engine, the Sea-Mite, gave Arnolt his start in business.
It was a 1-liter, 4-cylinder, 20 HP flathead marine engine intended for use as an auxiliary engine for sailing yachts. As no one was building sailing yachts, there was little market for the Sea-Mite. The company going under, and his job about to disappear, Arnolt did something few others would have had the nerve to do – he bought the rights to the Sea-Mite for pennies on the dollar.
Whether Arnolt was lucky or had more foresight than most others, the Sea-Mite became his ticket to incredible success. In 1939, Arnolt moved to Warsaw, Indiana, looking for available manufacturing space, finally setting up in a residential garage. He also went to Washington, DC, to market his little engine. Arnolt saw the likelihood of war and the role the United States was likely to play, either as a supplier or as a participant. Ships were going to be needed in either situation, and plans were being made to build a lot of ships. Ships, though, have a number of small boats on them, some of which need small engines. Arnolt returned to Warsaw with a contract to build Sea-Mite engines for the U.S. government, and he was on his way to being a very successful businessman. In an editorial in the Warsaw Times Union, he was called “a vibrant dynamic industrialist who came to Warsaw with one product and one employee in 1939, and has become the head of a vast manufacturing and sales organization with affiliations from coast to coast and in foreign lands.”
The success of the Sea-Mite gave Arnolt the funds to expand his operation into other areas of war production. His company produced precision-machined parts for military aircraft, landing gear components and pilot ejection systems for carrier-based aircraft, rowboats, boat trailers, and a variety of other war materials. After the war, production shifted to a wide variety of products for the civilian market, from slicing machines, to dinette sets, to ashtrays for the railroad dining cars built by the Pullman Company.
Wacky’s Cars Arnolt was now a multi-millionaire, and his interest turned back to automobiles. His daily driver had been a Lincoln Continental until he was seduced by an MG TC, in 1949. That seduction was serious enough that in December 1950, he established S.H. Arnolt, Inc. in Chicago to sell British cars – all of them. When he heard that Morris had an excess of Minors, he walked into a bank with which he had never done business and walked out with a $1 million loan. With the money, he bought 1,000 Morris Minors, cars that took him quite a while to sell. Arnolt was now in the automobile business, and he expanded his business into accessories, parts, and even mopeds. He became the distributor for BMC automobiles for the entire Midwest. But he was still not an automobile designer.
SH Arnolt sold MGs and pretty much all other British cars in their facility in Chicago.
In 1952, Arnolt ventured to Italy for the Turin Automobile Show. Business was not good for Italian coachbuilders. A weak economy and materials shortages because of the Korean War were taking a toll on their sales. Carrozzeria Bertone was in serious trouble and had only two cars on display. Nuccio Bertone [Photo 4] had managed to acquire two MG TD chassis from the MG importer in Rome and built a coupé and a convertible, hoping to sell the two cars and make a little money for his company and the importer. Imagine his surprise when a tall, hefty American in cowboy boots and a ten-gallon hat approached and said he liked the cars and wanted Bertone to build 100 of each of them! Griffith Borgeson interviewed Nuccio Bertone for an article in Special Interest Autos and reported on that meeting and the cars that resulted from it. Bertone had explained his company’s problems to Borgeson, then described the meeting:
Nuccio Bertone
“The morning of the opening day of the Turin Show,” Nuccio went on, “a gentleman came up to me – obviously and American, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and high-heeled boots – and asked ‘Did you make these bodies?’ Yes Sir, I answered, and he said ‘Bravo!’ and hugged me. Then he said ‘I want these cars.’ I said the bodies are mine, but the chassis are not. If the distributor really wants to sell the chassis, I’ll gladly sell you the bodies. ‘That’s not what I’m interested in’ the stranger said. ‘What I would like to do is buy a minimum of a hundred cars of each type.’ Well, I opened my eyes. I had made a deal with the Romans just for possibilities within Italy. I had no thought of getting involved with third parties, and certainly not with the English and Americans.”
A deal was done, and, thanks to Arnolt, Carrozzeria Bertone was saved from extinction. Without Arnolt’s intervention, a lot of beautiful automobiles would not have been created, including important studies like the Alfa Romeo B.A.T cars and production cars like the Giulietta Sprint, which followed soon after the influx of Arnolt’s money.
Arnolt and Bertone developed a partnership that lasted a decade. One report says that Arnolt even became a vice president of the company. The first result of the partnership was the Arnolt-MG.
