The Billy Flynn Story

1956

A true story about My friend Billy Flyn who became a racing legend

Written 2010* 1,866 Words

By Howard Yasgar

Who would have thought in 1956 that my good friend Billy Flynn, a seventeen-year-old kid with messy blond hair and buck teeth, would ever become a racing car legend?

But that’s exactly what happened.

It was after he got out of the service, that’s when Billy Flynn became the head driver for the Chrysler Corporation’s experimental cars and their drag racing team.

Unfortunately, by 1963 I had moved to Florida, and I didn’t have any idea as to what Billy Flyn was doing in Connecticut and I had no idea of his successes.

Once I learned what Billy had accomplished, I felt bad, because it was too late for me to contact him, it was 2004 and I was told Billy had passed away.

However, I knew that my interactions with Billy back in 1956 must have been instrumental in his career, and in a way that makes me feel good. Billy didn’t know it then but he was instrumental in my career as well.

For all the people that know about Billy Flynn, I hope they find the following story interesting.

The story starts in 1955, when I was 16 years old. I had just gotten my driver’s license and I bought a dark green 1940 Ford convertible.

One of the first things I did was to drive down to Henrys Auto Parts located on Whalley Avenue in New Haven and I purchased a Hollywood muffler.

1955 was the beginning of the Hot Rod era, and with that Hollywood muffler installed on my car, I felt as though I now owned a real hot rod.

By purchasing that 1940 Ford convertible, I felt that it put me right on the cutting edge of hot rod history.

My 1940 Ford was certainly no hotrod, but at the time, I thought it was.

That’s when I heard about a New Haven hot rod car club called the “ Road Barons”, and I wanted to join them.

I don’t think the Road Barons were very happy about me joining up, but I did.

When I attended my first Road Barons meeting, I didn’t know a soul, so I took a back seat in the meeting room.

As I was sitting in the back row, I noticed another fellow also sitting by himself.

He was sitting in the back row like me, but he was slouched down, his foot was resting on the chair in front of him, and he looked bored.

The fellow had blond hair that was uncombed and buck teeth, and he was wearing a black motorcycle jacket.

My first thought was that I should stay away from him, he looked like trouble.

But after a while I reconsidered and when the club meeting took a break, I went over and sat next to him and introduced myself.

He said his name was Billy Flynn, and he lived on Forbes Avenue in New Haven.

We talked for a while and Billy told me he was bored with the car club meetings; he said that the leaders didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.

I asked Billy what he did for a living, and he said he worked for a Ford agency, and he specialized in rebuilding engines for them.

Now, that caught me by surprise, because at the time I was just thinking about rebuilding the engine

in my 1940 Ford, but I had no idea how to do it

I had driven my 1940 Ford as fast as it would go. I drove it until I could hear the rod bearings knocking, so that’s when I knew the engine needed rebuilding.

I had never rebuilt an engine, and I certainly didn’t have the money to have someone do it.

I attended a few more Road Barons car club meetings, and I always found myself sitting in the back row talking with my new friend Billy Flynn.

Then I asked him about helping me to rebuild my engine.

Billy said, “If you pull your engine out, I can teach you how to rebuild it”.

That evening, I discussed it with my father, and he said he would help me build an “A Frame” in the back yard to pull the engine out. And then he said I could rebuild the engine inside our garage.

About a month prior to my meeting Billy, I had the opportunity to buy another 1940 black Ford coupe which also had a burned-out engine in it. I paid $50.00 for it.

It was a beautiful little Black car, and I had all the intentions of fixing it up some day, but in the mean

time I just parked it in my back yard.

I remember making that first telephone call to Billy telling him I already had the engine out.

When Billy came over to my house, the first thing was he spotted that black 1940 Ford coupe in the

yard and he went right over to look at it.

I told Billy all about my intentions of fixing it up, he said, “I’m Just looking”.

Over the next several weeks Billy came over to my house every evening and he instructed me on how to take the engine apart, and how to clean and inspect the parts.

He went over every detail with me, he showed me how to properly hone the engine cylinders and how to put new rings on the pistons, and how to install new crankshaft and connecting rod bearings.

