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David Steele

@flatheadroadster

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ExecDirector @americanhotrodfoundation ,musician,podcaster,BMX’r,automotive historian,concours judge,Katie’s husband,father to Bennett and Emerling.

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Still trying to catch my breath from a truly mind-blowing experience yesterday at the first annual RPM / SCTA Dirt Drags. As someone who has had a seriously unhealthy obsession with early hot rodding for far too long, I never dreamed that in a million years I’d be sitting in an era-correct flathead roadster, in line with several dozen similar cars, waiting to make a run at El Mirage dry lake. A literal dream come true! Tommy’s old roadster ran perfectly and damn near went undefeated. As my late friend Mark Lambert used to call it “the Sparks advantage!” , and it was in action yesterday, and then some. Thank you, Tommy! And thank you to Russ and Justin and the SCTA for making this ultimate form of time travel become a reality. I’m already counting the days until the next one, scheduled for May of ‘27. Hot Rod History is alive and well!!! #americanhotrodfoundation #savinghotrodhistory #rpmnationals #southerncaliforniatimingassociation taken in El Mirage Dry Lake by @flatheadroadster

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2 days ago

Every enthusiast has important happenings in their journey that supercharge their interest and the big one for my dad was his time as a line mechanic at Knoche ( pronounced Kin-oh-kee ) Cadillac in Hamburg, NY. This would have been 1962 and ’63- right after he’d graduated from college but before he went to work for General Motors. He would reference this job and its impact on him often because it was his first exposure to higher end cars. Not only being around them but servicing them and “test driving” them. He had great stories about “Knoche’s” and they would oftentimes pop up when he’d see a certain car at a show and he’d say “we had one of these come into Knoche’s once”. This included new cars and, especially, trade ins. The dealership was apparently well known for its service center and Cadillac owners would bring in their “other cars” for general maintenance. Highlights for my dad were the fuel injected Corvettes, anything with factory tri-power or any type of multi carburetors ( apparently he was known in the shop as having a knack for tuning these setups ) and the lone 300SL that he had fond memories of. It became a place of legend for me through his stories. Fast forward to yesterday and another day of hosting a film shoot at our garage location. A nice father and son team showed up with a small crew to film a music video. The dad was overseeing things and the son was the talent. They were car people, loved the garage, and we got to chatting. Within no time we realize we’re both from Buffalo. I ask him his name and he says “Sean Knoche”. I must have almost shot to the ceiling. “Knoche?”, I ask. He says yes. I say,”My dad worked at Knoche Cadillac in the early ‘60s and talked about it all the time. I’m assuming you’ve heard of the dealership?”, to which this guy says,”Wow! Yeah, that’s our family”.

A billion-to-one. Thanks to Sean and Grant Knoche for keeping me up past my bedtime last night, trading WNY car stories, and for humoring me as I relayed almost every story from the old Knoche’s from my dad to them. by @flatheadroadster

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7 days ago

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8 days ago

Thank you to this driver for making standstill traffic a little more tolerable. #highlander #ishallbethelast #whowantstoliveforever #queen #seanconnery by @flatheadroadster

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9 days ago

I’m always proud of my boy but today I’m proud of my boy AND his school. Not only did the Wesley school recognize today ( 9/25 ) as “Nine to Five Day” in honor of Dolly Parton, but they’ve been educating the kids all week on her life, her incredible journey from gripping poverty to entertainment mogul and, most importantly, her generosity. I love it that my child was coming home from school this week and announcing things like,”Guess what else Dolly Parton did? She built a library for kids!” I knew what he meant:) Today was the final Dolly day and the usually uniformed kids were all given free reign to express their appreciation of Dolly through dress ( many of the girls really did it up! ) and Bennett wanted to join in the fun.