The Arnolt-MG was better looking than the MG TD and probably the least expensive Italian coachbuilt car available in the US.
After giving Bertone the order for 200 automobiles, Arnolt got a commitment from MG to supply the rolling chassis. The chassis slowly arrived in Italy where the custom bodywork was installed, then were shipped to Chicago to be sold to Arnolt’s eager Midwestern customers. In an article in Automobile Quarterly(Volume XV, Number 4, Fourth Quarter 1977 by Rich Taylor titled “Wacky – Harold Stanley Arnolt II and His Cars”), Taylor gives a couple reasons why the Arnolt-MG was successful: “Admittedly, the Arnolt-MG was nothing special compared to similar coachbuilt one-offs that Pinin Farina and the rest were doing. . . . But it all worked. For a mere $2,995 f.o.b. Chicago, an enterprising enthusiast could buy what was easily the cheapest coachbuilt Italian Grand Touring car in America, but one which – unlike such exotica as Siata, Osca, Ermini and sundry other small Italian sporting machinery – could be serviced by any one among the growing horde of neighborhood MG dealers.”
As MG chassis were making their way from England to Italy to the U.S., Arnolt became Bertone’s agent in the U.S. With a strong relationship with Bertone, Arnolt had other ideas for custom cars. The first of these was a Siata 208CS that he had Bertone build in 1952. With the Arnolt-MGs doing well, the Siata would be a one-off.
The Siata Bertone designed for Wacky Arnolt was a one-of-a-kind. Bonhams sold it some years ago, no telling what it is worth now.
Then after two years of the agreement, MG ended production of the TD in favor of the new TF, but they did not make the TF chassis available to Arnolt and Bertone. MGs were selling very well, and the company needed all the rolling chassis they could build for their own cars. Only 65 coupés and 35 convertibles could be built. The agreement with Bertone called for 200 cars, not 100.
Arnolt liked British cars, so he looked at other British marques for chassis he could have Bertone turn into other Arnolt cars. An Aston Martin DB2 looked promising, and Bertone had Franco Scaglione design an Arnolt-Aston. Three cars were built, chassis numbers LML50/502, LML50/505, and LML50/507, and they were stunning.
Until Aston Martin stopped the supply of chassis to Bertone, the company did several coachbuilt cars for Wacky Arnolt. This is one of the few still in existence, and it resides at the Blackhawk Museum in California.
They had a look that Scaglione would modify for Arnolt’s later Bristol-based car. Sadly, Aston Martin was not enamored with the idea of the Arnolt-Aston, and they stopped the flow of chassis to Bertone. There was another one-off in 1953, a special Arnolt-Bentley on an R Type Continental chassis. This was Arnolt’s personal automobile.
Wacky once drove a Lincoln Continental before he became entranced with British cars. This Bentley was built for him by Bertone.
Designed by Giovanni Michelotti, its look was similar to the Arnolt-MG coupé. It was painted gold and had a tan leather interior, as well as monogrammed flasks and glasses and a special compartment for Mrs. Arnolt’s cosmetics.
These were not cars that would fill the agreement for 200 cars, though, so the search continued for another chassis that could be used by Bertone for a larger run of Arnolt automobiles. In April 1953, Arnolt attended the New York Auto Show and met James Watt, the sales manager for the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Arnolt was the exclusive dealer for Bristol for the entire U.S., so the meeting was likely planned. Bristol was developing a new model, the 404, which was to be launched in the fall in London.
The Bristol 404 was the basis for the Arnolt-Bristol.
Bristol had been an airplane producer until after WWII, when Aldy Aldington, the head of Frazer Nash and a pre-war BMW importer, brought BMW’s Fritz Fielder to England to meet with the people at Bristol. The intent was to bring Bristol into the automobile business by producing a copy of BMW’s pre-war 327. The 404 would use the old BMW engine, now badged as a Bristol. Known for the quality of their products, Bristol made the chassis very rigid, composed of steel box sections linked by three cross sections. The 1971-cc, inline 6-cylinder engine could be built with 9:1 compression and three Solex carburetors producing 130 HP at 5500 rpm. Although it had a power deficit to other 2-liter cars like Ferrari and Maserati, it was a very durable engine. It seemed perfect for Arnolt’s next coachbuilt car, and he negotiated an agreement for Bristol to provide 200 rolling chassis.
