Frank Kuretich was born in the Crested Butte a Colorado mining village to Croation immigrants in 1908. At six Frank started helping in his Dads blacksmith shop, in Sunnyside Utah, fixing horse shoes and wagons and automobiles as they began to populate the neighbourhood.

The economic instability of the times saw Franks family move to California where his Dad took a job with Don Lee Coach & Body Works in 1922. Standing over 6 feet tall at 14 years old Frank claimed to be 18 years old and landed a job as a helper to his father customising cars for Hollywood stars where his and his fathers names were anglicised to Kurtis by the personnel dept.

While at Don Lee’s Frank started an apprenticeship at seventeen and such was his skill that he swiftly rose to become manager working in the shop for a short time with designer Harley Earl before the latter left for General Motors in 1927. After work hours Frank engaged in building numerous hot rods and special and eventually started working on midget racers with Don Lee’s son Tommy building the bodies.

In 1937 Frank went to work for the Hollywood Trailer company where he learned to how the work tubing to build vehicle frames and by 1938 Frank had set up his own shop to build “virtually unbeatable” midgets of which he would build over 1000 supplied either complete or as kits.

During the 1950’s Frank also built 120 champ cars for the Indy 500, building 5 winners. During this time Frank also built several road cars selling the design for on which became the Muntz Jet. The 500S, as seen in todays photographs at last years Silverstone Classic, along with the fully enclosed body 500KK and 500M models are all based on the 1953 Roadster Frame and suspension as used by Bill Vukovich to win the Indianapolis 500 that year.

The 500S could accommodate any motor and transmission available between 1953 and 1955 when it was manufactured. Bill Strope appears to have been one of the more successful exponents on the track with his Mercury powered 500S. Of the 20 – 20 500S known to have been built 14 are known to exist during the 1980’s a further 24 continuation models were built with the approval of Frank Kurtis son Ahren.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘indy Winning Roadster Heritage’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psych on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !