60-year hunt to find hotrod Dad built

MANY of today’s car enthusiasts wish they’d inherited, or still had one of the special cars owned by their parents.

They’d be rare vehicles today, perhaps worth a lot more than their original cost, but in most cases those precious old cars either ended up being junked or simply went to ‘car heaven.’

Albert Bertagnolli, of Wyoming, was one of the few lucky ones who managed to track down ‘Baby Blue Bomb’, a 1934 Ford hotrod his dad had built in the 1950s.

But it took him 60 years.

His dad, Jack, was a mechanical engineering student studying at Colorado A&M University in Fort Collins, and spent most of his free time customising his old coupe.

The 1934 Ford five-window was was fitted with a ’51 De Soto Hemi 331 and a Columbia two-speed rear end from a ’37 Lincoln-Zephyr.

The creation was channeled with a dropped front axle and a ’32 Ford grille.

It was the start of a tale that would span both decades and generations.

“The Baby Blue Bomb was a hot souped-up, hopped-up, decked-out motor car complete with four chrome-plated sprinklers and racing cams,” reported The Rock Springs Miner, a Sunday newspaper serving Western Wyoming, in its July 17, 1955, edition.

In his interview with the paper, Jack predicted he’d hit 130 mph (about 210km/h) from 250 hp (185kW) when it came time to finally fire up the car.

“It should be all right,” he said, “if it doesn’t blow up.”

Additional innovative features for the time, as reported by the newspaper, included a racing camshaft that created more power and acceleration.

He also installed door openers and a boot raiser, with the doors opening with the push of a button, and the boot lid electrically raising using a mechanism from an old convertible top.

When Bertagnolli was asked about the cost of the Baby Blue Bomb, he replied, “The cost? Just fantastic, that’s all. Just fantastic.”

When Jack married in 1958 he made the ultimate sacrifice, selling his ‘Baby Blue’ for $1500 to make the down payment on a home, where the young couple could start their family.

Decades later, Albert, one of the couple’s sons, would recount the many stories his dad would tell about the Baby Blue Bomb.

“My dad talked about the car all of the time when I was growing up,” Al said.

“He was so proud of it.”

During these trips down memory lane, Albert would admire a photo of the treasured hotrod in the family ranch bunkhouse.

“I heard many stories – such as how he reversed the rear wheels to bring the tyres closer to the mudguard, how he handbuilt the intake manifold to use four Stromberg 97 carburetters.

“Even a story about a poached elk that was hauled to the college cafeteria to be sold to the cafeteria for 5 cents a pound.”

Albert had many pictures of the car, but the best record of the car was the original copy of the 1955 Rock Springs Miner newspaper.”

Albert would spend decades trying to locate the old car, and even theorised that it might still be somewhere in Wyoming.

In July 5, 2015, while searching a social media site that focused on Rock Springs, history, a posting popped up of a young man standing next to a blue ’34 Ford coupe.

After several messages between the two and a phone call, Albert was confident that this was the car that he had spent so long looking for.

The hotrod his father had custom designed was in Billings, Montana, about five hours to the north, and was owned by Gus Hernandez.

Gus indicated that he bought it from Jack Bertagnolli in 1958 and through the years, he had moved several times since buying the car.

Gus had stored the car safely in a shed for many years, only making a few minor changes to it along the way.

Gus was a classic hot rodder.

In addition to the ’34 Ford, he had a ’66 Corvette and a big-block-powered T-bucket.

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Initial offers by Albert to purchase the ’34 were declined.

Gus was convinced that he was going to get it back on the road “next summer.”

Yes, right.

In late 2018, after three years of trying to convince Gus that the hotrod should be returned to a Bertagnolli, the Baby Blue Bomb, or “The ’34,” as Albert refers to it, arrived back in Wyoming — 60 years after its original sale.

“The car was partially disassembled, but all of the components were there and were the same as when my dad sold the car,” Albert said.

He soon got to work restoring and enhancing the car.

The channeling job was rather crude, and a new floor was installed.

Updates Albert made include a rebuilt engine, transmission and rear end, in addition to modifications added to the master cylinder and slave cylinder for the brakes and clutch.

These days, Albert and his wife, Angie, travel to car shows across the West, showing off the legendary light-blue 1934 Ford five-window hotrod in honour of the sacrifice that Jack Bertagnolli made in the name of family more than 60 years ago.