At Bertone, Scaglione was faced with a dilemma – how to produce a low, sexy body on a chassis containing a tall engine topped by three, single-barrel Solex 32 carburetors. [Photo 12] His solution was genius. He dealt with the engine height by using an air scoop, allowing the surrounding bodywork to be lower than the scoop. He then drew sharply creased fender lines so as to make the air scoop look less prominent. Scaglione was only able to create these fender lines because the body was built of steel – aluminum would have been too soft, although the lightweight metal was used for the hood and trunk lid. Even using steel, the car was light – much lighter than the aluminum Bristol 404.
The first Arnolt-Bristol was completed in time for and was shown at the London Motor Exposition, along with the new Bristol 404. During the production of the cars, the majority of which were built from 1954-1959, it has been generally accepted that 142 cars were built. Twelve of those cars were destroyed in a fire at the Arnolt warehouse, leaving 130 cars. But, there is some argument about that number that, unfortunately, won’t be settled here. One claim by Bristol Managing Director, Anthony Crook, is that fewer than 100 chassis were provided by Bristol, although apparently Bristol would not release the exact number. The assumption is that while serial numbers of the chassis ran from 404-X-3000 to 3141, some of those chassis were used for other purposes or for Bristol production. Another claim is that there were six rather than three coupes built because the S.H. Arnolt sales ledgers only captured cars sold in the Americas and not in Europe, where the other three coupes were sold. Taylor, in his Automobile Quarterly article gave the 142/130 number, of which three were coupés and three were right-hand-drive. He also reported that 404-X-3136-3140 had aluminum bodies, disc front brakes, and larger fuel tanks. Two of these cars, 3136 and 3140, became factory racecars, along with two standard cars, 3038 and 3046.
The first Arnolt-Bristol arrived in Chicago in March 1954. Magazines that had the chance to test them gave rave reviews. One of the more famous reviews was by Borgeson for Sports Car Illustrated:
“I revved the engine to 5000 with the clutch in and shift lever in first cog, popped the clutch and stood on the throttle. . . . The tach needle crept round to 3000. Suddenly the racing cam effect came in. Within two seconds the needle was swinging past 5000, the speedometer read 40 and the valve gear was screaming its tension.
“With foot hard on the throttle I punched the clutch, whipped the shift lever down to second and snapped the clutch out again, keeping the revs above the thrusty 3000 mark. . . . Now the tach read 5000 and as it approached 6000 at 65 mph I popped another shift still keeping the throttle pinned to the floorboards. I wound it out in third at 6000, indicating about 95 mph and threw the final shift into fourth.”
Not likely that any of the other reviews were done with this level of exuberance.
There were three, or maybe four, models, although only three had model names associated with them. The base model, intended to be very dual-purpose car, was the Bolide.
The Bollide was the base model, designed to be a race car you could drive on the street.
It was a stripped down version of the Arnolt-Bristol that could easily be raced or driven on the street. Its list price was $3,395. The De Luxe came with a windshield, side curtains, top, glove box, and bumpers, and listed for $4,645. The De Luxe Coupé had pop-up headlights and cost $6,390.
The top end of the Arnolt-Bristol line was the Coupe. Only three were made.
There was also what appears to be an optioned Bolide. It still had the cut-down windshield but had some upgrades, possibly including the dash cluster from the De Luxe. The car in this profile may be one of those.
Now that Arnolt had a car capable of racing, what else was there to do but go racing?
Arnolt-Bristol Bolides were popular racecars for amateur racers. One driven by Freddie Wacker tied for the E-Modified Championship.
In 1954, Freddie Wacker took an Arnolt-Bristol racing in the E-Modified class of the Sports Car Club of America. He tied Ted Boynton’s Frazer Nash for the championship. Prior to the Sebring 12-hour race in March 1955, 25 Arnolt-Bristols had been built, so Arnolt requested and received classification from the FIA as a “limited series production” sports car for international GT racing. Arnolt had three cars prepared for the race. Walter Inai would be his second in command, and Juan Lopez was the crew chief. He lined up several decent drivers, but he wanted someone with experience to be the team captain. Arnolt went to New York and the Le Chanteclair restaurant, owned by retired grand prix driver René Dreyfus and his brother. Arnolt wanted Dreyfus on his team, but Dreyfus resisted – he was nearly 50-years old and retired from racing. Arnolt persisted, and Dreyfus gave in and joined the team.
Rene Dreyfus won the Monaco Grand Prix in 1930 in a private Bugatti. He went on to have a successful career in racing. Arnolt convinced him to come out of retirement to be the Team Captain for the Arnolt-Bristol team in their first assault on Sebring.
