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A.J. Baime

Jan. 30, 2018 9:30 a.m. ET


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Tommy Kendall’s 1973 ‘El Gallo’ Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight is outfitted like a rooster.

Tommy Kendall’s 1973 ‘El Gallo’ Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight is outfitted like a rooster.


Photo:

David Walter Banks for The Wall Street Journal

Santa Monica, Calif.-based

Tommy Kendall,

51, a retired champion auto racer in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America and a current television broadcaster, on his 1973 “El Gallo” Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight, as told to A.J. Baime.

I am fortunate enough to own some rare and expensive race cars, but I would sell any of them before I sold my rooster car.

I heard this vehicle before I ever saw it. I was in my office in Glendale, in 1997, when I noticed this noise. I looked out the window, and there was this car with no one in it, clucking like a chicken through a loudspeaker.

Photos: A Rooster Oldsmobile That Makes Champion Racer Tommy Kendall Crow

When Tommy Kendall heard this bright yellow, 1973 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight clucking outside his office window 20 years ago, it was the start of a serendipitous relationship.

 
 
Why is this 1973 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight outfitted like a rooster? ‘I do not know,’ says owner Tommy Kendall, a former national auto racing champion. ‘I guess it does not really matter,’ he adds.
David Walter Banks for The Wall Street Journal
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A woman appeared, and I offered her $3,500. She drove off, but not before I took some pictures of the car. One of those photos ran in the back of a popular car magazine. Someone called and said the car was in an impound lot and was going to be auctioned off on the following Tuesday. On Monday, I got out $10,000 cash, and the next day, I bought the car for $895.

That was the start of the serendipity with this car that has gone on for 20 years. The stuff that happens, the people you meet, the doors that open, the situations you find yourself in—it’s a magic machine.

I named the car “El Gallo” [the Rooster]. Since it will not fit in any garage, I have parked it on the street for 20 years. Wherever I have lived, the car has lived too, and for some, it has become a Santa Monica landmark.

I once drove El Gallo with my brother across country to Alabama and around the track at Talladega Superspeedway, in front of thousands of fans. The car was once stalked by a famous actress, who would show up in front of my driveway with her daughter to see it every morning. Even animals recognize the car. You pass a guy walking a dog, and the dog goes nuts.

Which leads me to the existential mystery about El Gallo: Why is this 1973 Oldsmobile outfitted like a rooster with a clucking loudspeaker? I do not know. Originally it was owned by a promoter of some kind, in Ohio. I guess it does not really matter.

The car is an unbelievable attitude adjuster. Whenever you get in it, after 10 minutes of people honking, cheering and laughing, you’re in a good mood. It has attitude, as cocky as they come.

‘The car is a reminder not to take myself too seriously,’ says Mr. Kendall, who dominated SCCA Trans-Am sports car racing in the 1990s and has raced in Nascar and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

‘The car is a reminder not to take myself too seriously,’ says Mr. Kendall, who dominated SCCA Trans-Am sports car racing in the 1990s and has raced in Nascar and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.


Photo:

David Walter Banks for The Wall Street Journal

—Contact A.J. Baime at Facebook.com/ajbaime