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| Hinchcliffe Brewery Paterson, NJ |
Over a hundred years ago the Hinchcliffe Brewery, located in
Paterson, NJ, bought a Buick automobile to be used to collect money from
their customers. During one of these
collection runs the Buick was involved in a serious accident.
Mr. Eugene “Hughie” Zinn purchased the remains of the Buick
and proceeded to rebuild it into a race car. He built a new body from the cowl rearward;
he changed the carburetor to a Zenith unit and installed a Bosch magneto
ignition system.
Zinn entered the car in at least two races during 1914. One
race was held at the Signac-Wilkies track and also at the HO-HO-KUS
Speedway. He did not meet with much
success at these races. His showing was
so bad that Mr. Zinn reinstalled the lighting equipment and used the Buick as a
normal street vehicle.
The car was next sold to a “pimp”, then to a pool hall. It
somehow survived two world war scrap drives to be discovered in the 1970’s.
Mr.
Russ Fisher following a lead about an Essex car stored in a garage in
Montville, NJ found not only the Essex, but also the Zinn Buick. Fisher
purchased both vehicles, and was able to start the Buick and used it to pull
the Essex out of the garage!
Fisher sold the Zinn Buick to George Nutting of Nutley, NJ.
George started the restoration on the Zinn.
George was able to locate Mr. Zinn still living in New Jersey. Mr. Zinn
was reunited with his old Buick after many decades. He was instrumental in the
correct restoration of the Zinn-Buick.
The car went on to take an AACA senior
award at the Hershey, Pa National meet held in 1976.
George not only showed the car at auto shows but also drove
it on a real race track. In 1977 it was run at the dirt track located in
Flemington NJ (now a shopping mall).
I purchased this historic car from George Nutting’s son
after George passed away. I installed a
seat belt and rearview mirror so that I could conform to the VSCCA rules for
safety equipment. I raced this car for several
years at the Lime Rock Park raceway, and at the revived Philadelphia Grand Prix
held at Fairmont Park.
Starting the Zinn was always a blast especially when
starting from a cold start. The procedure always collected a crowd of
interested enthusiasts.
The event went
like this: Pump air until gas starts to run out of the carburetor, Mag switch”
off”, choke ”on full”, Pull crank through four compressions strokes, Mag switch
“on”, one good pull on crank and off it would go!
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| John Aibel driving "whip fast" in the Zinn Buick Lime Rock Park c. 1980s |
On the track the car would go very well. Two minute laps at
Lime Rock converts into an average speed of 45 mph. That may not sound fast,
however, with tires of maybe 2 ½ to 3 inches wide, mounted on wooden wheels,
and sitting up as high as a good size truck made one feel like a real race
driver. Add a little or a lot of rain and it felt like a real race car!
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| John Aibel at a car show Baltimore, MD 1989 |
This was one of the most memorial cars I have ever
owned. Buzz Korn is now the owner of
this historic car.
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