Heroes come in all forms and seeing that a national treasure that you might not expect to hear referenced in a classroom was celebrated across an entire school week was definitely inspiring. Good on ya, Wesley, and good on ya, Bennett! #dollyparton #thewesleyschool #recognizinggoodhumans by @flatheadroadster

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18 days ago

I cannot believe the news I’ve received this week regarding the passing of my good friend, Mike Goyda. Lucky for us, Mike was able to make it out here for a visit no more than a month and a half ago and we spent a day together, digging through racing and hot rod memorabilia and had what I couldn’t have known would be our final lunch. I am forever grateful that we got to do that. I was introduced to Mike via our mutual friend, Bob Muravez, about 15 years ago when I was assisting the family of the late Tom Sparks with his memorabilia. Mike flew out and met me at the garage. When I proudly showed him one of Tom’s giant Packard signs and mentioned an offer we’d had he snapped,”That’s not what it’s worth”. I was downcast by this until he said,”It’s worth a lot more”. This became a pattern with Mike and we became fast friends that day. When Katie and I married I mentioned that our Honeymoon (of sorts!) would be at the Goodwood Revival in England. He said,”Isn’t that the event where everyone dresses up?” I said it was. Later that week a box arrived on our doorstep with clothing inside. It was from Mike. I called him and he said,”That’s for you and Katie to wear at Goodwood, if you’d like. Her outfit is a women’s Willys Jeep factory uniform from WWII. Yours is a late 1930s Indy 500 mechanic’s jacket. They’re pretty rare, so I think you’ll be the only ones wearing them”. No announcement, no fanfare, just thoughtful generosity. That’s who Mike was- all the time. I can’t say I’ve ever met someone who loved all of this “stuff” and the people who were behind it more than Mike Goyda. On many occasions he’d call just to tell me that he’d become friendly with one of his heroes and he would be as giddy as a teenager. He would say,”I can’t believe I know Don Prudhomme! And Don Prudhomme knows my name!”- for example. I will miss calling him and hearing his “Hey, Pal” when he picked up and the long conversations that would follow. He was a great friend and, truly, one of the good ones. RIP-Michael Goyda. by @flatheadroadster

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20 days ago

And a happy good morning from the greatest hot rod show on earth. Let the games begin!!! #americanhotrodfoundation #rpmnationals by @flatheadroadster

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24 days ago

Fill ‘er up, Joe . . . we gotta go-! RPM Nationals or bust. Looking forward to seeing everyone there! #rpmnationals #santamargaritaranch #americanhotrodfoundation #savinghotrodhistory #hotrodhistoryaliveandwell by @flatheadroadster

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25 days ago

We are Live on Tape and bringing you yet another Rodcast! Tune in today to check out this rare, unearthed audio featuring USAC and INDY 500 legend, Eddie Sachs. Known as the “Clown Prince of Auto Racing”, Sachs was one of the more colorful drivers of his era and brought an unusually light attitude to a sport that, at that time, was as brutally dangerous as Sachs would, sadly, learn in the most tragic of ways. That said, his jovial personality belied his aggressive and competitive nature when behind the wheel- with the proof being his eight USAC national championships along with a second place finish in the 1961 Indy 500, a third in ’62, with poles at the Speedway in ’60 and ’61. So, I guess we could say that the jokey Eddie Sachs was no laughing matter to his competitors. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy this candid and lighthearted talk from the late/great Eddie Sachs. #americanhotrodfoundation #indy500 #USAClegends #savinghotrodhistory #therodcast by @flatheadroadster

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25 days ago

Yesterday we lost a beloved family member with the passing of our dear, sweet “Little Emm”. Emmy came into our lives in the spring of 2015, and completely by chance. A breeder of mini Aussies contacted us after having followed my wife, Katie, and our deaf Aussie, Easton, on social media. Katie had worked with a pet sign language expert to learn the effective ways of communicating with a deaf dog and this breeder had a beautiful but completely deaf female that needed a home. To say the least, we are forever grateful that she contacted us. What we didn’t know until she joined our family was that Emmy also had very limited sight. This combination made her extremely skittish but as long as she was with or near one of us she was good as gold. This made her a very special thing in our lives, as she wanted to be with you... always. It was a combination of dependence and devotion that, in the end, showed itself as the purest love. We were her safety blankets and guaranteed source of affection that, of course, quickly began working in both directions. The fact that she had zero ability to be mean or aggressive ( unless one of the other dogs got near her food! ) possibly had something to do with her innate understanding of the cards she’d been dealt. Because of her challenges, she didn’t have the options that other dogs had and it always felt to me as if she was channeling every bit of what she did have into expressing her love to us. She was the greatest snuggler, a perfect traveler, the best children’s pup ever, and was a priceless gift to our family. We will forever miss you, Little Emm. You were one of the purest and sweetest beings we may ever know. by @flatheadroadster

