(By Scotty Gosson – Photos: Gosson/Jahns Collection) – We were pitted next to each other at the drags. I needed to borrow some tool I’d forgotten to bring, and went over to introduce myself. He was my father’s age and was up to his elbows in EFI wiring that I never would’ve gotten that close to. He turned out to be a really nice guy, too. I was very impressed. That was a forgotten number of years ago and now I’m writing this farewell to him…

The interviews took place in the tiny cluttered office of Jeff’s shop in Grants Pass, Oregon. We were in the midst of a long cold rainy spell – the kind where after a few days, you just resign yourself to being wet and cold. A tired electric space heater buzzing at our feet under the grimy desk provided some modicum of comfort. We were almost nose to nose, huddled over a stack of battered photo albums in our folding chairs. The office walls were papered with fading photos of race cars built, worn out, and sold. Dusty parts store boxes littered the floor and every other flat space. The weathered aluminum cowling of “The Tremendous Trike” fuel dragster hung from a crooked nail just outside the office door.

It was Jeff’s manner to grin and chuckle throughout the interviews, but his indomitable eyes and resolute voice made it clear that this was a moment of reckoning. He was well aware that his time was running out. Indeed, he made me agree that this story would not be published until after his death – not because of any slanderous revelations, but just because Jeff Jahns never was comfortable with honking his own horn. He saw this story as such, and was downright embarrassed about it. He basically did it as a favor for a friend. Hopefully, this piece of the hot rod history puzzle will be a favor to all who care.

 

He was born Robert Jeffrey Jahns Junior on October 24th of 1931, at Los Angeles County Hospital. But he insists his story really began at the “Jahns Quality Pistons” foundry at 2662 Lacy Street in Los Angeles. He painted this picture with a succinct delivery and eyes closed:

Sunlight fighting its way through opaque windows. Random overhead incandescent lights, barely illuminating the dust dancing off the dirt floor. Grimy figures shuffle around the shadowy room, pouring molten aluminum from long handled ladles into molds on wooden tables. Jeff’s grandfather, William H. Jahns, had opened the foundry in 1912, supplying Detroit and the aftermarket with aluminum pistons. The lighter, softer material was such an improvement over the old ferrous pistons that the factory could barely keep up with the demand. Their focus would shift to support the war effort for a few years (making pistons for Allison aircraft engines), then they got right back to knocking out the automotive slugs. Whatever it was producing, the factory would always double as young Jeff Jahns’ private playground. He was a regular there, from the day he could walk. And his affection for the place remained intrinsic until he could walk no more…

If he wasn’t at the foundry, Jeff was most likely at home on the family farm near Perris, California. His dad (Robert Jeffrey Jahns Sr.) had somehow made time to put together of couple of crude hot rods, but his priority had to be the farm (there would be no piston money handed to him). His father’s jalopies made a lasting impression on young Jeff though. At 11 years old, Jeff began producing a string of hot rods that would wind through his entire life, each financed by hard labor and hustling. All work was performed at the farm except the machining, which was contracted out to (Al) Jeraulds Speed Equipment in National City. These were mostly ‘banger powered roadsters, featuring Jeff’s intuitive fabrication skills. He found a particular joy in creating his own intake and exhaust systems. Living the rural life afforded Jeff the luxury of a “Farm License” at 14 years of age. The icing on the cake was the long straight stretch of divided highway running past the Jahns property. The freeway (I-215) runs through there these days, but back then, it was known as Hwy 395. Jeff just considered it, “home field advantage.” He was undefeated there. And his competition/peer group at the time consisted of some pretty heavy hitters in their formative years: Guys like Dan Gurney, Gene Adams, Skip Hudson, Creighton Hunter, Art Chrisman and Don Montgomery – mostly members of the “Night Owls” car club from nearby Riverside. Occasionally, Jeff would run into some of these same characters at the dry lakes, where they could let it all hang out for miles at a time, “and get an official timing tag, to boot… which settled some arguments”. It was an idyllic adolescence, in more ways than one.

