As the Winter takes hold on your sole outside in Detroit I can't help but think what kept people warm back in the day. I get bitter cold just reading that it's 10 degrees outside right now. Awhile back I did a shoot at the Ford Piquette plant and came across a photo of the famous "999" Racer aka The Red Devil. This was actually one of two cars built by Ford, the other one was dubbed "The Arrow" and was painted yellow instead of Red as above. Logic only says that if you wanna race that you'll need two cars right?
The Arrow crashed and killed the driver Frank Day during a race in 1903. What remained of the Arrow was brought back to Henry Ford for repair where its yellow paint scheme was retired and became known as the new 999 as the original 999 was retired.
The new 999 was personally driven by Henry Ford in a "land" speed race in January 1904 after the repairs were made. It achieved a speed of 91.37 on the frozen Lake St Clair. While out on the other side of the country folks were racing the dry lakes like Muroc, El Mirage and the Salt Flats of Bonneville, we had Henry Ford throwing the throttle down on frozen lakes!
I think if I could pull off speed trials on frozen lakes in the winter, I wouldn't mind it only being 10 degrees outside. Something to make plans for next winter....