Arnolt prepared a first class assault on Sebring. His team did a professional preparation of the cars, he bought transporters and spares that shamed some of the bigger professional teams, and he set his driver lineup. The results were astounding. John Panks and Ernie Erickson finished first in the under two-liter production class and 18th overall. Second in class was Bob Goldich and Wacky Arnolt – 25th overall. Dreyfus and Bob Grier were delayed by a minor problem but still finished fourth in class and 29th overall.
Arnolt Bristol car 58 at 1955 Sebring 12 Hours race, team principal and driver “Wacky” Arnolt at right in racing gear; Rene Dreyfus (French driver and New York restauranteur) is in light suit with dark armband directly beyond car, just in line with our view of car’s racing stripes; Photo: Ozzie Lyons
The next year, the team was back at Sebring with a few changes. Dreyfus had retired for good. Arnolt and Goldich were again teamed together, but they broke and did not finish. Bob Ballinger and Bill Stewart finished best – second in class and 13thoverall. Third in class and 17thoverall were Jay Peterson and Ted Boynton. 1957 would be the last year that Arnolt would race, and it was nearly the end of the team’s races at Sebring. Ralph Durbin and J. Cook finished fifth in class and 30thoverall. The Ballinger/Peterson car was withdrawn. Arnolt was again teamed with Goldich. Late in the afternoon, Arnolt pitted, and Goldich took over. On the first lap out of the pits, Goldich was blinded by the setting sun, braked too late, and crashed. He was killed, and Arnolt never raced again.
Wacky used every opportunity to advertise his cars. They were winners, so why not?
There was no Arnolt-Bristol team at Sebring in 1958 or 1959, but they returned in 1960 with three Bolides – one was standard, one was an aluminum-bodied car, and one was an aluminum, right-hand-drive car. Max Goldman and Ralph Durbin drove the right-hand-drive car and took it to a class win and 14thoverall. Seaverns/Johnston/Bradley were in the aluminum car and finished fourth in class and 27thoverall, even after having to change the rear axle. Tom Payne and Bob Gary were in the standard Bolide and finished sixth in class and 39thoverall. The Arnolt-Bristol team won the Team Prize as they were the only team to have all cars finish.
Throughout this time, Arnolt-Bristols continued to race in SCCA, although no one but Boynton ever won a national championship in one. In 1960, factory cars got six class wins in nine SCCA races. That was the last year for the factory race team.
Wacky Arnolt died just before Christmas, in 1963. His widow, then his son, tried to keep the businesses alive, but the empire he built dwindled and died without Wacky.
Serial Number 404-X-3040 Alberto Gutiérrez has a small collection of very interesting cars. His 1955 Talbot Lago T26 GSL was profiled in Vintage RoadcarMay 2015 https://sportscardigest.com//transition/. A recent email invited us to profile a car he had discovered and had restored, this 1954 Arnolt-Bristol Bolide. He had been looking for an Arnolt-Bristol, but there just aren’t many around and available. A friend, who owned three of the cars, including one of the very rare coupés, helped Gutiérrez look for a car – his were not available for sale. Then he heard about one in Sweden. A high school teacher in Sweden had found the car in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1990. It had a non-original engine – really non-original, like a Pontiac or something similar. He took it back to Sweden and found a Bristol engine for the car. It wasn’t the original engine, but it was a correct Bristol engine. While in Sweden, the owner worked on the car to get it running and driving, but he eventually decided to sell it. A friend of Gutiérrez was going to Sweden to look at an Alfa Romeo, so he agreed to check out the Arnolt-Bristol while he was there. It was complete, so Gutiérrez bought it and had it shipped home.
When the car arrived, it wouldn’t run, and the truck transporting it could not get through the gate of the community. So, it was unloaded, and Gutiérrez and his wife, Julie, pushed the car from the gate to their house the better part of a mile away. He got the car running, albeit poorly, but he discovered it had no brakes. “It was the first car I’ve ever bought that didn’t run and didn’t stop.”
As he delved into the history of the car, he learned that it had been raced in California in the 1950s and 1960s. He found that it definitely had been raced at Stockton in 1957.
Stockton 1957.
During the restoration, there were some rare parts to be found, a rollbar to be removed, and bodywork. When the car was stripped, there was no bondo or rust. Several of the rarer parts, like the ignition switch, were with the car and the rest were found. It turned out to be a great car to restore.