In 1948, William H. Jahns retired, and leased the “Jahns Quality Pistons” Los Angeles factory to a Mr. Brandine. Meanwhile, over in Santa Ana, Jeff’s Uncle Bill (William Jahns Jr.) opened “Jahns Racing Pistons”. These would be high performance pistons for the aftermarket, which seemed to be waiting with wallets wide open. In ’51, Jeff walked away from the farm and went to work for Uncle Bill, machining pistons in the shop. It appeared that his path had led him directly from his grandfather’s shop to his uncles’, where Jeff was poised to end up in the family business at last. Hot rodding was still spreading like wildfire, and Jeff was helping to provide the spark. Piston sales were brisk and his future looked rosy, indeed. In ’53, Jeff married first wife Chandra, sired daughter Jo Lynn, and bought a house. He settled into life at the shop, and built ever-faster hot rods. Besides the drags and dry lakes, the salt of Bonneville was now competing for his attention. As if that weren’t enough action, Jeff also tore up some water in a 14′ Mandella flat bottom boat with flathead V-8 power. And then there were the sailboats, and hill climbs, and…

Life was full and rich. Then one day in ’53, Uncle Bill didn’t show up at work. He didn’t show up anywhere for a long time. Bill was prone to compulsive adventures, and this one took him away for over a year. The business closed. Bill resurfaced in Pasadena in ’55, making pistons under the Jahns Engineering moniker (also known as “JE Pistons”). But by then, Jeff had walked away and would never look back to his family or the business again without a certain sad bitterness – someone else had altered his life’s path for him. So Jeff decided to “re-alter” it. He learned from these events, accept them, and got busy again. Over the next seven years, he would also refine the lessons learned back on the farm – mainly, how to hustle fast enough to make something out of nothing. Now married to wife-number-two Anne, and father of daughters Phyllis and Jennifer, a series of gas station and mechanic jobs were setting the pieces in place for the future, which finally arrived with the end of the decade. Before anyone saw it coming, the Fabulous Fifties had slammed into the Swinging Sixties. The promise of opportunity had seemingly doubled overnight, and Jeff was positioned to take advantage.

In a small shop above the drugstore on Balboa Island, Jeff teamed up with Don and Gary Cook to write their own chapter in the book of speed. With prodigious head scratching and a blue collar budget, they brewed up one of the hairiest and most innovative dragsters ever set loose on southern California’s drag strips. From today’s perspective, the wildest part of this deal was that they were allowed to run it at all. A blown nitro Hemi 3-wheeled dragster made perfect sense at the time, and it actually worked very well. The boys ran “The Sidewinder” for three seasons before the NHRA outlawed it. The amazing little digger gained even more notoriety by appearing on the cover of Popular Hot Rodding Magazine (which called it “The Tremendous Trike”), twice: On the April ’62 issue, and again for the July ’63 edition. Jeff Jahns was back, and he was rolling fast. The momentum would continue for quite a while…

The early 60s found Jeff making his living in Newport Beach. In ’61, Dick Cramer loaned Jeff the money to buy “The Arches” gas station – a local landmark and tourist attraction, originally built in 1922 (it’s gone now, but the attached restaurant remains). The station was sold in ’62, when Jeff took a machinist position at Beacon Auto Parts. In ’64, Jim Stewart and Vic Wilson loaned Jeff the money to start his first muffler shop (Orange County Muffler, AKA “The Muff Shop”), also in Newport Beach. He had finally found his niche in the automotive workplace. Exhaust work suited Jeff’s temperament seamlessly. He would stick with it for the next 40-plus years. In the fall of 1967, Jeff married third wife Carol, and adopted her daughter Valerie.

Already dirty from exhaust work, Jeff decided to see what all the fuss was about down in Baja. In ’69, he teamed up with Vic Wilson (who had won his class there in ’68) in one of Bruce Meyers’ “Tow’d” buggies (with Ford V-4 power). All went well until Vic’s chrome wheels broke, due to hydrogen embrittlement (which Jeff had repeatedly warned him about). They managed to finish in 4th place, and still count the Baja race as a favorite adventure.

When he wasn’t “bending up perfectly good tubing”, Jeff kept busy at the track. Motorcycle racing was his latest passion, and Jeff became a regular at the Ascot Speedway. When welds broke on his homemade flyweight frame due to a crash one night, he drove home and re-welded it, and returned to the track in time to win the feature – a quirky feat that Jeff would repeat throughout his racing career. Besides running as an independent, Jeff also drove the flat tracks as a hired gun for Ron Wood Racing (among other teams) on a freelance basis.

The Sixties had come and gone in a speedy blur. It was a heady time for a guy with a pocket full of skills, a motivating chip on his shoulder, and an eye for fun. Jeff had spent the decade surrounded by family and friends, and the resultant clarity soon dictated his next move.

