" TV " Tommy Ivo , Maker of the custom red-hot rod Ivo T , make his nickname as a youngster actor in the 1940s and 1950s , seem in film and on theMickey Mouse Club . When he turned 16 in 1952 , he startled the local Burbank , California , Buickdealer by plunking down cash to buy a new automobile . He promptly went to the local airstrip to see what it could do .
The Buick prove to be extremely slow , but the 1955 Century he bought three years later was very quick . Tommy Ivo won his first time out in the ' 55 , set an A / Stock Automatic disc at Pomona . gain whetted Ivo ’s appetite to go faster , and he soon place out to put a hop - upenginein the lightest car he could chance .
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barrack by Norm Grabowski ’s recently built T - pail , Tommy build a thymine - bucketful of his own using a desert - derelict 1925 T touring body that he shortened to become a two - door . He shorten a Model A motortruck bottom even more to house the battery and fuel tank for his Ivo T hot rod .
With the aid of noted Buick railway locomotive builder Max Balchowsky , Tommy Ivo assembled and tuned the engine , a 402 - cid Buick nailhead V-8 first equipped with four two , then with Hilbornfuel injection . Tony Nancy , another hot rod caption , did the upholstery .
A lineament in the August 1957 issue ofHot Rodrevealed that this combination of scant weightiness and more - than - ample torsion clear 21 trophy in as many misstep to the strip . The lilliputian Ivo T was exceptionally flying in the quarter - mi , running E.T.s of just under 11 second gear with top - end speeds of 119 miles per hour .
It was also beautiful and institute its way into several TV show and movies . Tommy Ivo sell the hot retinal rod after only a year and went on to become one of drag racing ’s first tour professionals and a major competition in Top Fuel puff racing .
After its retreat from puff racing , Ivo ’s T was reworked a couple of times ; once by George Barris , who lend square headlight . It serve as a 1960s show auto , and , along with Grabowski ’s T , as the inspirational prototype for thousands of fiberglass " Fad Ts . "
After sitting unswayed for years , Jack Rosen , who had received the Ivo T from his father Hy , had it restore it to its original shape . Ron Jones performed the restoration , doing justice to the quality work a unseasoned focal ratio - obsessed doer did all those years ago .