Gutiérrez spoke with Mike Arnolt, Wacky’s son. This car was definitely a Bolide, but it had the De Luxe dash and a top, unlike the Bolide. It also came with a red leather interior rather than vinyl, but there was no way to tell if the leather was original to the car. Remember that possible fourth model discussed earlier? Maybe this is one of them. Or it could just have been a parts bin car – using up some of the extra parts that were lying around the shop.
So, what do you do with a car like this Arnolt-Bristol? If you’re Gutiérrez, you drive it. He intends to drive it to Amelia Island in March 2019 and then on to the second Greenbrier concours in West Virginia. On the way, he wants to take the car on The Tail of the Dragon – 318 curves in 11 miles in the North Carolina and Tennessee mountains. He’s a real car guy.
Driving Impressions In his Special Interest Autosarticle, Borgeson waxed eloquent about the Arnolt-Bristol he once owned. The first few sentences of the article definitely let the reader know how he felt about his car: “One of the most indelible motoring experiences of my life was spent at the wheel of an Arnolt-Bristol competition two-seater. The experience extended over almost six years of daily driving, practically every moment of which was a source not merely of satisfaction but of fulfillment. She – la vetturataught me what two powerful liters in a tough, sinewy chassis could be – namely, my ideal.”
My experience with an Arnolt-Bristol can’t compare to Borgeson’s. I had about 60 minutes, not six years, but there was a moment when I was driving the car when I shouted over the wind noise to Gutiérrez sitting in the passenger seat, “I LIKE THIS CAR!” I’ve always thought these cars were beautiful, and I knew a little about their racing history, but I learned how much fun one can be on the road, especially when the road twists and turns.
It is a small car, and the driving position is a bit tight. Pedals are close enough together that I had to take off my right shoe (12 wide) to be able to drive the car. Once in, the seats are comfortable with decent lateral support. Looking around, I was glad that the car had the De Luxe dash with gauges clustered together rather than spread out across the dash. There are seven gauges in five bezels. Above the steering column are oil temperature on the left and water temperature on the right. Between those is a bezel with three gauges – oil pressure at the top, ammeter at 7:00, and fuel at 4:00. Level with the steering column are two large gauges – speedometer on the left and tach on the right. Everything you need to know right in front of you.
Getting going takes a bit of clutch slip and a good amount of gas pedal. Torque is not abundant, so you quickly find that it’s best to keep the revs up. One of the changes Gutiérrez has made is an all synchro gear box – a nice improvement. It has a Laycock overdrive as well, making the car quite a cruiser. First gear is quite tall, but shifting is smooth and precise. The engine is wonderful – the sound makes you smile. And it likes being around 4500-5000 rpm and pulls nicely to there. When fast enough to engage the overdrive, the revs drop 1000 rpm. It probably dropped engine noise too, but with the short windscreen, wind noise at that speed masked some of the exhaust note. There was plenty wind in the hair.
Then there’s the handling. It is quickly obvious that this was designed to be a race car. Corners are taken flat and without drama. Going up one dead end street to a cul-d-sac, Gutiérrez encouraged putting the car in first gear and getting hard on the gas. With its tight turning circle and racing suspension, the car just flew around the cul-d-sac, making driver and passenger break out in a wide smile.
At the end of my time in the car, Gutiérrez said the car had a split personality. “it was designed to be a car that you could drive to work all week and drive to the race track on the weekends.” He is so right!
Specifications
Chassis Box section steel linked by three cross sections
Body Steel with aluminum hood and trunk lid
Engine Bristol 404 inline 6-clyinder with inclined overhead valves
Displacement 1971 cc (120.4 cid)
Bore/Stroke 66 mm (2.60 inches)/96 mm (3.78 inches)
Horsepower 130 hp (97 kw) @ 5500 rpm
Torque 128 ft-lbs (174 Nm) @ 5000 rpm
Transmission Bristol four speed with reverse
Induction Three downdraft Solex 32 carburetors
Brakes Lockheed drum brakes
Steering Transverse rack and pinion
Front Suspension Independent, transverse leaf springs with telescopic shocks
Rear Suspension Longitudinal torsion bars with two telescopic shocks per side
Length 4242 mm (167 inches)
Width 1727 mm (68 inches)
Height 1118 mm (44 inches)
Wheelbase 2445 mm (96.25 inches)
Weight 2185 lbs
Weight distribution 50/50
Tires 5.50 x 16