Jeff and wife Carol were both road dogs, so Jeff built a motorhome from a derelict ’53 Chevy moving van that he had happened across. Upon completion of the project, Jeff and Carol racked up the miles at every opportunity. One such adventure delivered them to the ghost town of Beegum, California, where a friend’s uncle offered to sell Jeff the town (abandoned since the freeway had bypassed it). Jeff and Carol found Beegum amusing, but didn’t fall in love with it. Since they were that far north, they decided to visit Carol’s old home town of Medford, in southern Oregon. Jeff was smitten with the beauty and throwback style of the region. Feeling as if he’d been squeezed out of ever-changing and expanding southern California anyway, Orange County Muffler was sold, and the Jahns’ hightailed it to Grants Pass, Oregon (just up the road from Medford) in 1973. Jeff worked as a Service Manager at Holsgang Lincoln/Jeep until christening the latest Muff Shop in 1976, at 321 S.E. “H” Street in Grants Pass.

It turned out that Jeff and Carol weren’t the only ones to have migrated north after riding the crest of the hot rod socio-tsunami through California in the Sixties. Many of the original players in that scenario had previously found their way to the Grants Pass area, including Woody Parker, Duffy Livingstone, Bob Drake, and Bob “Lil Axle” Stewart, to name only a few. The little town on the banks of the Rogue River had become an unofficial semi-retirement community for So Cal rodders, illustrated with a nightly array of serious hot rods rumbling in and out of Smarty’s Drive Inn.

Jeff’s new Muff Shop would never lack for business, and in fact, became a gathering place for local and newly arrived rodders of all disciplines (although drag racing would be the mainstay). The Wednesday night bench racing sessions there continued on through the end of the millennium. Countless cars were built in the shop, including all of Jeff’s race cars and hot rods, along with several more for his friends – friends that introduced Jeff to the joys of hunting and fishing in a land rich with the same natural delights he’d grown up in, back in rural Perris. The new shop was fitted with a wood stove, and Jeff adapted to life in the Northwest.

Besides the usual outdoor sportsman activities (rafting, boating, hiking, hang gliding, sky diving, etc), Jeff and Carol especially enjoyed land sailing, wind surfing and gyrocopters – which Jeff soon mastered, eventually winning a prestigious national-level race at Las Vegas. Then there were the dune buggies.

On the Oregon dunes, Jeff witnessed small armies of VW-powered buggies scampering about, then went home and crafted his own interpretation of a dune buggy. He returned to the sand with a blown big block Chevy in a tube framed Jeep, sporting dual sand-paddle tires out back. The scream of the zoomies and monster rooster tails instantly cleared any dune that Jeff desired to run on.

And from the start in Oregon, there was always a tweaked dirt bike of some kind. Jeff loved the “wing dingers”, and used them for everything from hill climbing to running errands around town. And, like everything Jeff did, the bikes were built on the cheap. That was just how he preferred to do things. Jeff loved the challenge. His mantra was, “Anyone can go fast in a million dollar dragster, but I want to do it for $500”. It’s just how he was wired.

The Eighties brought more of the same. But as the decade unfolded, Jeff’s focus slowly narrowed. By the late eighties, the clock and budget only allowed for part-time drag racing, and one hot rod at a time for the street. All of these cars were powered by 2.3 liter Ford engines (though Jeff once fabbed an aluminum head for a friend’s Chevy II four-holer). Four cylinders only carried half the weight and cost of a V-8, but could deliver nearly the same power (Jeff was an early proponent of nitrous oxide). And these street beaters fondly reminded Jeff of the flathead ‘bangers he once ran back on the farm. Jeff had become very weight conscious with his cars, too. The latest drag racer was a Pinto hatchback, stripped down to the bare necessities – the back glass was even removed (“Something they let me get away with – sometimes”, said Jeff). The Pinto four banger soon sprouted a T-bird turbocharger and EFI, fresh from the wrecking yard. The electronics learning curve was pretty steep for a guy raised on Strombergs, but Jeff persevered and became a local pioneer of the “black arts”.

EFI’d turbo fours also powered Jeff’s street cars – a fresh one rolled out of the shop every other year or so. The Model A coupes and roadsters gave way to a string of flyweight T buckets that allowed Jeff to laugh his way past most anything on the road, while knocking down killer mileage and saving his money for more important things. These little roadsters weren’t all that fashionable in the billet Eighties, but Jeff couldn’t help it if he was a bit of a visionary (and a traditionalist, in his own right). Each was built on a tight budget that kept Jeff on a first-name basis with every wrecking yard owner in southern Oregon.

