Operation Mexico!: Carl Kiekhaefer vs the 1951-1953 Pan American Road Race

By Karl Pippart III

For five years, Mexico staged a car race that held the sporting world mesmerized for a week of thrills, spills, and chills. Competitors came from all around the world to participate in this brutal race of about 2,035 miles over rugged terrain. Goliaths of the car industry soon discovered the race provided a platform to test new products and rise within the U.S. market. It wasn’t long before an intense competition between big players like Chrysler Corporation and Daimler-Benz emerged, and Carl Kiekhaefer found himself at the heart of not only a dangerous physical race but a fierce battle to be at the top of U.S. motor manufacturing. Carl was a hard-driving, competition-loving Wisconsin industrialist and manufacturer. He surely would not bow down to political pressure, rigged races, sabotage, or threats. And so the stage was set for the Pan American Road Race—a spectacular spectacle, never to be forgotten.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hillcrest Media Group
• Release date: Jul 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781634136150

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Acknowledgments

The following people and organizations generously gave of their time, talents and assistance to make this book possible: Rich Barber (Chrysler 300 Club, Inc.), Bill Culver (Road Race Lincoln Register), Ray Doern, Bill Fenrich, Gary Fenrich (Brunswick Corporation), The Henry Ford (Benson Ford Research Center), Wayne Graefen, Andy Granatelli, Owen Grigg, Russ Hamilton, Debbie Jarvis, Anita Kiekhaefer, Fred Kiekhaefer, Kiekhaefer Corporation, John Lazenby, Hershel McGriff, Jamie Myler (Ford Motor Company Archives), Brad Peck (Brunswick Corporation), Jeffrey L. Rodengen (Write Stuff Enterprises, LLC), Edgar Rose, Brandt Rosenbusch (Chrysler Historical Foundation), Charles Chuck Schoendorf, Rose Smiljanic, Charles D. Strang and Danielle Szostak-Viers (Chrysler Historical Foundation).

Charles D. Strang provided written permission to reproduce passages from his emails; excerpts from a personal interview with the author on Saturday, October 6, 2012; and the foreword for this book. Additionally, Mr. Strang proofread the text and provided necessary criticism and corrections. I express heartfelt appreciation and thanks for Mr. Strang’s enthusiasm and assistance with this book project.

A special mention and loving thank you is reserved for Cari L. Myford, who proofread the entire text from a layperson’s perspective, processed all of the photographic images into a digital format, and kept me on schedule to get the book done on time. Without her, none of this would have been possible.

Foreword

Others have written knowledgeably of the development of the famed Chrysler Hemi FirePower V8 engines. Others have covered the birth and conduct of the Pan American Road Race (PARR), a brutal car race of about 2,035 miles over the rugged terrain of Mexico between the border of Guatemala and that of Texas. Still others have written of the legendary Carl Kiekhaefer, a hard-driving, competition-loving Wisconsin industrialist and manufacturer of outboard motors, chainsaws and military drone engines. But rare indeed is the technical detail or cause and effect which is expressed in this book, presumably a partial result of Karl Pippart’s close relationship with Chrysler engineering personnel and his access to members of the original Kiekhaefer race team and/or their descendents. In great detail the author describes the PARR, Carl Kiekhaefer’s role in it, and its role in his career.

The PARR was also his first auto race and led to his later participation in both the NASCAR and AAA stock car circuits in the USA during the middle 1950s. Those he dominated until he chose to retire from the sport at the close of 1956.

What, it might be asked, did a major manufacturer of outboard motors have to gain from an intense program of car racing? Plenty! Aside from huge amounts of publicity for the Mercury Outboard name, the activity and the implied knowledge led to offers for the purchase of Kiekhaefer Corporation from both Chrysler Corporation and Daimler-Benz. While neither offer was accepted, they presumably added to the company’s value and prestige.

Perhaps more importantly, the marine industry was soon to move strongly into a product called the sterndrive—a boat propulsion device combining the advantages of an outboard motor drive system with an automobile engine. The car racing activity brought Mercury deep knowledge of car engine design and close working relationships with major car manufacturers. Kiekhaefer Corporation’s new line of MerCruiser sterndrives quickly moved to a position of leadership, which it still holds today.