Billy advised me to buy adjustable valve lifters to replace the original valve lifters. So, I ordered them from a hot rod parts magazine.

After waiting several weeks, the new valve lifers arrived in the mail, and I went to install them, but they were too tight, and they wouldn’t fit in the engine, and that’s when I panicked. I just knew I had done something wrong. I called Billy and he calmly said, “Put the new lifters in your refrigerator freezer, and wait until tomorrow to try them”, it worked, Billy knew all the tricks of the rebuilding trade, and he was happy to teach them to me.

By the time my engine was completed, Billy and I had become best friends, he had come to my house in the evenings, and he met my family, and I had gone several times to his house on Forbes Avenue and met his family.

But every time Billy came over to my house, he went over and looked at my black 1940 Ford coupe.

Finally, I knew it was coming, Billy asked me to sell it to him.

Billy said he was building a new Ford flat head racing engine, and that the 1940 Ford would be the perfect car for it.

I didn’t want to sell it, but it was Billy, and I owed it to him, so I relented, and I sold it to him.

That was in 1957, and after that I didn’t hear another word from Billy for several months.

One day, I picked up the New Haven Register, and there was a picture on the front page. It was my black 1940 Ford coupe, and it was completely wrapped around a tree on State Street in New Haven, and sitting in the middle of the street was Billy’s souped-up Ford V8 engine.

I couldn’t believe it, the engine was just sitting there, it was like someone had carefully removed it from the car.

The car crash had been so violent that it ripped the engine right out and set it in the middle of State Street.

The newspaper article said that the accident occurred on a Saturday afternoon and the driver Billy Flynn was taken to grace New Haven Hospital, with injuries, but he was expected to survive.

I cut the article out of the paper to save it.

I was too nervous to call Billy, so I waited about two weeks before I called him at his home. I was afraid of what his parents might tell me about Billy’s condition; I didn’t want to hear it.

But I was surprised when Billy answered the phone.

I said, “holy shit Billy, what the hell happened”.

Billy said,” I just finished building and installing a very fast Ford racing engine in your old 1940 coupe, and I invited a friend named Vernon Carlson to come with me to make a test run.

“We were going down State Street in New Haven. The engine was wide open at about 100 miles an hour, and suddenly it started raining.

“The next thing I know this guy Vernon, turns and yanks out the ignition key, and he throws it out the car window”.

“Billy said, as you know, when you remove the ignition key on a Ford the steering locks up, so here we were going 100 miles per hour in the rain, and I can’t steer the car”.

“All I could see was a big curve coming up, and then all I remember was I was standing on the brake pedal and we hit the tree sideways at about ninety miles an hour”,

Billy said, “The next thing I remember was waking up in hospital”.

No one ever asked him if there was anyone else in the car with him.

He said he was told many hours later that when the tow truck came to pick up the engine and car, they saw Billy’s spare tire up a hill on the porch of a house. When they went to retrieve the tire, they found this guy Vernon lying in the bushes and he was still alive.

I asked Billy if Vernon was still alive now? Billy told me he didn’t know, and he didn’t care if he never saw the guy again.

I asked Billy what was up next, and he said he was going to quickly enlist in the Navy.

He was afraid that charges would be filed against him because of the accident.

After that I lost contact with Billy, and I had no way of knowing that he would later become a celebrity, driving for Chrysler Corporation.

It wasn't until 2007 when I met some folks that had known Billy, they said Billy had gone on to run an automotive repair shop in West Haven Connecticut, and he had later died of cancer.

After that I Googled Billy Flynn, on the Internet, and I read that he was a paratrooper, so I guess he went into the Army and not the Navy.

Google had all the stories about Billy’s car the “Yankee Peddler”. There was also a live interview with Billy. That’s when I saw his hair was combed neatly and the buck teeth had disappeared.

In the interview, Billy said that he and Chrysler had experimented with lengthening and shortening the wheelbase on the Yankee Trader trying to change the cars center of gravity.

He said that’s what started the “Funny Car” craze in drag racing.

I kept that picture of Billy’s car wreck for a long time.

Billy had taught me how to rebuild engines and from that, I went on to learn to rebuild everything.

And I eventually made a career rebuilding all kinds of automotive parts.