ShawneeDispatch.com

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The Dragon Wheels hot rod car club of Shawnee in the late 1950's in their heyday, when they even had their own insignia on the back of their club shirts.

As twin brothers George and Steve Mallory walked through the cars parked downtown Sunday, they glanced wistfully at the motorcycles on display in the City Hall parking lot.

It was almost exactly 50 years ago - Oct. 12, 1958 - that the brothers organized their first car show, and perhaps the first in the city's history, on that location.

"This isn't the first time this has been done in Shawnee," Steve Mallory said, motioning to the 3rd Annual Wheels & Dreams Car, Truck and Bike Show around him. "We did it first."

The twins were founding members of the Shawnee Dragon Wheels Hot Rod club, along with friends Ed Kempf, who met up with the brothers at Sunday's show, and Russ Earnshaw. From 1957 to 1961, the club carried about a dozen members, students at St. Joseph School, Shawnee Mission High School and Turner High School.

"We've been trying to promote the automotive hobby for 50 years," George Mallory said, joking that the brothers had "gasoline in the veins."

Taking root

The interest in cars began when the twins were just 6 years old, and one would go without lunch so they could use to money to buy car magazines.

The Mallory family lived in Merriam at the time, but the boys went to school at St. Joseph in Shawnee, where they cut holes in their school books so they could read their car magazines while appearing to study.

Then, when they were 13, the National Hot Rod Association was born, its first drag race was in Great Bend, Kan. The second was in 1956 in Kansas City - and the Mallory brothers were there. A neighbor took them, and they swept the starting line after each time a car would do a quarter-mile run.

"We came home from that weekend event, and my mother says 'Where in the world have you been?'" George said. "We were full of tire dust, sun-burned, dirty, stunk like gasoline, couldn't hear because we were on the starting line with cars with no mufflers, and we were just in heaven."

It was about this time that the brothers decided to get a car of their own.

"We had $100 between us, and we wanted to buy a car," George said. "And my dad says, 'If you want a car, you need to learn on a Model A,' which is the very simple basics of an automobile. And we said 'OK, dad, but as soon as we get the Model A home of your choosing, we're going to put a V-8 in it.' So that spoiled that theory all to heck."

So at a Merriam car lot, they found a 1944 two-door Ford Sedan. It had a broken axle, but was for sale for $85 as it was, $100 if the lot owner repaired the axle. The brothers' father asked the lot owner if they could pay $50 for the car, repair the axle themselves, and then provided the car ran well, they would come back and pay another $35. The owner agreed

"It took us a month, and we took the whole care apart," he said. "My dad would say, 'What's going on: you know guys, all you have to do is take the wheel off, put the axle in and put the tire back on.'"

But the brothers took the time to fix up the car before paying the rest of the $85. They had the car for several years but guess it was only on a road for a few months, because usually, they were working on it.

They finally sold the '44 for a '46 Ford Sedan with a new paint job and new interior, which they drove to high school and soon began entering in car shows.

Draggin' wheels

In August of 1957, the brothers and their friends decided they should start a club.

They went to their sister's boyfriend for help designing a club logo, and came up with "Dragon" a pun on dragging - and Wheels. The logo became a serpentine green dragon with wheels for hind legs.

But this club wasn't like the T-Birds of "Grease's" Rydell High, though the members did create jackets with their logo. It was an officially-sanctioned NHRA club, sponsored by the Shawnee Police Department and Sgt. (and eventually Chief) Charlie Stump.

The whole point of the NHRA, the brothers said, was to get racing off the streets and make it safe. The NHRA motto was "Dedicated to safety." So the point of the club was to give hot rod kids a better image.

"It's not to say that we didn't tear up and down the streets, but I'll tell you this for a fact: We didn't do it the way kids are doing it today," George said.

George explained that the club would go out on the back roads in the country to do high-speed runs.

"We didn't do it right downtown; that was stupid and dangerous," George said.

Not to mention, a clause in the club's bylaws stated that if a club member got a speeding ticket, he had to pay twice the amount of the ticket to the club. This kept the members well-behaved, the brothers said. They also carried courtesy cards for the club, and they would give them out whenever they stopped to help someone change a tire or give them a ride home if their car broke down.

They even changed their club jackets from black to white, because they thought the black jackets put out a more negative image. In February 1960, they even got some recognition for it.

"We got the NHRA award for the best-behaved hot rod club in the country," Steve said.

They also organized club car shows, the first in the City Hall parking lot in 1958, when their '46 Sedan got 2nd place for an "unfinished" hot rod - they still have the trophy. They were able to have four shows before both brothers joined the Navy in late 1961.

"What my mother used to say all the time is, 'At least I know you're not in the bar drinking; you're out in the back tinkering with old cars,'" George said.

Still going

After returning from the Navy, the brothers settled in Shawnee, marrying Shawnee girls who happened to be first cousins and buying homes within a few blocks of each other.

They tried to get the club back together again, though unsuccessfully.

"This guy moved, and this guy got married, and this guy sold all his stuff, so the club disbanded," George said.

So the Mallory twins started taking their '46 Ford and other cars to shows on the International Showcar Circuit. For 11 years, they showed, and George even became a show judge, winning a lot of first places. But eventually, the competition rules became stressful.

"At one point from Municipal Auditorium, we came home and were a little upset," George said. "And my dad said 'Hey, boys, you're not smiling, so this isn't fun anymore.'"

So instead, they kept up their work on cars and showed them at local shows. About 11 years ago, they got a 1940 Ford Coupe that reminded them of their first car. They're still working on it; their other project is fixing up their second car, the '46, which still sits in Steve's garage.

Steve says he gets 14 motor magazines a month, and they go to the "fun" car shows as often as they can - which is why they say they're so happy with the Wheels & Dreams show.

They're proud that they have passed their car obsession down to their children - Steve's daughter is now fixing up her 1965 Ford Mustang - and even their grandchildren.

"This is an illness, this is a disease, but it's really not that bad," George said. "We're still doing it; we're still enjoying it."