Now let Karl Pippart tell you of the intimate details of the Pan American Road Race!

—Charles D. Strang

Preface

A titanic personality, an exotic engine and the unquenchable thirst for high-speed competition all converged at the same place (Mexico) and time of year (3rd week of November) on an annual basis during the early 1950s. The contest, reflecting the setting, virtually exploded with the intensity of the people, machines and combustible circumstances involved. The storylines were similar: Daredevil driving exacerbated by timed legs, sportsmanship compromised by corporate meddling and the specter of human tragedy, resulting in the yearly bloodshed of both participants and spectators. Only the names and details changed every autumn. For five years, Mexico staged an event that held the sporting world mesmerized for a week of thrills, spills and chills. The concentration of men, women and machines made for grand theater of the highest caliber—a spectacular spectacle, never to be forgotten.

Starting with the second Mexican Road Race, which was staged in November 1951, an engineer from Wisconsin, with the singular determination to bend reality and circumstances to his persuasion, first stepped onto Mexican soil. Neither the man nor the country would ever be the same. They traded punches, but the man, after three years of maniacal toil and large sums of money spent, walked away from the experience a changed sportsman. E. C. (Elmer Carl) Kiekhaefer never set foot on Mexican soil again, but he left a huge impression on the country, and the country left a huge impression on him.

Carl Kiekhaefer went on to reshape stock car racing during the mid 1950s. He brought with him Chryslers packed with snarling Hemi V8 engines and the fierce determination to alter, no, to revolutionize how the business of racing the strictly stocks was conducted. Carl subjected stock car racing to his oversized will, with a number of his innovations, techniques and inventions still being utilized well into the 21st century. The student of Mexico had ceaselessly worked to become the master instructor of the dirt and clay bull rings scattered around the United States. If not a man for all seasons, then Carl Kiekhaefer was a man for all motorsports eras, reshaping the sport long after he left it.

For this slim tome, we are privileged to examine Carl Kiekhaefer’s volatile engagement with the 1951–1953 Carrera Panamericana. Accessing original source images and mining first-person accounts affords us a rare opportunity to experience events as they unfolded—chiefly from Carl’s perspective. His favorite forms of communication included phone calls, letters, telegrams and memos. Not one to shy away from controversy, ECK (the initials he used for correspondence within Kiekhaefer Corporation) renewed a grudge match with Ford Motor Company following the end of the 1952 PARR. What started out as a legal issue concerning the use of the Mercury name back in the early 1940s, pushed into the 1950s, this time involving stock car racing at the highest level, with championships, national publicity and many millions of dollars at stake. FoMoCo and GM, awash in cash and talent, were soundly beaten.

Despite the advantages of in-house dynamometer testing, Chrysler Corporation’s FirePower V8—with its legendary cylinder heads featuring hemispherical combustion chambers—a pool of engineering talent led by the intellectually gifted Charles D. Strang, and three attempts at victory with a combined seven entries spread over several classes, Carl and his team never quite took the checkered flag at the end of any Mexican Road Race. The last year, 1953, yielded only frustration and defeat. All four entries suffered calamities that knocked them out of the race. Sometimes, the heroic effort expended in an attempt to win at all costs is the most compelling story of all, no matter the final outcome.

Chapter 1

Construir y que competirán en la carrera (Construct It and the Competitors Will Race)

On Monday, June 4th, 1906, at the family homestead in Mequon, Wisconsin, Elmer Carl Kiekhaefer was born. A litany of descriptive terms could never do justice to the human dynamo who had just entered the world. As the boy grew into a man and became an engineer, the image of ECK was distorted through a prism of labels used to describe him: boss, eccentric, genius, tyrant, obsessed, driven, tireless, hard, perfectionist, intense and competitive. His professional life was consumed by an insatiable need for speed and its most appropriate outlet: racing! Whether it took place in the water or on terra firma, Carl Kiekhaefer was hooked on the adrenaline rush of high-speed competition.

During the 1920s, ECK attended the Milwaukee School of Engineering, worked for a division of his eventual heated rival Evinrude, and spent over ten years at Stearns Magnetic, where he rose to the position of chief engineer. With his family’s financial backing