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a month ago

Throw back Thursday to my first car and one that I’m happy to say I didn’t let get away. Purchased during my senior year of HS in 1988, I was only able to pull this off because the car had been somewhat abandoned at a local body shop in my then-hometown of Bedford, Indiana. I had “fixed up” a ’77 Monte Carlo project with a lot of help from my father with the goal being to purchase a Chevelle SS of some kind. My older brother, Rob, had a maroon ’70 when he was in HS and our dad had his ’69 SS396 L78 convertible that I could only dream about. After selling off the Monte Carlo and borrowing $500 from my dad, I was able to pay the outstanding bill ( $2,200 ) on this ’71 SS and make it my own. The above photo was taken the day I brought it home. It had just turned 90K miles and had been brought to the body shop by the original owner who bought it new at Chase Chevrolet in that same town. He’d directed them to “make it look new again” and apparently the bill climbed a little higher than he’d hoped so he handed the car and title over to them for payment. It received new Placer Gold paint, a new vinyl top and rechromed bumpers and certainly looked new to me. The build sheet was minty and sticking out of the springs of the back seat showing its rather mundane makeup of 270hp 350, 350TH, 2.73 posi, F41 susp., PDBs, PS, AM, buckets, floor console, remote side mirror, no stripe option, blk vinyl top. It wasn’t fast but it was a tight, rattle free, comfortable and dead-reliable car that served me well for decades (the trunk easily accepted a Fender Super Reverb ) before I, as my late father put it,”spent a fortune ruining a perfectly good car”. Now it runs a 531hp pump gas 406 with 3.73s but is still the comfortable and reliable car that drove me to HS, moved me to Nashville, and followed me out west 15 years ago. It went from a bone stock pass of 16.75 to the 12.60s it now runs on bias ply tires but still feels and even smells the same as it did 38 years ago. #1971chevelless #firstcar #longtermownership #musclecar #highschoolride by @flatheadroadster

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a month ago

A special time was had this past Sunday as family, friends, Lincolnistas and Lelanders, gathered to honor the recently departed Merv Adkins. He was 87. Merv was sometimes referred to as the “Zephyr King” and it was a label that was well-earned. For those of us who own Lincolns between the years of 1936 and 1948, Merv was an invaluable source of knowledge, enthusiasm, and hard to find parts. It would be impossible to know just how many of these vintage Lincolns were kept on the road by Merv but the number would be very high. His openness to helping anyone who was interested in these cars ( even the dreaded street rodders ) is legendary and one ’38-’39 Zephyr enthusiast, Sheldon Gomberg, can speak to this, as he met Merv during the mid ‘80s when Sheldon ( complete with long hair ) was still in his 20s. With a community stocked with older guys, it was unusual for someone so young to show up and want to be involved. Merv wisely saw that guys like Sheldon were the future of the hobby and took Sheldon under his wing and helped him with parts and guidance throughout the high-level restorations of nearly a dozen ’38-’39 Lincoln Zephyrs. We were happy to be able to see Sheldon to Merv’s life celebration and a good number of fellow enthusiasts turned out to do the same- some even braving the 105 degree heat in their notoriously warm-running V12s. All in all it was a great sendoff for a truly great guy and one who made the hobby and world better by his being here. Three cheers to the Zephyr King~! by @flatheadroadster

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2 months ago