The Nineties. This is where I met Jeff. I’d just returned to my native Oregon, after several years in the Midwest, and was settling into life in Grants Pass. At the drags, I’d see Jeff roll into the pits with his Pinto, smile and a wave, make a time trial or two, then disappear, only to return an hour or two later. I’d ask if he were okay, and he’d mutter something like, “Oh, the oil pressure wasn’t where I thought it should be, so I took it home (60 miles, round trip) and pulled the pan. I swapped in another pump I had there. Anyway, it’s okay now, so let’s see what it does”. I saw him do that innumerable times over the years. The guy was apparently born without an “OFF” switch.

Jeff spent one Nineties winter holed up in the shop, incommunicado. He rolled the Pinto out in the spring with a fresh chrome moly chassis under it. This dedication to his racing program caught me by surprise. I had perceived Jeff as more of a hobbyist, like myself. But the fruit of his labor was a much more responsive, consistent, and quicker car (Jeff finessed the Pinto into the 9.70s at 135 MPH before finally selling it in 2007). Most of us “hobbyists” spent the following winter bending up moly tubing in Jeff’s wake.

Jeff built a traditional track roadster in the mid-Nineties – a rare sight in southern Oregon at that time. With its loud exhaust (‘banger powered, natch) and giant Frankland quick change rear making a joyous noise down the street, the black primered T caused quite a stir at the burger joints in the area. And Jeff didn’t just putt his cars down the street. Jeff took me for some thrill rides through town in the black T roadster that demanded my respect and appreciation for four bangers – and for life itself. He was known for full throttle, curb kissing, tire frying passes through town (“The way I learned to drive back on the farm!”), and I can testify to the credibility of that folk lore.

Something else Jeff carried from his farming days was a dogged work ethic. After a long day in the muffler shop, he’d eat dinner, then get to work on the latest hot rod, or whatever the race car needed. When extra money was needed for parts, Jeff moonlighted as a taxi driver, tow truck operator – whatever it took to make ends meet. Mind you, this had been going on since the 1930s. He was a low bucker by choice (“I just like the challenge – always have.”), not because he was too lazy to work. This guy averaged about four hours of sleep a night for over 84 years, so he could jam more into a day. Jeff Jahns operated on pure passion.

Jeff officially closed out the decade by selling The Muff Shop to fellow drag racer Rudy Cantos in ’99. Even though he kept a small building behind The Muff Shop for his own projects, we all saw it as the end of an era. We were wrong, of course. Smarty’s Drive Inn closed, and was replaced by Jimmy’s Drive In at the other end of town. Otherwise, nothing would really change at all.

Jeff raced straight into The New Millennium and – you guessed it – his flame just burned even brighter. He remained a steady customer at the drag strip, the wrecking yards and parts houses, and still hosted Wednesday nights in the little garage behind The Muff Shop. The only notable change was the addition of a daily nap after work. It was too good of a life to be changing much, anyway. Though he enjoyed some solitude in the shop, it was rare. The friendships he’d made there in the early 70s were now over 30 years old and the door was constantly swinging open. Jeff’s evenings were spent with the woman he loved. It was all good. Very good…

… until the summer of 2007, when Jeff was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He told me about it at the track one day (while testing yet another turbo’d 4 banger in yet another ‘glass T bucket). His tone was akin to that of a crew chief learning of a parts failure. What might be a total show stopper to someone else, was perceived by Jeff as an inconvenient challenge, to be dealt with and left behind. I was once again impressed with his strength and courage. A few weeks later, he went in for exploratory surgery and, “They sewed me back up and told me to have a nice day – it might be my last”. I was watching closely, but didn’t see him flinch.

What happened next didn’t surprise anyone who knew Jeff: He walked away again. Away from cold hospitals and expensive doctors, and the whole ripple effect that comes with impending death. He walked straight back to his life, his shop and his friends, and got busy building a new daily driver for the new age: A beater Ford Ranger pickup that nobody else wanted. God, it was ugly. Jeff built a turboed EFI 4 banger/T-5 combo for the orphaned trucklet (later switching to a C-4 tranny), installed it, fabbed a header and exhaust system, and entered the ranks of the Sleeper guild.

Shortly after getting the Ranger running, Jeff sold off most of his equipment and moved out of the shop he’d occupied for over thirty-five years. He and Carol found themselves making the (initially awkward) adjustment to spending their days together at the house. Jeff set up camp in the garage and kept the ball rolling, driving the yellow T to the track and back every week, collecting bracket race points. At the 2008 Division 6 Championships, Jeff Jahns finally received his one and only Wally. Fans and racers alike cheered wildly, and there wasn’t a dry eye on the property.

By June of 2009, Jeff’s roadster was running quick enough (11.05/118) for track officials to insist that he install more roll bar tubing. It may have been the last straw, or maybe it was just the excuse he was looking for, but either way, it was the end of Jeff Jahns’ racing career. He had been in constant physical pain for a long time now, but couldn’t afford to treat the cancer and pay for pain pills. So the pain pills had to stop, and the roadster went up for sale to pay off some medical bills (he entertained some offers, but couldn’t bring himself to sell it). Always the stoic, Jeff adjusted to fulltime physical pain with a grace reserved for the exceptionally tough and stubborn.

Carol Jahns was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2010. A tumor removal surgery in the spring of 2011 triggered a disturbing lightswitch effect. Jeff related, “Some days she’s her old self, and some days she’s a three year old. So now, any time I get to sneak out with the roadster is more fun (read ‘therapeutical’) than ever”. Jeff developed an urge to run the roadster on Medford’s road course, “Drifter style, since it doesn’t have front brakes”. He was simultaneously invited to Vic Wilson’s 85th birthday party in Southern California, but couldn’t leave Carol’s side. She died in March of 2013. In December of that year, Jeff (now 82) partnered with local drag racer and wrecking yard impresario Steve Funk to buy back the Pinto and race it with a bigger and badder 2.3 turbo package. Alas, Steve Funk passed away in October of 2014. Shortly after, an accidental fire burned Jeff’s garage to the ground, but he was able to extract his roadster with minimal damage to it and himself.

Always eager to mentor others in the ways of lowbuck rodding, Jeff agreed to help Yours Truly build a hot 2.3 Ford, much to my delight. I was finally ready to begin that project on May 19th of 2015, when I called Jeff to verify his involvement. Jeff’s daughter Valerie answered, explaining that the bladder cancer had finally caught up with him. Jeff died two hours later. He is survived by his daughters and eight grandchildren, who (at this writing) have put his last roadster up for sale.

Everywhere he went, Jeff Jahns found speed waiting for him. The world was his speedway. And he would race on it for less money than anyone else – as if the Gods of Speed had issued him a personal discounted entry fee. Maybe that’s how it works. Build up enough positive Karma, and you get a break on race day. That’s how it seemed to play out for Jeff Jahns, anyway. Godspeed to you, Jeff. And the lost era that you rode in on.

EPILOGUE:

When Jeff Jahns finally conceded to doing this story (after years of pleading by the author), he agreed to it under one condition: This would be his chance to publicly thank the people who had helped him when he needed it. I think that says everything we need to know about his character. It also speaks well of Don Coleman and Pete Hedges, who sponsored the Sidewinder dragster; Dick Cramer, who loaned Jeff money for “The Arches” gas station; and Jim Stewart and Vic Wilson, who stepped up with money for the first “Muff Shop”.

 

And there’s this: When Jeff sold the property that his last Muff Shop sat on (in Grants Pass), it was a handshake deal, with a provision that Jeff keep the small workshop in the rear of the building, until his death. A couple of years after the sale, the new property owner began charging Jeff a monthly rent, which he couldn’t afford to pay. When Jeff started packing up his tools, the Grants Pass hot rod community banded together and presented Jeff with the rent money, which he refused to accept, claiming he had already received more than his share of help over the years.

 

After Jeff’s passing, I looked over the notes from our interviews and found these insightful out-takes:

 

SG: “What was your greatest accomplishment?”

JJ: “My marriage to Carol. After that, it’s a tie between piloting the gyrocopter and driving the three-wheeled dragster…”

 

SG: “What was the lowest point in your life?”

JJ: “When I was a kid, I fell in with some bad guys. I was driving the “getaway car”, when they broke into a phone booth to steal the change out of it. We got caught and I spent eight days in jail.”

 

SG: ”What’s the most exciting thing you’ve done?”

JJ: “Flying the Gyrocopter – it’s like riding a motorcycle in the sky.”

 

SG: “Any thoughts on the state of today’s aftermarket?”

JJ: “I’m really impressed with what Vic Jr. did with the Edelbrock company. I used to see him in the bars when we were young, and what he’s done since then has really surprised me. I don’t have any comment on the other companies…”